CEOs are building AI versions of themselves to manage employees
Meta is developing a photorealistic AI avatar of Mark Zuckerberg trained on his public statements, mannerisms, and corporate strategy. Employees will be able to video-call the avatar for managerial guidance and feedback. Zuckerberg is personally testing it.
This isn't theoretical. Jack Dorsey is already running a similar system at Block, the payments company formerly known as Square.
What Meta is building
According to a Financial Times report from April 13, Meta's avatar project ranks among the company's earliest priorities. The bot would answer questions in Zuckerberg's personality and interact with Facebook and Instagram users in future versions.
Meta declined to comment. But precedent exists. In February, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan each had AI versions present portions of their earnings calls.
Dorsey's approach at Block
Dorsey is moving faster. Block laid off 40% of its workforce-about 4,000 employees-in February. In an April podcast interview, Dorsey outlined his vision for a flatter organization.
"I would want to get that down to two to three this year," he said of management layers between himself and employees. "And in the most ideal case, there is no layer; everyone in the company reports to me, and that would be all 6,000 of the company."
That structure is impractical without AI. Dorsey and Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha co-wrote a document called From Hierarchy to Intelligence that describes the shift. Rather than layering AI onto existing company structures for productivity gains, they argue for building the company as a mini AGI-artificial general intelligence.
What this means for managers
For managers, this signals a structural shift. AI avatars of executives could handle routine guidance and decisions, collapsing reporting layers. The model assumes AI can capture enough of a leader's judgment to serve as a proxy.
Whether employees accept AI avatars as legitimate decision-makers remains an open question. So does whether an AI trained on a CEO's past statements can handle novel situations.
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