For a long time, I've been hesitant to write about AI. I don't like the hype. I don't like the fact that everyone pretends to be an expert. I don't like the dramatic "Claude killed this, ChatGPT just killed that" claims.
But I feel somewhat different about it now. Not because any of the above has changed, but because I feel there's an important gap that we, and all of us in this field, should address:
How to leverage AI to make organizations more human, not less.
The dominant narrative is the opposite. Tech is coming for you. It will control you. It will replace you.
But there's a different path. The human path.
Examples that give me hope
I recently wrote how IKEA used AI to double down on their belief in people. It helped free them of routine tasks and allowed them to use their creativity, judgement, and communication skills to be closer to customers.
The past few weeks I've interviewed more such examples:
A pioneering tech company using AI to map skills and match people to projects they love;
A US manufacturing company connecting all internal company data (meeting outcomes, decisions, financials, CRM data, etc.) and making it searchable so all employees have the information they need to make good decisions;
An accounting firm using AI to handle the repetitive parts of audits, freeing junior staff to learn the judgment-heavy work much earlier in their careers.
Different sectors, different stages, same direction. Use the tech to give people more room to do meaningful work.
My own experiment
Today I want to focus on a recent personal experience of AI here at Corporate Rebels.
I'm not an AI expert. But I do use it a lot and experiment with several tools.
A few weeks ago, I experimented with a tool that blew my mind.
The tool is called Nestr. Some of you on this newsletter might already use it to visualize, track, and organize roles.
Here's what I did.
Step 1: All roles in the tool
This step was already done. It's why we use Nestr. Every role in our company is mapped out, with its purpose, responsibilities, and the person who owns it.
Quick side note: this is a huge benefit for pioneering organizations. Many of them already work role-based, with people holding multiple roles instead of being stuck in one fixed job description. That setup turns out to be a goldmine for what comes next.
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Step 2: Pick a role to hand over
I picked the role of finance reporter.
Why? Two reasons. I'm not good at it. And I don't enjoy doing it. Every month I had to gather the numbers, structure them, and share them with the team. Every month it felt like a chore.
Perfect candidate for an experiment.
Step 3: Connect Claude to Nestr
This sounds technical. It isn't.
Connecting Claude to Nestr took a few clicks. From there, the instructions walked me through the entire setup. What does this role do? What inputs does it need? What's the output? Where should it go?
I answered the questions. Claude and Nestr did the rest.
I'm not technical at all, and I set this up within an hour.
Now, instead of me dreading the finance report every month, the AI agent picks it up, drafts it, asks me to check it, and posts it in Basecamp (our internal communication tool).
A small step for me. A giant leap for self-managing organizations.
Why this matters
Think about it. Self-managing organizations have spent years describing their roles in detail. Purpose, accountabilities, deliverables, the whole thing.
That work, which was already valuable for clarity and ownership, now becomes the foundation for handing repetitive tasks to AI agents.
Imagine all the roles that could be partly or fully executed by AI. Imagine the time it frees up for people to do work that actually requires a human being.
This is the human path I mentioned earlier.
People-first organizations combined with AI is, in my view, one of the most exciting frontiers in the future of work.
Want to learn how this works in practice?
Our Masterclass on running and scaling self-managing organizations starts soon, and enrollment closes on May 19.
In 6 weeks, we'll teach you how to design a role-based organization, how to coordinate without hierarchy, how to make decisions without bosses, and how to scale all of it without ending up in the chaos or the hidden hierarchy traps most organizations fall into.
And brand new for this cohort: a full week on AI and self-management, including practical examples of how to combine the two so your organization gets the best of both worlds.
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