By AMA Staff
Managers are taking on more complex work, incorporating AI into everyday decisions, and facing higher expectations for productivity. Yet employees do not necessarily see managers as more engaged. AMA’s 2026 Management Survey reveals an important tension in how management is changing and how that change is experienced.
Managers are still responsible for many of the fundamentals that have long defined their roles: making decisions, solving problems, motivating employees, communicating effectively, and coaching their teams. At the same time, they are navigating expanded workloads, supporting employees through stress and frequent change, collaborating across organizational boundaries, and increasingly incorporating artificial intelligence into the way work gets done.
Together, these demands are reshaping management. More of a manager’s time is being spent evaluating information, making judgment calls, reviewing AI-assisted work, and determining how people and technology should work together.
And that shift may be contributing to a growing disconnect. Managers report that they are more engaged in their work, but employees do not necessarily experience greater engagement from their managers.
The Core Demands of Management Have Not Gone Away
AMA’s 2026 Management Survey found considerable continuity with the previous year.
As in 2025, managers identified managing an expanded workload, helping employees manage anxiety and stress, helping employees navigate frequent change, and collaborating across the organization among the most urgent new dimensions of their roles.
The established responsibilities of management are demanding more attention as well. Managers continued to point to decision making, problem solving, and motivating employees as areas requiring increased effort.
Managers and employees also remain aligned on one critical point: Both groups view effective communication and coaching as among the most important management skills.
AI Is Adding Another Layer to the Manager’s Role
Artificial intelligence is becoming part of that expanded management reality.
Employees surveyed by AMA identified AI-driven learning and tasks as the third most urgent new part of their roles, with respondents demonstrating a 63% increase in the urgency of AI adoption. Managers also reported an increase in the urgency of supervising AI-driven tasks.
The change extends beyond simply learning how to use new tools.
Among managers surveyed, 36% said they use AI to handle routine or administrative work, while another 36% reported spending more time during the past year reviewing AI outputs. Thirty-one percent said AI has changed the types of tasks they delegate to employees, and 30% said they rely more heavily on AI-generated data and insights when making decisions.
Importantly, managers did not report turning decision making itself over to AI.
Instead, AI is becoming another input into managerial judgment. Managers may have more information and more automated support available to them, but they still have to evaluate that information, determine what matters, and decide what to do next.
In that sense, AI is changing where managers devote their attention and increasing the amount of judgment they must exercise.
As AI Raises Capacity, It Is Also Raising Expectations
AI is affecting expectations about how much work employees should be able to accomplish.
In AMA’s survey, 41% of managers said using AI has increased their expectations for the volume of work employees should be able to complete within a given amount of time.
That finding points to an important emerging management challenge.
Productivity gains from AI do not exist independently of people. Managers must determine which work can be automated, which work still requires human judgment, what should be delegated differently, and what reasonable performance expectations should look like as technology changes employees’ capabilities.
The technology may accelerate parts of the work. Managing the work still requires human judgment.
The Engagement Gap Persists
At the same time that managers are handling these expanding demands, AMA’s research reveals a persistent gap in perceptions of manager engagement.
Sixty-two percent of managers said their own engagement had increased during the previous 12 months.
Employees saw something different.
Fifty-one percent of employees said their managers’ engagement had remained constant, while 20% said their managers had become less engaged.
A manager may experience a workday filled with consequential decisions, problem solving, AI review, changing priorities, employee concerns, and cross-functional demands, and reasonably experience that work as intense engagement.
An employee, however, experiences management through what reaches them.
That creates a significant question for organizations: If managers believe they are becoming more engaged while employees do not perceive the same increase, what accounts for the difference?
The answer has implications beyond engagement scores. It touches communication, coaching, employee expectations, productivity, AI adoption, and the way organizations define effective management in a changing workplace.
The manager’s job has quietly changed. Understanding that change begins with recognizing both the expanding demands placed on managers and the experience of the employees they lead.
Frequently Asked Questions
How has the manager’s role changed?
AMA’s 2026 survey indicates that managers are balancing established responsibilities with newer demands. Expanded workloads, employee stress and anxiety, frequent organizational change, and greater cross-organizational collaboration remain pressing concerns. Managers are also incorporating AI into routine work, delegation, analysis, and decision support.
What management skills remain most important?
Managers and employees continue to agree that effective communication and coaching are among the most important management skills. Managers also report devoting increased attention and effort to decision making, problem solving, and motivating employees.
How are managers using AI at work?
Managers reported using AI to automate routine or administrative work, review AI-generated outputs, change the kinds of work they delegate to employees, and use AI-generated information and insights to support decisions. The survey did not indicate that managers are handing the actual decision-making responsibility over to AI.
Is AI reducing the need for managerial judgment?
The findings suggest the opposite dynamic. While AI can support routine work and provide information for decisions, managers still have to evaluate outputs and exercise their own judgment. As AI becomes incorporated into work, managers may have more information and more possibilities to assess rather than fewer decisions to make.
Is AI changing managers’ expectations of employees?
Yes. Forty-one percent of managers surveyed said AI has increased their expectations regarding the volume of work employees should be able to complete in a given amount of time. This suggests AI is influencing not only how work is performed, but also managers’ assumptions about productivity.
What is the manager engagement gap?
The engagement gap refers to the difference between managers’ assessment of their own engagement and employees’ perceptions of manager engagement. In the 2026 survey, 62% of managers said their engagement had increased, while 51% of employees said their managers’ engagement remained constant and 20% said it had decreased.
Why do managers and employees perceive engagement differently?
The findings in this portion of the research establish the perception gap but do not yet fully explain it. They raise the question of why the difference persists even as managers and employees are both incorporating AI into their work and both groups agree on the importance of communication and coaching. The subsequent sections of the research explore that question in greater depth.