I've never had a job like that. My job has always involved helping my company, not just figure out how to build something, but what to build. We typically collaborate on a few ideas and then go away, let them percolate in our brains, before coming back with some new ideas to try. The whole point of the Agile Manifesto is that we don't know what to build in the first place.

Sometimes my boss has asked me to do something that in the long run will cost the company dearly. Luckily for him, I am happy to push back, because I can understand what we're trying to achieve and help figure the best option for the company based on my experience, intuition and the data I have available.

There's so much more to working with a team than: "Here is a very specific task, please execute it exactly as the spec says". We want ideas, we want opinions, we want bursts of creative inspiration, we want pushback, we want people to share their experiences, their intuition, the vibe they get, etc.

We don't want AI agents that do exactly what we say; we want teams of people with different skill sets who understand the problem and can interpret task through the lens of their skill set and experience, because a single person doesn't have all the answers.

I think your ex-boss Mike will very soon find himself trapped in local minima of innovation, with only his own understanding of the world, and a sycophantic yes-man AI employee that will always do exactly as he says. The fact that AI mostly doesn't work is only part of the problem.