"Time Saved" Is a Metric, Not a Business Outcome

"Time saved" is a metric. It's not an automatic business outcome.

In companies with heavy AI and agent adoption, I'm seeing big jumps in output. 5-10x, sometimes way more. Especially in software development. I've also seen individuals run up $10K+ in AI usage costs per month.

In every AI-adopting company I've worked with, 10x+ the output just isn't translating into 10x the impact yet.

Some of this is because everything they do can take months to show up in the sales and finance reporting. But in a lot of cases all that output just isn't making a material difference yet. It's hard to redesign workflows that cross roles, teams, and systems.

• Output accumulates behind expert or founder review.
• Faster production does not create faster adoption.
• Teams measure completed output instead of changed customer or employee behavior.

Companies need to develop a much better understanding of how value flows through their businesses. Some of this just needs time to breathe in the market to see how it moves pipeline, revenue, retention, and more.

Even if you succeed at redesigning the workflows, it's also really hard to get the measurements in place to feel confident the dollars are going to come in. In my 20+ year career, very few places I've encountered have been able to reliably define and measure leading indicators.

Agents in the right workflows can get things to market sooner and can help synthesize feedback faster.

But, you have to carve out space and real budget for redesigning and measuring workflows to make sure you're getting a return on that increasingly large AI budget line item.

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