AI speeds up work nobody needed

AI will happily speed up work nobody needs, and it makes that work harder to spot.

Picture a marketing agency that hands its weekly client report to AI. Half a day of work drops to ten minutes. Everyone's delighted, and nobody stops to ask whether the client even opens it.

When a job gets cheaper, you do more of it, and you stop asking whether it should exist at all. Waste that used to cost half a day now costs ten minutes, so it slides under the radar and stays in the process for good.

Before you hand a job to AI, ask three questions, in this order.

Does anyone actually use what this produces?

What breaks if it stops tomorrow?

Could it be folded into something that already happens?

Run the agency's report through those and the answers get uncomfortable. The agency might find the client reads the one-line summary at the top and skips the rest. Nothing breaks if the full report stops, and the summary fits into five minutes at the start of the monthly call.

The report shrinks to a line on an agenda, and nobody needs AI for it at all.

I'd always cut first and automate whatever survives. If you automate first, you lock the waste in and make it cheaper to keep.

Some of the steps you cut will come back. A client will ask for a number you stopped sending, and you'll put it back, which is fine. If you're not adding a few steps back, you probably didn't cut enough.

Pick one step in one process this week and stop doing it. Check in a week whether anybody noticed.