​Managing In The AGI Era

Russ Reeder is CEO of KeyDelta. Nine PE-backed CEO and COO seats; 50+ acquisitions. We fix the operating model before AI goes in.

AI can turn unclear priorities, weak ownership and poor decisions into expensive mistakes faster than leaders can contain them.

AGI, or artificial general intelligence, describes AI that could handle almost any thinking task a capable person can. Google DeepMind’s March 2026 paper proposes how to measure progress toward it. You can’t wait for that debate to settle before closing your management gaps.

Whether you call it AGI or highly capable AI, the management fundamentals haven’t changed: clear outcomes, named owners and the authority to deliver. What’s changed is the speed. Management weaknesses you’ve tolerated for years now compound in days.

Here’s a pattern I keep seeing. Someone two levels below the CEO builds a working tool in days. It pulls from three systems, flags accounts at risk of leaving and drafts the outreach. A year ago, that was a quarter of IT’s roadmap. Everyone’s impressed.

Then I ask: What reduction in customer churn are we targeting, and by when? And who’s accountable for delivering that result and keeping the tool reliable as the business changes?

The room goes quiet.

The risk is that our ability to build has outpaced our discipline in defining success and assigning ownership.

The Upside Is Real, So Take It

In a study of 5,172 customer support agents at one company, AI assistance increased issues resolved per hour by 15% on average, with larger gains for less experienced workers.

Consider a sales team using AI to prepare account briefings before customer meetings. It brings together prior conversations, open issues and customer priorities. The goal is less preparation time and more productive customer conversations.

Give your people tools, training and clear expectations to find opportunities in their daily work. Then measure whether they’re saving time, improving quality and delivering better results.