OpenAI essay: AI enters firms beneath, beside and between us

The essay is the second in a series on the next economy, hosted on an OpenAI platform for independent voices, and the authors are explicit that it reflects their views, not those of OpenAI or their colleagues. Their starting point is personal: both were twenty-four when they began managing their own teams at OpenAI, and they describe entering the workforce already with AI "employees" at their behest — deputies that work day and night and handle grunt work.

The authors frame the transition as a race between earlier, less capable AI implementations and later, more capable models. Their central asymmetry is that although broader-scope AI is harder to build, it is easier for firms to adopt, because an end-to-end automated team can be handed directly to an executive, while a narrower tool requires widespread buy-in and retraining. They contrast this with how labor works: firms must learn new technologies, but labor learns the firm and can onboard itself.

Beyond the org-chart scenarios, the essay ties the shift to red tape and worker agency. Because AI is collapsing the cost of building, the authors expect firms to aim less and fire more, favoring quick prototypes over planning-intensive sign-off. They also suggest that if AI offers excellent advice to all workers, the decision-making gap between managers and junior staff could shrink — though they note the same technology could enforce larger spools of red tape.