The AI efficiency trap
In his 1996 paper Michael Porter (of Five Forces fame) wrote an article for HBR entitled “What is strategy?”.
In this paper he highlighted something which he classed as not strategic - operational efficiency. His reasoning is that overtime time any gain in operational efficiency can simply be copied by rivals and becomes the standard benchmark - meaning you lose any edge over time.
AI is helping us be more productive (and increasing OE) and whilst this is a benefit, it is not a long term strategic benefit. It is a small win in the short term but offers no long term advantage.
The trap is this feels like progress. Increasing efficiency and removing all the $1 tasks is a good thing - but it is not strategic progress. Using AI to get 10x more $1 tasks done is only a very small amount of progress - but it feels (and looks from the outside) like much more.
Summary
- Using AI to be more efficient is a good thing
- But efficiency is not strategy
- Use the new time you have from better tooling to focus on tasks that move the needle