AI Increases Output — Rethink Team Size to Avoid Loss

This executive briefing argues that generative AI has raised individual output roughly tenfold (from about $300K to $2M per person per year) while leaving coordination costs unchanged, creating a new organizational bottleneck. Using the combinatoric formula n(n-1)/2, the author explains how coordination overhead grows with team size and why the marginal cost of adding a sixth team member can outweigh added capacity. The briefing introduces practical frameworks—'scout vs. strike team' classification, the 'Steinberger Threshold' for who can direct AI agents, and an 'ambition failure' critique of simply doing the same work with fewer people—and includes five diagnostic questions plus a five-prompt kit for leaders to assess whether their orgs are optimized for the AI era.