Young employees will manage AI agents from the start

Sneader, who leads Goldman Sachs’ Asia-Pacific business outside Japan, said young employees manage AI agents when they start work.[1] He made the remarks on Oct. 8 at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore.[1] He described the agents available to new employees as a “virtual army.”[1] Sneader said managing those agents shifts a management task from middle managers to frontline employees.[1] For employers, this raises practical questions about role design and how to prepare new hires for oversight responsibilities.

Sneader said Goldman does not yet know what will happen to its middle-manager group.[1] He called redeploying middle managers a generational challenge for many sectors.[1] He contrasted the change with previous generations, who often spent years in a job before managing anyone.[1] The shift he described puts employees in management-like roles earlier in their careers, while leaving the future shape of middle management unresolved.[1] Employers assessing workforce plans can treat redeployment as an open question rather than assume a settled outcome.

Sandra Peterson, an operating partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, said the traditional professional-services career ladder may not survive.[1] She said that if AI performs much of the routine work, firms could need fewer entry-level positions.[1] Peterson said AI doing much of the routine work could leave firms needing fewer entry-level positions.[1] Firms can use this possibility to examine which learning opportunities and responsibilities should remain in junior roles.

Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Chia Der Jiun said bank operations staff will need to supervise AI agents.[1] He also said banks will need fewer fresh graduates for analysis and preparatory work.[1] Singapore is training bank staff in AI skills and working with universities to prepare graduates for the changing workplace, he said.[1] Together, those points make workforce preparation a concrete consideration for banks: teams may need to plan for agent supervision while revisiting the work assigned to new graduates.