What if the biggest barrier to AI transformation isn’t technology at all, but the fact that most organizations don’t actually understand how work gets done?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Vijay Swaminathan, co-founder and CEO of Draup, to explore what really breaks when AI meets industrial-age assumptions about jobs, roles, and headcount.

The conversation begins with a fundamental shift in strategic workforce planning. Once a headcount exercise buried inside HR, it is now being pulled into the center of enterprise strategy as organizations try to allocate work between humans, machines, contractors, and AI agents. Vijay explains why traditional job descriptions no longer reflect reality, how large portions of work remain hidden inside workflows and processes, and why this invisible layer holds the greatest opportunity for AI-driven productivity.

Together, Nirit and Vijay unpack how roles are fragmenting into builders, orchestrators, and synthesizers, why labor arbitrage is losing its power, and how leaders often underestimate the complexity of the human work that remains after automation. They also explore why metrics of power, control, and success built around headcount and org charts are starting to collapse, and what replaces them.

This episode is a deep dive into the uncomfortable truth behind AI transformation: before organizations can redesign jobs, they must first see the work itself. And that shift, from org charts to workflows, may be the hardest change of all.

If you’re trying to make sense of AI, skills volatility, and the future of workforce planning, this conversation offers a clear lens into what’s already changing beneath the surface.

https://youtu.be/zkSdBx8L8zM

Guest Information:

Vijay Swaminathan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Draup, an AI copilot that helps global enterprises make strategic talent decisions. A recognized thought leader in the talent space, Vijay brings deep expertise in product ideation, concept-to-product transitions, and platform enablement. His career is marked by a strong command of data analytics, operations research, and strategic management. Vijay has designed numerous quantitative models and heuristics focused on global talent dynamics, cutting-edge business analytics, and strategic business maneuvers. He is also the co-founder of Zinnov, a leading research & advisory firm, and TalentNeuron, which was acquired by CEB, a Gartner company (NYSE: IT). Previously, Vijay held senior positions at Hewitt Associates and KPMG Consulting.

Links:
https://draup.com/talent/ceo-newsletter/mastering-ai-readiness-for-hr-leaders

https://draup.com/talent/ceo-newsletter/the-hidden-work-in-hr-building-on-mits-project-iceberg

https://draup.com/talent/ceo-newsletter/tech-talent-strategies-of-2025-draups-annual-report

https://draup.com/talent/ceo-newsletter/the-new-frontier-of-strategic-workforce-planning

Chapters:

00:00 – How AI Is Changing Strategic Workforce Planning
01:25 – What Does Strategic Workforce Planning Mean in the Age of AI?
05:35 – Why Job Descriptions No Longer Reflect Real Work
07:48 – How AI Exposes Hidden Work Inside Organizations
09:25 – Can AI Read Process Maps and Redesign Workflows?
11:02 – Why Companies Struggle to Document Real Tasks
12:58 – Builders vs Orchestrators: Who Actually Uses AI in Enterprises?
15:38 – Where Leaders Oversimplify AI Workforce Transformation
17:25 – Why Human Verification Gets More Complex With AI
20:09 – What Happens to Work in an AI-Driven Organization?
22:36 – Why AI Forces Companies Beyond the Org Chart
24:23 – Rethinking Headcount Models in the Age of AI
26:21 – Should Workforce Planning Focus on Workflows Instead of Jobs?

When work breaks apart into tasks and AI steps in as a real participant, not just a helper, the familiar structure of jobs begins to unravel.

The real question becomes how work gets recomposed, who orchestrates it, and how people redefine their value when execution is no longer the core of the role.

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Carrol Chang, President of Andela, to explore what happens when the atomic unit of work shifts from jobs to tasks. Drawing on her experience leading global talent systems and marketplaces, Carrol explains why AI is forcing organizations to rethink not just productivity, but how work is allocated, priced, managed, and ultimately experienced.

Together, Nirit and Carrol unpack why breaking work into tasks doesn’t eliminate the need for humans, but radically elevates it. As AI takes on execution, people move into roles that demand judgment, coordination,
feedback, and orchestration. The conversation explores why every individual contributor is becoming more like a manager, how professional identity evolves when tasks change faster than titles, and why leadership now depends on setting expectations for continuous role reinvention.

The episode also looks at what this shift unlocks beyond organizational boundaries. As work becomes more modular, highly specialized skills can be deployed across multiple projects, opening the door to new ways of earning, learning, and balancing life. Platforms, AI-enabled onboarding, and global talent networks emerge as the infrastructure that makes this possible, allowing work to scale without forcing everyone into a 40-hour week designed for the industrial era.

If you’re thinking about how AI reshapes careers, why flexibility is moving upstream into high-skill work, and what it really means to design work in a world where intelligence is abundant, this conversation offers a grounded and human-centered lens on what comes next.

https://youtu.be/nYkUjZBL0sE

Guest Information:
Serving as CEO of Andela since September 2024, Carrol Chang is committed to scaling the business while remaining true to its mission-driven approach of connecting brilliance with opportunity. She joined Andela from Uber, where she led efforts to improve work for nearly 7 million flexible workers around the world as the Global Head of Driver & Courier Operations.

Carrol has held positions with McKinsey Company, Portraits of Hope, and the administration of President Barack Obama.

She is passionate about expanding opportunity in all forms to underrepresented populations and making commerce more generous and kind for all stakeholders. She holds a BA from Harvard and both a JD and MBA from Northwestern University.

Chapters:
00:00 Why Jobs Are No Longer the Basic Unit of Work
01:36 What Does It Mean to Break Jobs Into Tasks With AI?
03:44 Can Task-Based Work Scale Inside Large Organizations?
04:10 How AI Turns Every Employee Into a Manager
05:40 Do Companies Need to Redesign Jobs After AI?
07:44 How Should Professionals Redefine Their Identity in the Age of AI?
09:39 Will AI Change Job Titles and Organizational Structures?
11:41 Do We Need to Rebundle Work Into New Job Structures?
13:29 Can Specialized Skills Be Deployed Across Multiple Projects?
15:51 How Can Organizations Manage Work Done by Fractional Talent?
17:00 Is This the Evolution of the Gig Economy for High-Skilled Work?
18:45 How AI Makes Platform-Based Work Scalable for Enterprises
19:36 What Happens to Culture When Work Is Unbundled?
21:49 Can AI Accelerate Employee Onboarding and Culture Fit?
23:42 How Company Email Norms Reveal Organizational Culture
24:30 Will AI Reduce the 40-Hour Workweek?
26:30 How Should Leaders Prepare for the AI Change Curve?

When AI stops being experimental and starts acting inside everyday workflows, the conversation about work changes completely. The question is no longer which tools to deploy, but who gets to redesign how work actually happens.

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Bhavin Shah, co-founder and CEO of Moveworks, to explore what happens inside organizations once AI moves beyond summaries and copilots into real action. Drawing on what he sees across large enterprises, Bhavin explains why the next phase of AI innovation is being driven not by executives or engineers, but by frontline employees who know exactly where friction lives.

Together, Nirit and Bhavin unpack why top-down AI strategies often stall, how non-technical teams are quietly rebuilding broken workflows, and why the most important metric for AI success is no longer outputs generated but actions completed. They explore the shift from fighting shadow IT to embracing “sanctioned autonomy,” where leaders provide guardrails and platforms, then step back and let innovation emerge from the work itself.

The conversation also looks ahead at what this means for trust, leadership, and careers. As agents take on routine work, roles begin to level up, managers become designers rather than approvers, and influence starts to flow from those who improve systems rather than those who control them.

If you’re wondering who becomes the architect of work when automation is accessible to everyone, and how organizations move from AI that talks to AI that truly changes outcomes, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

https://youtu.be/qv0_pozxfP0

Guest Information:

Bhavin Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Moveworks (recently acquired by ServiceNow), the agentic AI assistant platform for the enterprise. He’s spent his career building technology that actually solves problems for people at work. Raised in Silicon Valley and shaped by early exposure to tech pioneers, Bhavin’s journey took him from collaborating with Dr. Sally Ride at UC San Diego to leading impactful projects at LeapFrog, where he helped bring educational tech to children worldwide, extending its impact with a prenatal health education program for women in Afghanistan. He later founded Refresh.io, which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2015, before launching Moveworks in 2016 to help organizations automate workflows and boost productivity using AI.

Today, over 350 enterprises, including 10% of the Fortune 500, and over 5.5 million employees rely on Moveworks.
Bhavin holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego and a Master’s degree in Education, Technology, and Business from Stanford University.

Chapters:

00:00 — Who Should Drive AI Transformation at Work?
01:29 — Why AI Innovation Is Coming From the Frontline
03:29 — Can Employees Redesign End-to-End Workflows With AI?
05:30 — How Agentic AI Connects Fragmented Enterprise Systems
07:46 — Is Shadow IT Becoming a Competitive Advantage?
10:06 — What Does “Sanctioned Autonomy” in AI Really Mean?
11:37 — Why AI Summarization Is No Longer Enough
13:30 — Can Organizations Trust AI That Takes Action?
15:31 — How Guardrails Replace Control in AI-Driven Work
17:27 — Will AI Fool Us or Make Us Smarter at Work?
18:45 — How Agentic AI Is Changing Non-Technical Jobs
19:49 — Does Automation Actually Level Up Human Work?
21:54 — How Much Work Can AI Really Eliminate?
23:47 — Why Companies Are Scaling Faster Than Ever With AI
25:29 — What Happens When Innovation Cycles Speed Up?
26:54 — What Question Should We Be Asking About the Future of Work?