What if incorporating more AI into your business meant that you could invest less of your time, get more value from that time, and then be good humans, be compassionate to yourselves and others in the time and the freedom that that creates? You would essentially be able to give that AI benefit back to your employees to allow them more time to breathe, to deal with external stressors, and allow your employees to do more excellent work. 

The 40-hour work week of a typical office worker isn’t really filled with 40 hours of work. The actual important, creative work probably only takes up a fraction of the time that they are sitting in their chair. That’s the work that requires a deep understanding of your business and your customers, and that’s the part you need to preserve, nurture, and develop. 

Modern Logic’s CEO, Dustin Bruzenak, says, “Years ago, I had a job as a young developer at a really large company. I remember my day would be to show up, boot my computer, do my email, and then I’d go pace around the skyways in St. Paul for a couple of hours. Finally, I would sit down, work for an intense 45 minutes, and I would go to lunch. My supervisor would say, “What am I paying you for, Dustin, if you’re not going to be sitting at your desk working?” Dustin recalls that his response was that the at-the-desk-working part of the job was not where the value was. “It’s the pacing around the skyway where I’m building this thing in my brain and solving the problem. That’s where the real work is being done.” 

Now that technology has evolved so that you can just speak to your computer, you don’t have to use a keyboard to interface with computers or sit at a desk. The future of office work could literally be taking a walk in the park, talking to your phone. And you could get more productivity and creative work out of your team, not by having AI do their jobs, but by having AI take over the parts of their job that weigh them down and keep them at those desk chairs, filling the hours.

Want to learn more? Check out our podcast: Episode #13: The Future of work is a 4 day work week

(art by Becka Rahn)