AI and Restructuring Drive Corporate Layoffs Among Senior Managers
The artificial intelligence revolution is reshaping corporate structures, leading to widespread layoffs among middle and senior management as companies demand greater agility, execution capabilities, and adaptability.
For most of the artificial intelligence revolution, concerns were primarily focused on workers at the bottom of the pyramid. However, recent months make it clear that those who have climbed high within corporate organizations are not necessarily protected either.
At the end of July, Visa announced a cut of approximately 2,600 jobs worldwide. Shortly afterward, it was revealed that among the 320 employees slated to leave the company's campus in California were six vice presidents, 37 senior directors, and other high-ranking officials. The company explained that it seeks to streamline operations and direct resources toward growth areas, with the CEO noting that AI is accelerating the way work is performed.
This is far from an isolated case. Amazon has cut roughly 30,000 corporate jobs over the span of a few months, Meta has also trimmed layers of middle management, and Uber announced layoffs of about 3,300 employees in a move designed, among other things, to flatten the organizational structure and shorten the decision-making chain.
The trend is already extending beyond the technology sector: Volkswagen is advancing cuts that include management roles, Jaguar Land Rover announced around 4,000 jobs to be cut including management positions, and Nissan is reducing white-collar jobs as part of a broad recovery plan.
The Rise of AI and the Flattening of Organizations
Not in all cases is AI the primary reason for layoffs, but the direction is similar: fewer layers, less bureaucracy, and more responsibility for every manager who remains. When technology enables organizations to do more with less, a question arises that was once rarely asked: how many managers do we actually need?
A significant portion of management work, especially in middle layers, is built on coordination, information gathering, performance tracking, report writing, presentation preparation, data analysis, and transferring information between the executing tier and the tier above it.
These are precisely the areas where AI tools are improving rapidly. Korn Ferry notes in its 2026 workforce trends review that many organizations are already flattening structures by eliminating middle management layers, alongside replacing some junior work with AI. For companies, this is a way to do more with fewer employees; for managers, it means everyone remaining is required to manage a larger domain and generate clearer value.
"In the previous decade, when we looked for board members, we looked for the highest IQ in the room. We wanted the brilliant strategists, those who could analyze complex data and predict the next market move," say Adi Liani and Neta Komemi, co-CEOs of the "Megayeshet" company. According to them, today's question is not how smart the manager is, but how fast the manager adapts when the ground shifts beneath their feet.
Twenty Years of Experience No Longer Guarantees Anything
This does not mean experience has lost its value. On the contrary. A manager who has already survived crises, managed employees, and made million-dollar decisions still brings an advantage that an AI model lacks. However, seniority by itself no longer guarantees to the company that the manager is suited for the new world.
Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends report found that 85% of managers define the ability of the organization and workforce to adapt quickly as critical to success. Only 7% believe their organization is already leading in this field. Seven out of ten managers even state that their primary competitive strategy over the next three years is to be faster and more flexible.
For Liani and Komemi, that is precisely where the AQ—Adaptability Quotient—comes into the picture. "A manager with a high IQ but a low AQ is a dangerous asset for an organization in a dynamic world," they say.
Not a "Manager Who Manages," but a Manager Who Executes
A shift is also noticeable in executive recruitment. The international Executive Search firm N2Growth estimates that in 2026, companies are giving less weight to linear career paths, degrees, and prestigious names on resumes, and more to proven capabilities, managerial behavior, and the ability to act beyond traditional role boundaries.
Simultaneously, the boundaries between senior positions are blurring. A CEO is required to understand technology, a CFO is required to understand the impact of AI on the workforce model, a human resources manager becomes a partner in automation decisions, and a business manager must know how to work with a team where part of the output is already generated by systems.
This change found almost literal expression this year at Coinbase. As part of a layoff and restructuring move, CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the company no longer wants "pure managers," but managers who are also Player-Coaches—people who manage, but also continue to execute themselves.
This is likely one of the clearest signs of the new direction: fewer people whose entire job is to manage other people, and more managers required to be close to the actual work itself.
"In the world of 2026, the competitive advantage of your organization is not what you know, but the way you and your team operate within the chaos," conclude Liani and Komemi. "A resilient management is not one that never makes mistakes, but one that learns, adapts, and recovers faster than its competitors."
