The potential benefits and opportunities from AI agents in both our business and personal lives center around one word: productivity. Being able to do more with the help of AI seems like a no-brainer and a road to a less busy and hectic life.
But we’ve heard this before, haven’t we?
Like the introduction of the internet, smartphones, and app stores – all had the promise to simplify our lives and boost productivity. While they have had a profound impact on the way we work, it hasn’t changed how busy we are. In fact, Pew Research found that 47 percent of office-based employees said technology has actually increased their work hours. We always seem to fall back into the “busyness trap,” using technology to get things done faster, but filling our newly-found spare time by adding more menial tasks to our lists.
Why? Because we live and work in a world where being busy is equated with success. However, this new AI era presents a chance to approach things in a completely different way.
Group Vice President, Oracle AI.
The fascination around AI being able to unlock new levels of productivity is absolutely warranted – it is an opportunity to help employees save time on administrative tasks and focus on delivering more strategic value through bigger, more impactful projects.
But in order to achieve that, we need to spark a mindset shift around what productivity truly means and to become comfortable with a “fewer but better” philosophy. Otherwise, we’re setting ourselves up to repeat the same busyness cycles we’ve seen before.
Business leaders now have the chance to rethink their approach, create an employee experience built on impact vs. to-do lists, redefine success standards, and optimize an AI-driven workforce. Here are a few ways to get started:
It’s time to redefine productivity
By automating routine and tedious tasks, AI adoption is opening the door to new levels of productivity, but not in the sense of checking more boxes. Real productivity means doing better, bigger, and more valuable things with less.
This requires a cultural shift. Leaders must be willing to rethink what productivity actually is. Allowing people to focus more time on more meaningful initiatives can result in higher value and better execution across their organizations. By fostering a culture that emphasizes meaningful results, quality outcomes, and impactful contributions, leaders can inspire employees to align their efforts with the broader goals of the organization.
Break the mold: normalize not being busy
“There are not enough hours in the day.” “I am working as hard as I can.” “I wish I could, but I’m just too busy.” We all know these familiar phrases because more often than not, we are all busy being busy.
Busy people are too often seen as important people, but with the help of AI, we don’t have to be so busy to be accomplished. AI offers an opportunity to focus on essential, strategic, and high-value work, but it’s all for naught unless we can alter the perception around not being busy. We have to move away from the idea that busyness is a badge of honor and instead embrace intentionality, balance, and strategic prioritization.
Look for ways to reduce the noise and sit in silence
One of the key opportunities of integrating AI into workflows is letting AI agents handle the “noise.” All of those small yet time-consuming tasks that are keeping us busy can be automated. Some examples include data entry, scheduling and calendar management, time zone coordination, invoice generation, and more. Letting AI eliminate the noise of our everyday seems easy enough, as long as we don’t replace them with more tedious tasks.
Being OK with allowing AI to take over the mundane and not replacing that time with other filler tasks is a skill business leaders will need to adopt, foster, and encourage their teams to exhibit as well. It requires continuously re-evaluating the essential vs. non-essential tasks, and assigning the non-essential to AI agents. A day with three strategic priorities completed can be just as – if not more – successful as a day with ten or more to-dos checked off.
Move away from multi-tasking
We’re now so used to constant context switching between devices, screens, conversations, and projects. The idea of being productive has centered around accomplishing multiple things, and that is traditionally done by multi-tasking. Although constantly switching between tasks may seem productive, it often results in mental exhaustion, diminished concentration, and a lower quality of work.
But with the growing adoption of AI agents, we have the opportunity to lean into hyper-focused productivity and hone in on specific initiatives that require and deserve our undivided attention. Over time, this focused approach is what drives more meaningful outcomes, greater personal fulfillment, and material improvement in productivity and effectiveness.
Embrace a better way forward
Despite the potential of past technological advancements, the reality is they haven’t alleviated our busy lives as we hoped. However, AI agents offer an incredible opportunity, not just to do more, but to do better. But business leaders need to be willing to redefine cultural and workplace norms.
By focusing on quality over quantity, reducing the constant noise, and moving away from multi-tasking, we can unlock the real promise of AI and create a future where productivity energizes rather than exhausts the workforce, all resulting in better business outcomes.
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