1.3 The orchestrator job changed before the title did
What changes the game is the ability to create layered systems that are able to make decisions about next steps. These systems do not merely help an employee perform a task; they operate bounded parts of a business.
Which is the difference between assistance and orchestration. Assistance improves one step inside an existing process. Orchestration changes the process. The unit of work stops being a function, a ticket, or a pull request, and becomes the system that turns a signal into a decision, an implementation, a test, a release, and a result.
Jack Dorsey was reaching for this distinction when he started describing Block — the company formerly known as Square — as an “intelligence company.” In Block’s own account of its operating model, most companies are treating AI as a productivity enhancer, while Block says it is trying to use intelligence to change how people work together: maintaining a continuously updated model of the company, replacing some of the information-routing work that hierarchy used to do, and letting smaller teams move with more context. That is a different story from just buying everyone a license to ChatGPT or Claude. Jack is saying they are going to change how the business works, not just use a tool to make it work faster.5
The message arrived with an ugly footnote attached. In February 2026, Block announced it would cut more than 4,000 roles — from over 10,000 employees to just under 6,000, a reduction of more than 40 percent. Dorsey tied the decision to intelligence tools, and The Guardian covered it as a public case study in which a CEO said those tools had changed what it means to build and run a company; the stock rose sharply. Block had also grown and cut before — its headcount nearly tripled from 2019 to its peak — so the AI explanation is the company’s own, not a settled causal finding. It was reported primarily as a layoff story, which it is; thousands of people were asked to leave while the company argued that a smaller team could do more. But set aside for a moment whether Block’s decision was wise, because the announcement captured a transition that is real regardless. Organizations are going to have to stop thinking about AI as a tool that accelerates existing work, and start asking what happens when the tools operate the work.6
Jack Dorsey and Roelof Botha, “From Hierarchy to Intelligence,” Block, March 31, 2026, https://block.xyz/inside/from-hierarchy-to-intelligence. Block’s own strategy essay says most companies treat AI as a productivity enhancer and describes a company organized around a machine-readable world model; this is a first-party account of Block’s operating thesis, not independent evidence that the model will succeed.↩︎
Kari Paul, “Jack Dorsey to cut 4,000 jobs due to AI advances at Square parent Block,” The Guardian, February 27, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/27/block-ai-layoffs-jack-dorsey, and Block Inc., letter to shareholders (SEC filing exhibit), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1512673/000119312526076557/d108590dex991.htm. The announcement and filings document a reduction of more than 4,000 roles — from over 10,000 employees to just under 6,000 — and Dorsey’s stated connection between the cuts and intelligence tools; this is evidence of the public operating claim and its human consequence, not proof that the cuts were caused only by AI or that the strategy will work.↩︎