Block: Redefining organizational structures with AI, replacing hierarchical management with "intelligent agents"

Deep Tide TechFlow news: On March 31, Block posted a message outlining how Block is using artificial intelligence to reshape the organizational form of enterprises, replacing the traditional hierarchical management architecture with “company agents.”

The article points out that from the Roman legions to modern companies, the hierarchical system is, at its core, a set of information routing protocols, constrained by the upper limit of human management span. Block believes that for the first time, AI has acquired the capability to take on hierarchical coordination functions, and can continuously maintain the “world model” that keeps enterprise operations running—thereby breaking the organizational constraints that have not been overcome for these past two thousand years.

In terms of the specific architecture, Block streamlines the organization into three categories of roles: individual contributors (IC) who build and operate systems across each layer; direct responsible individuals (DRI) who have the authority to reallocate 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 Square and Cash App to obtain data on both transaction parties, building an “economic graph” covering merchants and consumers, as the core signal source driving the intelligent layer. The intelligent layer can automatically combine foundational capabilities such as payments, lending, and card issuing, proactively delivering customized financial solutions to users without the product manager predefining a roadmap.