Corporate America is about to go on a diet—an involuntary one. And the weight-loss drug is artificial intelligence.
The metaphor is intentional. Just as GLP-1 medications like semaglutide first suppress appetite, then reshape the body’s outward form, and eventually inspire an entirely new lifestyle, artificial intelligence—beginning with generative AI and evolving toward native AI enablement —will put every company through three inevitable phases of transformation. These phases will thin corporate structures, surgically restructure them, and ultimately enable a business model rebirth unlike anything since the emergence of the public internet.
The business school cases are already foreshadowing this story. But most executives remain stuck in Phase I, thinking AI is a labor-saver rather than a business-model rewrite. That misunderstanding will be costly.
Phase I — The Thinning: Generative AI’s GLP-1 Effect on the Corporate Body
GLP-1 medications do not instantly change bone structure —they reduce appetite and trigger weight loss. The organism remains the same, only lighter.
So too in today’s corporate world. Generative AI will produce a significant thinning of companies while leaving organizational charts largely intact.
- Harvard Business School’s 2023 “Boston Consulting Group AI Productivity Study” showed that consultants using generative AI completed tasks 25% faster, with 40% higher-quality output, even in highly analytical workflows.
- MIT Sloan’s studies on call centers found that generative AI reduced the time needed for customer resolutions by up to 14% while raising customer satisfaction—without changing reporting lines or business models.
- Stanford’s “GitHub Copilot Field Experiment” documented that software developers completed tasks 55% faster, with no change in architecture or process—just fewer labor hours.
In Phase I, corporations are trimming without transforming. The same structures remain: the same departments, the same processes, the same functional silos. They are simply doing more with fewer people. Boards celebrate margin expansion. CFOs celebrate opex leverage. But nothing foundational has changed.
Just as GLP-1 suppresses appetite, generative AI suppresses the appetite for labor. This phase will be short-lived.
Phase II — The Surgery: Restructuring the Organizational Body
Phase II is less gentle. After dramatic weight loss, many GLP-1 patients pursue cosmetic surgery—not for vanity, but to reshape what weight loss alone cannot.
Likewise, after the initial efficiency burst, corporate America will move into a structural transformation phase that fundamentally reshapes the internal anatomy of companies.
In this phase, AI doesn’t just “thin” the workforce—it rewires the organization. Case studies already point the way:
- HBS Case: JPMorgan’s AI-Driven Workflow Redesign
Not only did JPMorgan automate the review of commercial loan documents with AI, but the technology forced a restructuring of credit operations. Entire analyst workflows were redesigned; teams were consolidated; approval chains shortened. It wasn’t “efficiency”—it was surgery.
- MIT Sloan: Schneider Electric’s AI Control Tower
Schneider didn’t merely automate supply chain tasks. It built an AI “nerve center” that consolidated planning, forecasting, risk assessment, and sustainability reporting into a unified command structure. Four functions merged into one. This was not weight loss; it was rearchitecture.
- Stanford Business: Stitch Fix and Algorithmic Merchandising
AI didn’t just speed up the work of stylists; it fundamentally rewrote the merchandising organization. Buyers, data scientists, designers—even forecasting teams—were recombined into algorithm-driven “pods.” Traditional roles disappeared. New hybrid roles emerged.
In Phase II, the corporate skeleton changes. Reporting lines shrink. Whole departments consolidate. What begins as a GLP-1 diet becomes a full surgical reshaping of corporate musculature and bone structure.
This phase will be more disruptive, more politically charged, and more strategically consequential than Phase I. Most companies are not prepared—but they won’t have a choice.
Phase III — The Rebirth: AI-Native Businesses Will Replace AI-Enabled Ones
The final phase is the most misunderstood—and the most important.
The third act isn’t thinning or surgery; it is lifestyle reinvention. A new identity. New habits. A new operating model for everyday life.
In the AI world, Phase III is the shift from using generative AI to build tools…to using native AI to build entirely new businesses.
This is where the analogy to the early internet becomes powerful. The internet didn’t merely digitize Sears; it created Amazon. It didn’t merely accelerate taxi dispatch systems; it created Uber. It didn’t merely streamline hospitality chains; it created Airbnb.
Native AI will do the same.
Case studies again offer glimpses:
- Stanford GSB: OpenAI’s Native AI Startups
The companies built natively on models—Jasper, Tome, Character, Perplexity—are not “efficiency plays.” They are new business categories enabled by foundation models, just as cloud computing enabled entire SaaS ecosystems. These are Phase III entities.
- MIT Sloan: Moderna’s AI BioFoundry
Moderna didn’t “automate” biology. It created a digitally-native, algorithm-driven drug design factory. The AI platform is the business model. That is Phase III.
- HBS: UPS ORION and the Autonomous Logistics Layer
ORION began as optimization software. With generative AI and autonomous routing, it became the backbone of a new logistics operating system—one capable of spawning derivative enterprises. A native AI business platform inside a legacy company.
Phase III is when the corporate body becomes unrecognizable.
It is when CFOs stop asking “How many people can AI eliminate?” and start asking “What companies can AI create inside our company?”
It is when CHROs stop thinking about re-skilling and start thinking about digital twins of functions.
It is when CIOs stop serving the business and start architecting algorithmic / autonomous enterprises.
It is when AI stops being a tool and becomes the environment.
The Inevitable Progression—and the CEO Test
Every company will move through these three phases. The pace will vary, but the progression is inevitable:
- Thinning: Efficiency-driven staff reductions.
- Surgery: Structural reorganization around AI-first workflows.
- Rebirth: Creation of AI-native business lines that redefine the company’s identity.
The question is no longer if corporate America will complete this progression. It is which companies will reach Phase III—and which will collapse in Phase II.
The biggest mistake CEOs will make is treating generative and native AI as a cost-reduction / productivity tool rather than an architectural design environment.
This is the equivalent of taking GLP-1 and thinking weight loss is the end rather than the beginning. In fact, seeking to take the metaphor further, the weight loss will itself bring new demands for corporate health ( the protein, peptides and weightlifting ) but will still not achieve Phase III results.
A Call to Action for Corporate America
Corporate America needs an AI strategy that acknowledges the progression:
- CEOs activate strategies for today’s quarterly targets and next years autonomous operating model
- CFOs must stop modeling AI as a two-year cost-savings initiative and start modeling new P&Ls born natively from AI ecosystems.
- CHROs must rethink workforce planning not as replacement but as recomposition.
- CIOs must architect environments where AI builds software, AI runs processes, and humans supervise ecosystems—not tasks.
- Boards must govern AI not as a compliance topic but as a strategic growth engine.
The companies that will dominate the 2030s are not the ones that thin the fastest. They are the ones that finish all three phases. Just as GLP-1 is rewriting human physiology, artificial intelligence will rewrite the physiology of corporate America.The only question is who will choose surgery—and who will choose rebirth.
