A leading scholar argues the professoriate must be redesigned now to account for AI automation, economic pressure, changing student behavior and a postdoc bottleneck. The paper outlines structural shifts—staffing models, tenure reconsideration, and new credential mixes—that academic leaders should confront. What happened: A sector-wide call to re-evaluate faculty roles in the face of rapidly capable AI. Who’s involved: senior academic authors and academic leaders across global systems. Why it matters: Decisions about hiring models, tenure expectations, and the role of adjuncts will determine institutional finances, research capacity, and teaching quality as AI automates core academic tasks.