Would you like to turn your manager into a chatbot? More and more Americans are saying yes.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that 15% of Americans said they would be willing to take a job where their immediate supervisor would be an AI program that would assign tasks and set schedules. Quinnipiac conducted a survey of 1,397 U.S. adults from March 19 to 23, 2026 that included questions about AI adoption, trust, and career fears.
Of course, the majority of respondents said they were not willing to replace their human bosses with AI people managers. However, using AI as a supervisor, even if you are not the person directly responsible for managing the entire team, is gaining popularity.
Companies like Workday have launched AI agents that can submit and approve expense reports on behalf of employees. Amazon deployed new AI workflows to replace some of the responsibilities of middle management, laying off thousands of managers in the process. Uber engineers even built an AI model of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to present before meeting his real boss.
Across organizations, AI is being used to replace management layers in what some are calling “The Great Flattening.” Soon we will see entire multi-billion dollar companies with fully automated employees and executives.
Americans are wary of how this will affect their job prospects. A majority of respondents to the Quinnipiac survey (70%) said they believe advances in AI will reduce the number of job opportunities for people. 30% of employed Americans are very or somewhat concerned that AI will make their jobs obsolete.
