Who’s on first?

Leaders who thrive tomorrow will be those who learn how to manage AI with the same clarity they bring to managing people today.

Author

Malcolm Frank, CEO
December 01, 2025

Who’s on first?

With Abbott and Costello, the confusion was the punchline. But when you’re running a company today it’s not so funny when you can’t decide who, or what, does what. That is, what is now done by AI vs. what is done by people.  

This past week McKinsey made noise in predicting more than half of current U.S. work-hours could soon be automated. Yet human skills don’t disappear. Instead, they are re-applied, often in new configurations, as people shift from routine tasks to shaping, supervising, and contextualizing AI output. 

The leaked report at Amazon confirmed these predictions, as the company plans to replace up to 600,000 U.S. jobs with robots. And Wharton’s 2025 AI adoption survey shows such moves will not be isolated, as the vast majority of large companies are moving past pilots and into broad implementation.

Which brings us to the real headline: we’re entering an era where AI becomes a full-fledged member of the workforce; not an intern, not a sidekick, but a partner doing half the jobs on the field. The leaders who thrive will be those who learn to manage AI with the same clarity they once brought to managing people. Because “Who’s on first?” is no longer a joke; it’s the strategic question that will separate tomorrow’s winners from everyone else. is different. AI isn’t slowing down. And the burden falls squarely on leaders to make sure they don’t fall out of the loop.

Agents, robots and us: New McKinsey report hits with a thud, predicting 57% of work tasks will soon be taken over by AI

Knowledge industries are racing to rewire. Banking tops 2025 AI investment at $10.5B; software and retail follow, while professional and personal services accelerate with a 34.7% CAGR through 2028.

Amazon’s layoffs and leaked AI plans beg the question: Is the era of robot-driven unemployment upon us?

A New York Times investigation cites internal plans to automate around 75% of operations. The memos suggested that the company’s fleet of robots might eliminate the need to hire for some 600,000 future jobs. 

Wharton study: AI is becoming deeply integrated into modern work

We’ve entered the era of “Accountable Acceleration.” 89% of executives now use AI on a daily basis. The key now is to rewire core processes.  

The AI balance of power now tilts towards Google

OpenAI faces its toughest challenger yet.

Black Friday broke records. The real story is how AI changed the way we shop

It turns out AI is very good at shopping.

AI is taking jobs — here’s Coursera CEO’s No. 1 tip for grads to stay competitive

“One of the best things that you can do is to augment your university degree with micro credentials specifically.”

Beyond DeepSeek: Moonshot and MiniMax step up as China's new frontier AI labs

Chinese artificial intelligence start-ups Moonshot AI and MiniMax have emerged as China's strongest contenders to rival US frontier labs.

Here are the 49 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2025

2025 has already matched 2024’s count of $100M+ rounds, and far more companies are raising multiple $100M+ rounds than a year ago. 

The two-step comes to PCs and printers: HP announces up to 6,000 layoffs in massive AI restructuring plan

Betting automation and AI PCs can boost productivity despite chip cost headwinds.

Agentic Team of the Week:
Lead Generation System for Marketing

Autonomous lead generation systems for marketing agencies that deliver qualified prospects 7x faster and at the cost of two employees instead of a full outreach team.

Harvard: AI agents aren’t ready for consumer-facing work, but they can excel at internal processes

Companies can create value with agentic AI, but they often start in the wrong place. While it can be tempting to use agentic AI for customer-facing applications, those tend to be complex, messy, and unforgiving of errors—not ideal for agentic AI. Back-end operations, however, are a better fit. 

6 strategies for CIOs to effectively manage shadow AI

43% of employees use AI apps to do work on personal devices, while 25% use unapproved AI apps at work. Here’s how to mitigate the work slop and security risks. 

Why context engineering will define the next era of enterprise AI

AI agents need a deep understanding of where they are, what they know, and the constraints that apply to them. Context engineering provides the foundation.

How the U.S. economy became hooked on AI spending

Business investment in AI might have accounted for as much as half of the growth in gross domestic product in the first six months of the year.

Can’t make it to Vegas this week? Here’s how to catch AWS re:Invent online

More than 60,000 attendees will be on-site for AWS’s biggest announcements of the year.

And one more thing…

Leave me alone, AI

If I wanted your tedious advice on how to do the simplest thing online, I would have asked for it.

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