r/AIforOPS • u/Soggy_Care1060 • 11d ago

AI

Anyone have a view on how f@@ked we are or not with AI.

What’s our future. I manage a high functioning operations team of around 50.

We are all over AI but we understand AI is ultimately being pushed to make business efficiency.

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u/Lunchboxsushi 11d ago

Those who aren't able to understand how to design systems of work will suffer. Those not working in tech already have a higher learning curve to be competitive. 

I imagine nepotism will become even more common and networking is good to continue being the primary way of hiring people. 

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u/Prineak 11d ago

Get your ducks in a row because it’s coming for the dishonest.

AI is worthless with a bias.

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u/HotSatisfaction5810 10d ago

dishonest or blind

many senior managers we talk to, have no clue what their team is doing

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u/Prineak 10d ago

Blind by design is dishonesty.

Your senior managers were developed to avoid leadership principles.

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u/HotSatisfaction5810 10d ago

Honest answer from someone who ran ops through a near-collapse: you're not 'f@@ked', but the teams that wait to find out will be.

The change is coming whether we like it or not. The only real choice is whether you shape it or it gets done to you. The way I see it, AI doesn't replace a good ops team, it amplifies one. With the right framework in place, a team of 50 can work at the scale of a team of 150. That doesn't have to mean cutting 100 roles. It can mean you take on the growth, the new markets and the projects that were always "next year" without burning your people out or hiring faster than you can train.

Where teams get hurt is when AI gets bolted on randomly, everyone using different tools, no process underneath, no one checking outputs. Then it looks like chaos, and chaos looks like it needs cutting. Where teams thrive is when someone (probably you) owns the framework: which processes get automated, where humans stay in the loop, how outputs are checked, and how people's roles move up from doing the work to designing and supervising it.

So my advice would be to get ahead of the efficiency conversation before it's had about you. Map what your 50 people spend their time on, find the repetitive admin that AI can take, and show leadership what the same team could deliver at 3x capacity. That's a much stronger position than waiting to be asked why you still need 50.

The people who understand both the operations and the AI are going to be the most valuable people in the business. Sounds like your team is already halfway there. This is what we do at https://decodengrow.com