Sorry, there is no productivity gained when you use AI, unless you...

AI Saves Time. But What Are We Saving the Time For?

The biggest question about AI is no longer:

“How do we use AI?”

It is:

“What happens to humans when AI can do more and more of their work?”

There is an uncomfortable paradox.

We train employees to use AI to become more productive. But if “productivity” simply means that the company eventually needs fewer employees, why should workers enthusiastically help train the technology that may reduce the need for their jobs?

This is where we need to rethink what AI productivity really means.

Suppose AI allows ten people to do the work previously done by twenty.

The company may save money. Its measured productivity may rise.

But that is only part of the equation.

If the other ten people lose their jobs and cannot find productive new work, society also loses their income, consumption, skills and potentially their future contribution.

The real opportunity from AI comes when the time and resources it releases are reinvested into human value creation.

If AI saves me ten hours, what do I do with those ten hours?

Do I simply work ten hours less?
Do I eliminate somebody else's job?

Or do I use those ten hours to:

enter a new market, create a new product, serve customers better, start a new business, or solve a problem society has struggled with for decades?

Imagine using AI not merely to reduce headcount, but to tackle ageing populations, falling fertility rates, healthcare accessibility, education, sustainability or productivity constraints.

That changes the conversation completely.

The question for every CEO, HR leader and board should therefore not stop at:

“How much money can AI save us?”

Ask the much bigger question:

“What new value can our people create with the capacity AI gives back to them?”

That is the AI revolution worth pursuing.

Reducing cost creates efficiency.
Creating new value creates progress.

AI should not simply make humans cheaper.
AI should make humans more valuable.

Comments

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years. Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself? At least I have better discipline". It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...

Have You Found Your Sun Yi and Teresa Teng?

I n the long, unfolding history of the Chinese-language music scene, "The Moon Represents My Heart" 月亮代表我的心 stands as an unsurpassable milestone. Yet, the journey of this globally renowned masterpiece, a song that would eventually captivate the world, was fraught with setbacks: it was once dismissed as "trash" by its own creator and tossed into a wastebasket, later suppressed by official policy as a "banned song ," and initially failed to gain any traction when performed by two different singers. The dramatic turnaround in this song’s fate is not merely a musical legend; it offers a profound life lesson: the greatest stroke of luck in life is not about how perfect you are, but about encountering the "right people", those who truly understand you, support you, and help you realize your potential, at exactly the right moment. I. The First "Right Person": A "Talent Scout" Who Recognizes Your Worth In the early 1970s, composer T...

How to Use Zoom Cloud Meetings Effectively

(Read also How to Secure Your Zoom meeting ) Other than Zoom Cloud Meeting, you can use other video conferencing platforms like Google Hangouts, Skype and WeChat Video Conference. Zoom is the most popular because it is free and is easy to use, especially on the phone . Here's how you can use Zoom effectively: Use a laptop, not your phone or tablet, especially when you are hosting a meeting. On a laptop, you can see everything: the PowerPoint screen that you are sharing, video of all participants and the group chats. You can easily type on a laptop and this is useful when you are translating or doing detailed explanations. The host of the zoom meeting should mute everyone at the settings and only unmute them when they speak. Participants can indicate that they want to speak by raising their hands before speaking Use earpiece or headsets or wireless earbuds so that you have a better concentration of the voices in the meeting and not be d...

Business and Money Tips

Search This Blog