The central idea

AI is not a threat to management: it's a chance, because it clears away what has been poisoning the manager's job for fifteen years: endless reporting, admin disguised as steering, KPI reviews without decisions, minutes nobody reads.

If AI takes those tasks, the manager can finally return to what is supposed to define their job: see their teams, protect their work, arbitrate, trust, develop. That's the famous "managerial transformation" Serre has been putting at the heart of the matter for years.

Why it's harder than it sounds

The classic mistake is to hear "AI clears away" and to think "so it all takes care of itself." Wrong. AI doesn't spontaneously clear away what needs clearing. Without leadership intent, it clears at random, or worse, it adds reporting (because AI-generated reporting is free, so we ask for more).

The Gartner study relayed by Global Leaders Today is unforgiving: only 8% of HR leaders consider their managers competent in using AI. If 92% of managers don't master the tool, they can't use it to free themselves. They become its first victims: overloaded by the AI output of others, without the capacity to produce their own.

Three Serre conditions

1. AI must be intentional, not endured. That's the phrasing Serre uses. "Intentional" supposes a leadership choice: what do we automate, what do we keep human, and why. Without that explicit intent, AI slides off the organisation.

2. The manager must be equipped, not just trained. A half-day AI session equips no one. A toolkit with modified rituals, concrete examples, ongoing support and internal certification, yes.

3. The freed time must be protected. If AI saves a manager two hours and you immediately stack two new ones, the benefit is zero. Freed time must be channelled toward the teams, which requires real organisational discipline.

The line that sums it up

"In the AI era, human value remains central. That's as ambitious as it is reassuring."

Three territories where AI genuinely unlocks management

Annual review preparation. AI can synthesise a year of exchanges, projects, deliverables. The manager no longer does the mechanics: they arrive with qualified material, and can dedicate the meeting to meaning, feedback, development.

Meeting outputs. Minutes, action plans, reminders: all of this can be automated. The manager keeps the arbitration and the decision.

Filtering complex cases. For a heavy HR or client case, AI can produce in 5 minutes a factual synthesis. Time saved goes to the conversation, not the reading.

The trap to avoid absolutely

The number-one trap is the autonomy illusion. Thinking that AI, because it's "intelligent," will decide on its own what it should do. Wrong. AI is a tool. Without strong managerial intent, it reproduces the status quo, or worse, amplifies it.

That's what Serre repeats every time: the chance isn't in the tool, it's in the decision to use it for something precise.

The African and island angle

For Mauritian, African and regional organisations, this is a real window. The managerial heritage there is less loaded (fewer historical processes, fewer stacked reports). If you explicitly choose, from 2026, what you will never install (the reporting heaviness of large European corporates), you can leapfrog a generation.

Provided you structure the decision upstream. That's a governance topic, not a tool topic.

The MOOOVE link

MOOOVE's GMHR program is built exactly along this logic: not a generic "AI" training, but a "Manager Operating Upgrade" that modifies the rituals (1:1, weekly, review), installs the tools (HR Decision Playbook, Manager System Kit), and certifies field application. AI becomes a lever, not another veil.

Serre opens the door. What's left is to walk through it.

Sources

• Benoît Serre: News Tank RH op-ed, 10 February 2026 ("AI: A chance for management").
• Gartner / Global Leaders Today: only 8% of HR leaders say managers skilled in using AI.
• ANDRH: video with Benoît Serre and Guillaume Coudert.