The McKinsey consultant looks at his laptop screen. He's just finished creating a forty-slide presentation on retail trends. It took him three days. ClaudeMeanwhile, he's produced an identical one in twenty minutes. Better than his own. More precise, more detailed, with graphics he couldn't even imagine. The boy gets up from his desk, stretches, and suddenly realizes something simple yet terrifying: from one moment to the next, he won't be needed anymore. He won't be needed anymore, his role won't be needed anymore, his entire profession won't be needed anymore. It's happening. What for decades has been the wet dream of anyone who's ever endured a pointless meeting: the professional managerial class is implodingNot because of an economic crisis, not because of corporate restructuring. Because of something simpler and more relentless: artificial intelligence is starting to show that most of what managers do can be done better by a machine.
Il McKinsey Global Survey 2025 tells a brutal story: the 92% of companies will increase their investments in AI in the next three years, but only 1% have reached “maturity” in implementation.
Translated: we are witnessing a technological arms race that will systematically eliminate those who were responsible for coordinating rather than producing.
Manager, the end of a system
For seventy years, America has built the most sophisticated system of professional management of history. Harvard Business School, strategic consulting, half-a-million-dollar Masters in Business Administration: an entire industry dedicated to training people who knew how to manage without knowing how to do. The trick worked as long as managing information was more complex than producing it.
Today, a machine learning algorithm can analyze market data, identify trends, create development strategies, and present them in an executive format in less time than it takes a manager to open PowerPoint. The problem isn't that AI is good: it's that we've discovered how simple what we thought was complex was.
Secondo IBM Research 2025, 67% of CEOs say competitive differentiation depends on specific competencies, not general managerial skills. Translated: we need people who know how to program, design, analyze data, and build products. We no longer need people who know how to coordinate them.
From coordinating to building
Silicon Valley understood this first. And Combinator It has never trained managers: it has always focused on those who build things. Now the rest of the world is following suit, but not by choice. In certain fields, artificial intelligence has made technical expertise the only lasting competitive advantage.
An engineer with access to GitHub Copilot can develop applications that previously required entire teams. A designer with midjourney or Nano Banana can create complete advertising campaigns without an art director. An analyst with ChatGPT can produce reports that replace entire strategic consulting divisions.
The paradox is perfect: the most advanced technology in history rewards the most concrete skillsWhile managers were worrying about optimizing processes, AI was… optimizing managers.
Italy between fear and opportunity
Italy is also experiencing this transformation, but with its usual mix of delay and intuition. Italian Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2024-2026 AgID foresees massive investments, but Italy remains at the bottom of the European rankings for AI startups.: 0,68 per million inhabitants, compared to 2,05 in France.
Yet something interesting is happening in Italian SMEs. According to Confindustria, Over 240 artificial intelligence use cases are already active in 70 Italian companiesSmall businesses that can't afford complex management layers are jumping straight into intelligent automation.
A bit like developing countries that switched directly to cell phones without building landlines. Italy could bypass the era of the American-style professional manager and move straight to the post-managerial model.
Managers, resistance and transformation
Not everyone is watching. Microsoft It transformed its workforce by creating “AI agents” that work alongside employees rather than replacing managers. Their internal program involved 10.000 “Copilot champions” that are redefining workflows from the bottom up.
But it's a transitional strategy, not a permanent solution. As he explains BCG in its AI at Work 2025, Employees at companies undergoing full AI transformation are more concerned about job security (46%) than those at less advanced companies (34%)And managers are more afraid than workers: 43% versus 36%.
They're right to be afraid. Not because AI is bad, but because It made visible what had always been true: much of management adds complexity rather than value..
The most significant data: according to the World Economic ForumBy 2028, AI will create 69 million new jobs globally. But these will be technical, specialized roles geared toward producing measurable value, not managerial positions.
What remains
It's not the end of work. It's the end of a specific type of work: the kind that turns expertise into status instead of producing results. The new elites will no longer be educated at Harvard Business School, but by contributing to open source projects, building startups (that they survive, hopefully), solving real-world problems with increasingly powerful tools.
Artificial intelligence doesn't hate managers. It just... he doesn't need itCoordinate better, analyze faster, make decisions based on data rather than company policy. And that changes everything.
Once upon a time, there was a ruling class. Now there are those who know how to build the future, and those who still try to coordinate it. Guess who will win.
