The Department Dissolve: Reorganizing Work Around AI Capabilities

Redesign your org for AI: inventory tasks, automate what’s ready, and regroup the remaining human work into new roles built around judgment and orchestration.

Sep 29, 2025 6m 24s

Gillian Salerno-Rebic and Maria Burke

Expert Insights

Gillian Salerno-Rebic and Maria Burke underscore the transformative power of AI in restructuring traditional workplace hierarchies, not through redundancies, but through task redistribution. They demonstrate how the adoption of AI can reshape departments and job roles.

Through their experience of transforming their consultancy, Gillian and Maria provide a roadmap for restructuring work around AI capabilities. They argue that by identifying and automating repetitive tasks, organizations can free their workforce for more meaningful, high-value work that AI can't replace.

Hear them elaborate:

The importance of self-assessing tasks within an organization to identify what can be automated.
How AI machines can assist with tasks traditionally handled by various teams, freeing up human time for client relationships and high-value tasks.
How their leaner structure delivers the same output as a larger team, massively reducing costs without compromising the quality of their enterprise-level work.
The role of AI in reducing biases and improving the quality of work.
Acknowledge potential fear about AI job interference but emphasize the importance of adopting AI to enhance - not replace - human tasks.
Emphasize the expected transformation of current job roles and the emergence of new roles in the AI-centric job market.

Look at your department right now. Look at your job. List out all of your tasks... What can AI automate already and what will AI automate? Then you're gonna take all the things that are left and regroup them and shuffle them. Those are gonna be the new job roles of the future. I'm more afraid that if I am not at the forefront of adopting this stuff, someone else who knows how to use AI better is going like, that's the person that's gonna take my job. People that are still afraid or hesitant or wary of chat GPT, I'm, I'm more wary of you than I think I am of the AI because of where we are right now and the opportunity we have to have deeper discussions.

— Gillian Salerno-Rebic and Maria Burke, Founders, North + Form

THE NEW DEFAULT angle

Here are some actionable strategies for teams transitioning to AI-assisted workflows:

Assess your current task landscape: Create a clear list of tasks for each role within your team. Identifying which tasks could potentially be automated can illuminate where AI could drive efficiency.
Embrace job role transformation: Understanding that AI may significantly alter positions or create entirely new ones can help manage expectations and facilitate a smoother transition within your team.
Implement AI for repetitive tasks: Wherever possible, use AI to handle routine tasks. This will free up team members for higher-value work that requires a human touch.
Use AI to improve quality: Consider how AI can be leveraged not just for improving efficiency but also to enhance the quality of work, such as by minimizing human bias in the decision-making process.
Develop an 'AI-first' mindset: Recognize that the innovative use of AI tools can put you ahead in your industry. Encourage your team to adopt and utilize AI, not only for survival but to exceed and lead.
Keep the humanity in communication: Despite the digital shift, don't forget the irreplaceable human element, especially in communication. Foster this in your teams for tasks that AI can't replicate reliably.
Track and adapt: As AI continues to evolve, constantly monitor your AI-driven processes for optimization opportunities, unanticipated bottlenecks or issues, and areas where human intervention remains key.