Opinion
Before you automate a process with AI, ask whether it should still exist
AI can accelerate almost any workflow. The larger opportunity begins when organizations reconsider the decisions, roles and approval chains that define how work gets done.
At a recent company-wide meeting, our CEO told a story that has stayed with me. It was about the arrival of electricity in factories built for steam.
By the end of the nineteenth century, many factories depended on a large central engine that powered machines through a complex system of belts, pulleys and shafts. When electric motors became available, many manufacturers used them to replace that central power source while leaving the factory’s layout and workflows largely intact. The source of power had changed, but the assumptions around it had not.
Electrification also made a different kind of factory possible. Smaller motors could power individual machines, allowing equipment and production lines to be organized around the work itself rather than around one central engine. The technology mattered, as did the willingness to reconsider a system that had once seemed inevitable.
I keep returning to that story as organizations adopt AI. Most companies begin with sensible, useful applications: summarizing meetings, drafting emails, preparing reports, organizing research or creating a first version of a presentation. These tools can save meaningful time across everyday work. Yet many of these uses amount to installing a better motor inside a factory whose basic design has not changed.
That is understandable. People rarely begin by questioning an entire system; we adapt new technology to the processes we already know. The same thing happens inside organizations.
Across organizations, processes often start as thoughtful solutions to real problems. Years pass, teams change and the original reasoning fades. Familiar examples include approval chains that have outlived their original purpose, information entered into several systems, or reports produced largely because they have always been produced. Somewhere in a shared drive sits a document called “Final_v7_FINAL2_UseThisOne,” quietly demonstrating how easily temporary workarounds become permanent infrastructure.
Before using AI to accelerate a process, leaders should ask a more fundamental question: would we design this process in the same way if we were starting today?
If information can be gathered and analyzed almost instantly, does a decision still need to move through the same chain? If a first draft takes minutes rather than hours, where should human expertise enter the process? If routine coordination can happen automatically, how should managers divide their time between coordination, judgment, coaching and resolving ambiguity?
These are questions about how work is organized. For People and HR leaders, they create a responsibility that goes beyond teaching employees how to use another tool. Training matters, but adoption alone will not redesign work. Organizations also need to examine how responsibilities are divided, where decisions are made and where human judgment creates the most value.
Efficiency can hide a deeper design problem. Cutting the time required to complete a task does not necessarily make the surrounding process more valuable. A faster approval chain may still contain unnecessary approvals. A better reporting tool may still produce a report no one uses. An AI-generated first draft may save an employee an hour while leaving unclear who is expected to challenge, improve or take responsibility for the final decision.
Many processes exist for good reasons, including accountability, safety, regulatory requirements and the need for human judgment. Revisiting them does not mean discarding those protections. It means giving leaders and employees permission to say, “Maybe the process isn’t sacred,” and then test which parts remain essential and which survive mainly because they are familiar. If you have ever worked in HR, you know that sentence can raise a few eyebrows. It can also begin some of the most valuable conversations an organization will have.
History rarely rewards organizations simply for adopting new technology. It rewards those willing to let that technology challenge assumptions that once made perfect sense.
As AI becomes more capable and more deeply embedded in everyday work, the organizations that benefit most will use it to question the design of work itself. They will decide, process by process, which parts of yesterday’s factory are still worth keeping.
Sivan Avihud is Vice President and Global Head of People at ERGO NEXT Insurance.
