How Does Generative AI Rewire Organizations? a Deep Dive into Its Role as a Strategic Actor

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) shifts from novelty to necessity, its role in organizations is rapidly evolving from passive tool to influential actor. This research reimagines GenAI not as a background enabler but as a strategic participant that reshapes workflows, decision-making, and value creation in real time. Blending Actor-Network Theory (ANT) with the Business Model Canvas (BMC), the study explores how GenAI reorganizes human-machine dynamics and rewires the architecture of modern business models. Using a qualitative inductive design, we collected rich, lived insights from professionals integrating GenAI into their daily work. Novel methods, ChatGPT-assisted journaling and WhatsApp voice diaries were deployed to capture not only tasks but emotional nuance, friction points, and strategic reflections. These tools illuminated how GenAI changes the way employees think, collaborate, and lead. Guided by the five stages of ANT’s translation process, the research traces GenAI’s trajectory through organizational life. In the stage of problematization, GenAI is positioned as a solution to cognitive overload or systemic inefficiencies. During interessement, human actors begin to reshape tasks, workflows, and routines to align with the capabilities of AI tools. Enrolment follows, marking GenAI’s acceptance as a knowledge partner and an emerging co-decision-maker in both strategic and operational contexts. Through mobilization, its presence becomes stabilized as value creation and trust in its outputs grow. Finally, dissent emerges, revealing tensions around issues such as data ethics, algorithmic bias, and concerns over diminished human agency prompting a renegotiation of GenAI’s role within the organization. Meanwhile, the BMC lens reveals transformations in core business logic: GenAI redefines value propositions through content personalization, alters cost structures via automation, and reconfigures customer interaction through AI-driven dialogue. More than enhancing efficiency, GenAI drives a strategic reorientation turning knowledge creation, not just execution, into a competitive edge. The findings challenge conventional AI narratives. GenAI is not merely automating decisions; it is co-authoring organizational behavior. It fosters a cognitive shift from memorizing data to synthesizing insight and repositions learning as a strategic engine for growth. For leaders, this means that GenAI should not be managed as a tool, but engaged as a collaborator.