40% of AI time savings go on rework

Nearly 40% of the time AI saves gets lost to rework, and the checking lands on whoever did the work.

That's from a Workday study of 3,200 people at large companies, all of them active AI users. For every ten hours AI saved them, about four went on correcting errors, rewriting and checking the output. Only 14% said they consistently came out ahead.

I'd expect a small business to do no better. In a small team there's no separate reviewer, so the person doing the job checks it too.

So when you choose a job to give AI, look at how long the result takes to check before you look at how long it takes to do.

A reply to a customer enquiry takes a minute to read, and you'll know straight away if it's wrong. A twenty-page report full of figures is different, because every number has to be traced back to where it came from.

The reply is a good job for AI, and the report can cost you more time than it saves.

I ask two questions before I hand any job over. Can a person check the result in a couple of minutes? And if it's wrong, will we catch it before a customer sees it?

Then run a simple test this week. Time the job the way you do it now. Time it again with AI, and include the checking and the fixing.

If the second number is no smaller, AI isn't saving you anything on that job yet.