Leading

Craft Over Efficiency

Published on Feb 4

Most of the AI conversation is stuck on the wrong framing: "How can I use AI to do more, faster?"

Sure — it will make us faster and more efficient, sometimes dramatically. But speed has never been the reason a person succeeds or a company wins. Speed is table stakes.

The framing I'm more excited about is: "How can I use AI to craft better?"

Every company will use AI to ship more. The outliers will use AI to craft better. Craft has always mattered, and it will matter even more in the future, when slop is easier than ever to create.

Some companies will use AI to solve customer support questions as quickly and cheaply as possible. Outliers will use AI to make the customer experience even better. Most of us will use AI to create more content and automate more tasks. But the outliers will use AI to raise their quality bar.

In all the hype, it's easy to lose track of what matters most: how and what your work makes people feel. Using AI to raise the bar — not just our output — is what makes the future exciting.