How do companies successfully implement AI across the organization? How do you redesign jobs with AI?
In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Karalee Close, Global Lead of Talent & Organization at Accenture, to explore how AI is changing organizational design.
Together, they discuss why work is replacing jobs as the building block of organizations, how AI is reshaping leadership, learning, and internal talent mobility, and why companies need to redesign workflows instead of simply automating existing roles. Karalee shares how Accenture transformed its own operating model before helping clients do the same, and explains why organizations that align talent, technology, and business strategy are pulling ahead.
Whether you’re leading AI transformation, rethinking organizational design, or preparing your workforce for what’s next, this conversation offers a practical roadmap for building organizations that can continuously adapt in the age of AI.
Guest Information:
Karalee Close is Accenture’s Global Lead for the Talent & Organization practice and a member of the company’s Global Management Committee. She is dedicated to reinventing work, driving change and enhancing the employee experience to boost productivity, drive growth and make work more meaningful. Karalee is expanding the Talent & Organization practice to further help clients fuel sustainable growth by connecting people and technology to unlock human ingenuity; find new ways to access, create and unlock talent; and design organizations that thrive in the context of constant change. She drives Accenture’s talent, organization and change agendas across the full range of capabilities and ecosystem partners and leads asset and offering development.
Karalee is a respected and innovative leader whose career spans more than two decades of senior regional and global leadership roles while based in Toronto, Calgary, Paris and London. She has had a passion for working at the intersection of strategy, technology and people for her entire career and has deep expertise in organizational change and digital & AI transformation services, coupled with a highly successful track record of CxO advisory. In recent years, Karalee worked for a top-tier consulting firm where she held a variety of regional and global industry-based leadership roles in addition to her client work. With clients, her focus is large-scale digital, AI and technology transformation and innovative approaches to accelerating value and speed through integrated approaches to technology, people and ways of working.
Karalee is a renowned author, TED and event speaker, an invited lecturer and CEO advisor who enjoys exchanging ideas across sectors and disciplines. She is a passionate supporter of women in technology and leadership, thought diversity, psychological safety and new ways of working. Karalee also leads a full and enriching life as a mother of two teenagers, wife, daughter, sister, aunt and friend. She enjoys outdoor adventures, traveling and cooking and spent a glorious “gap year” sailing across the Atlantic with her family! She received her Master of Business Administration from University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and is based out of Vancouver, Canada.
Links:
Karalee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karalee-close-3b706232/
Talent Reinventor’s report: accenture.com/talent-reinventors
Chapters:
00:00 Why Are Most AI Projects Failing to Deliver Business Value?
03:32 How Do You Redesign Work for AI Instead of Jobs?
07:14 How AI Is Changing Organizational Design
09:04 How AI Improves Internal Talent Mobility
11:56 What Skills Will Humans Need in an AI Workplace?
18:42 What Is Co-Learning Between Humans and AI?
23:38 How Managers Will Lead Humans and AI Agents
28:47 Why Trust Is the Key to Successful AI Adoption
32:36 Can AI Create Better Jobs Instead of Eliminating Them?
35:50 What Will the Organization of the Future Look Like?
