How do you spend the time?

Yes, AI saves time. It makes things faster, smoother, easier. But if you only use that time to cut costs, you’ve missed the point completely.

When we started mapping our Humans + AI Maturity Model, we saw the same pattern every time. In the early stages, people use AI to shave minutes off a task, clean up slides, write emails quicker — and that’s fine. That’s the warm-up.

But there are going to be some businesses that check out when people hit that Integrator stage — when the savings start showing up on a spreadsheet — and they’ll think the job’s done. It isn’t. That’s the halfway mark.

When you shift the balance of your organisation towards Collaborators and Leaders, that’s when the magic starts. That’s when you begin to see real differentiation — not just in productivity, but in relationships, products, services, client experience, and people experience.

But the real power isn’t in the hours saved — it’s in what people do with those hours. AI won’t transform your business by cutting time. It’ll transform it by amplifying your people.

And I think using AI well is becoming a craft. People who really know how to wield it can change the whole dynamic of a room. They’re force multipliers.

The bigger challenge now is working out, who is going to execute all the knowledge work. I think its going to be an interesting new world where everyone has to get hands on to get the ideas executed. Luckily, we'll all have some new skills to do it.