The future of the firm
- ID
- 40452
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 28 Oct 2026, 6:00 PM
- Fetched
- 29 Oct 2026, 2:05 AM
- Provider
- OpenAI News
- Category
- ai-labs
- Original URL
- https://openai.com/index/the-future-of-the-firm
- Source URL
- https://openai.com/news/rss.xml
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 29 Oct 2026, 2:06 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_foundersai_agent_usersdevelopers
What happened
An OpenAI-published essay by Hemanth Asirvatham and Elliott Mokski lays out three ways AI may enter firms: beneath everyone as personal AI labor, beside humans as a colleague, and between humans as a coordination/monitoring layer. The authors say all three are already happening subtly, and that adoption will not be instantaneous because models initially handle only subsets of tasks, making ground-level adoption easier.
Why it matters
Founders and team leads should treat agent placement as an org-design decision: personal assistant under each role, shared colleague beside managers, or coordination layer between leadership and staff. The essay gives no costs, timelines, or product details, so it should not drive a purchase; use it to decide reporting lines, review paths, and accountability before adding agents.
Discussion angle
Which of the three placements would you pilot first, and what decision rights would an agent need before it can act as a 'colleague' rather than a tool?