New Dynamics of Change? AI-Led and AI-Generated Change in the Electrical Grid

The electrical grid is a prime example of a vast system of interconnected entities that are both empowered and challenged by artificial intelligence (AI). AI is entering this sector in two ways: as a deliberate instrument of AI-led change, enabling better forecasting, grid optimization and increasingly autonomous control approaches; and as an uninvited force of AI-generated change, driven by the enormous, spatially concentrated and rapidly evolving electricity demand of AI data centers. This demand does not arrive as an initiative or technology to be adopted, but rather as a massive load interconnection request. AI-generated change challenges some of the fundamental principles of existing literature on organizational change, such as the authorship of change, the composition of the changing unit, and the ability of the involved parties to share a joint agenda. We use the interplay between AI and the electricity sector to illustrate how authority over change is shifting toward those controlling allocation, interfaces, and architecture. The paper proposes avenues for further research into organizational change in the AI era.