Manager Mentor
How do I decide what work agents do and what humans do?
Series: 50 Most Pressing Questions Facing Managers in 2026
Every manager in 2026 is going to have to answer this question: What work on my team is going to move to agents and away from people?
One of the pillars of being a great manager is the way you consistently operate the team.
Every team has an operating model: how you set goals and metrics, how you set budgets, how you manage performance. Every team’s operating model will evolve in 2026 as teams transition to be part-agent, part-human.
What’s new:
Because agents can do more work every quarter, your team needs to understand your decision-making processes about how the team of people and agents will evolve.
My research showed that millennials and gen-z are looking for managers who are authentic and share their decision-making style.
The best people want to know how you think and how you’re wired — because the arrival of agents on the team is going to affect the people on the team.
And let’s not forget: the best people want to be the ones building and operating the agents — they know agents and bots are the future.
Why this matters:
Everyone on the team already knows the future is in flux with agents and people each owning work. Make it easy on everyone (and perhaps yourself) by spelling out the way you intend to approach this transition.
What happened in 2025 was like an appetizer: it was a tease of AI’s true impact on the workplace. This next year will reveal specific frameworks that drive an organization’s operating model for the next 3–5 years. In short, where companies place their bets with leadership, budget and headcount — and where they don’t.
All of this will land in the laps of managers.
How: Publish the rules for how work will evolve on your team
Your people want to know the rules. Tell them explicitly how you will decide when work goes to agents versus humans.
The more you tell your people about the way you think and make decisions, the more you build a sense of trust and fairness on the team. It also reduces “noise in the system” and keeps the team from speculating — which can only increase the sense of uncertainty in an era already defined by uncertainty.
