Block uses AI to rebuild the organizational chart, replacing traditional hierarchical management with “agents”

Gate News message, March 31, Block posted an explanation outlining how it is using artificial intelligence to rebuild the organizational structure of enterprises, replacing the traditional hierarchical management architecture with “company agents.” Block noted that from Roman legions to modern enterprises, the essence of a tiered system is an information routing protocol, limited by the upper bound of humans’ management span. For the first time, AI has the capability to take on hierarchical coordination functions, continuously maintaining the “world model” needed to keep business operations running and breaking organizational constraints that have persisted for these two thousand years. In terms of specific architecture, Block has streamlined the organization into three types of roles: individual contributors (IC) who build and operate systems; direct responsible individuals (DRI) who have authority to allocate resources across teams; and “player-coaches” who balance business execution with talent development, eliminating standing middle-management positions. At the data layer, Block relies on the transaction counterpart data it holds through Square and Cash App to build an “economic graph” covering both merchants and consumers, as the core signal source driving the intelligent layer. The intelligent layer can automatically assemble foundational capabilities such as payments, lending, and issuing cards, proactively pushing tailored financial solutions to users, without a product manager predefining a roadmap.