AI productivity gains are boring 🥱

No, I haven’t lost my mind.

AI CAN have a tremendous impact on your team’s productivity. Research shows that it can get you to complete tasks 37% faster, while boosting the quality of the work of knowledge workers by more than 40%.

Some of the companies I’ve trained have seen even higher numbers, and you should definitely invest in AI to boost your teams’ productivity (you can reach out here if you need help).

What I want to say is that AI hyperproductivity will soon become the norm.

Given the results AI can give you, everyone at some point will integrate AI into their operations and train their teams. And you don’t achieve greatness doing what everyone else is doing. You just keep existing at the same level as everybody else (by the way, this also means that if everybody gets a big productivity gain and you don’t you’ll be in trouble, but that’s another story).

So the question becomes: what are the exciting, fun, and great new things that AI enables you to do? How do you stand out in a world where magic is one prompt away?

I think there’s an area where AI can enable you to build a tremendous strategic advantage and that’s often underlooked. And that’s building entirely new customer experiences.

Let me elaborate.

When the internet came out, I’m sure Blockbuster thought about how much more productive they could have become by having an online inventory, having people rent movies online, etc. But that’s now what the internet means to the industry. It meant Netflix: an entirely new way to consume movies. It also meant bankruptcy for Blockbuster.

When smartphones came out they could potentially have helped taxi drivers be more productive through better maps, better interaction with customers, etc.. But that’s not what the smartphone platform shift meant for taxis: it meant Uber, a whole new way for people to book private transportation. And the taxi industry didn’t have a good time.

You get the point.

We’re starting to see a few early attempts at leveraging AI to re-design customer experience and I wish there was more boldness there.

Example 1: The New York Times piloting AI-generated “podcasts” of their news. I’m pretty sure that the NYT is also using AI to write articles faster (productivity!), but you don’t enter new markets or acquire new users by just being more productive internally. This new AI feature allows them to compete with Spotify, opening an entirely new product line.

Examples 2 and 3: Spotify is piloting a new AI feature to allow people to create their own playlists by describing them in natural language. Another feature is the “AI DJ”, to add DJ-like commentary on your discovery weekly and makes it feel like a radio host is creating your mixes. Again, Spotify is betting on bold new AI-powered UX features to differentiate itself from the competition. I’m sure they’re using AI to make their employees more productive, but no one will switch from Apple Music to Spotify because their employees write nice prompts.

What does it mean for you?

By all means, keep investing in AI for productivity gains. You’ll get crazy returns (I’ve seen it) and you won’t regret it.

But don’t forget that AI is a disruptive technology. Every business is about solving a customer’s problem, whatever that is. Ask yourself whether AI can enable you to invent entirely novel ways to solve that problem, and start a conscious process of experimentation.

In practice, this means speeding up the process of upskilling your teams through education, so that everyone is empowered to not only become more productive but also to reimagine what your business might be.

Once you’ve created this foundation, you need to be intentional about your exploration of new opportunities.

You don’t get innovative ideas by telling your people “Be innovative!”, you get innovative ideas by creating a safe space for people to experiment.

Let’s get even more practical: At AI Academy we run a B2C program called “Generative AI Project Bootcamp”, where students spend roughly 3 hours per week over 2 months building whatever project they want (while they learn how to do it). Two of our customers bought a private edition for their teams, giving 30 people in their company (AI champions) the time and resources to experiment with whatever crazy idea they may have for new products or services. In 2 months, they got over 10 functioning prototypes they could test and potentially allocate more resources towards to turn them into real products.

The reason why it works is because innovation is not left to luck: you’re not waiting for a random employee to come up with a cool idea while taking a shower. You’re giving everyone the tools and the space to experiment, communicating that innovation IS a priority.

If you want to run a bootcamp too you can reach out here, otherwise, I hope you’ll apply these principles in your own way, and have some fun.