‘The millennial middle manager has it the worst’: Viral video hits a nerve, sparks AI work debate

A viral Instagram video has sparked a debate over AI-driven workplace expectations, with a millennial middle manager describing the growing pressure of balancing lean teams, bigger targets and employees seeking stronger work-life boundaries.

Artificial intelligence was supposed to take repetitive work off employees’ plates. But what happens when companies start treating that extra efficiency as a reason to simply assign more work?

That is the question behind a viral Instagram video by Lovish Kaushik, who says middle managers may be getting squeezed harder than anyone else in the AI-driven workplace.

“The millennial middle manager currently has it the worst in the corporate world. And I know this because I am one of them,” Kaushik says in the video.

His description of the job has resonated with corporate employees online. The manager, he argues, is caught between a workforce that increasingly values boundaries and senior leadership that wants higher targets, smaller teams and faster results.

One job, two very different expectations

Kaushik says employees below him want work to remain one part of their lives rather than define them.

“They want work to be one part of their life, not their entire life.”

At the other end, he says, leadership is increasingly focused on doing more with fewer people.

“And above me is leadership that comes up with bigger targets, reduces teams, and seems to have zero patience.”

The pressure becomes particularly visible at startups, he says, where lean teams are already expected to stretch further.

“Because now there's an added layer of doing more with less. Because apparently AI is supposed to handle everything else.”

That last assumption is where Kaushik sees a growing problem. He recalls sitting in meetings where leaders, after seeing what AI can potentially accomplish, immediately raised expectations for the team.

“I've literally sat in rooms with founders who saw one thread on AI and said the function now has to do 3x more.”

When the manager becomes the middleman

The result is a familiar corporate balancing act: managers have to sell leadership's expectations to their teams while explaining their teams' limitations to leadership.

“They don't know how the function works, they just know it has to be done and it is possible. I am literally a translator at this point.”

Kaushik says the problem is that the teams being asked to deliver more are often already stretched.

“I get the pushback and now I have to take that pushback up to a leadership that says it has to be done regardless.”

And because the manager is more experienced, there can be an assumption that they will simply absorb the pressure.

“Everyone assumes that because I am senior in experience, it is supposed to be okay.”

Is this really an AI problem?

The video has triggered a debate over whether AI is actually the culprit—or merely exposing older problems with workplace management.

One user commented, “It’s not an AI problem. It’s an Indian mindset problem.”

Another said the same situation is playing out at Big Four firms and argued that leadership needs to provide more realistic expectations and support.

A third took a simpler view: “It’s a management problem!!”

Another commenter offered perhaps the most practical perspective: middle managers should protect their teams from becoming permanently overloaded, communicate when targets are unrealistic and accept that not every project can succeed with limited resources.

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