FT: Pay-and-Grade Systems Built on Headcount Are Breaking as AI Agents Replace Reports

The Financial Times reports that as companies replace human workers with AI agents, long-standing frameworks that tie a manager's grade, pay band, and bonus to how many direct reports they oversee are no longer defensible. Pilita Clark argues firms are quietly rewriting role definitions and compensation philosophy because the 'number of people managed' metric now penalises managers who automate most aggressively. The piece lands amid Challenger data showing AI drove 31,039 of October's record 153K US job cuts.