Putting AI on the Org Chart: Evidence on Delegation and Oversight

Firms are increasingly deploying agentic AI systems capable of independent action. Some have begun integrating these agents into their organizational structures, assigning them designated roles and responsibilities and referring to them as employees. This creates new challenges for managers’ decisions about when to delegate and how to monitor work. In a survey of 1,261 managers, 23% report that their organizations list AI agents on organizational or workflow charts. In a randomized experiment, we provide those managers with identical documents containing built-in errors and ask them to review them. We vary whether the drafts are presented as produced by an AI tool, an AI employee, or a human employee. Average effects on error catching are small. However, among managers whose organizations already list AI agents on their org charts, we find evidence consistent with a ``hot potato” effect: managers catch fewer errors themselves, request more review by others, and assign less accountability to themselves. Presenting drafts as produced by an AI employee rather than an AI tool reduces the share of errors detected by 17%, increases requests for additional review by 22 percentage points, and shifts perceived accountability toward the AI system. Compared with managers reviewing an AI employee’s work, those reviewing a human employee’s work flag more errors themselves and are less likely to request additional review, suggesting that this pattern is not simply a response to delegation. These results suggest that how organizations position AI should be understood as a governance decision that impacts how managers oversee work.