Many companies are automating broken processes faster than they’re fixing them. We can’t reimagine the future by simply automating the past.
I previously shared Microsoft’s data showing a productivity crisis. 275 daily interruptions. 80% of workers lacking time and energy. Yet 53% of leaders say productivity must increase.
Making interruptions happen faster doesn’t help anyone.
What does reimagining workflows with AI actually look like?
I was running an AI workshop on eliminating handoffs between teams. We discussed chaining GPTs as one approach (see more about chaining GPTs in the comments). A GTM leader got excited about the capability but then paused. She said, “If we just connect GPTs to mirror our current process, we’d be automating something that’s highly inefficient.”
She was right. Here’s her team’s product launch process:
Product team dumps specs in a doc → Marketing schedules discovery meeting for next week → Positioning workshop happens month later → Creative brief gets written → Design takes 2 weeks → Copy review involves 6 stakeholders → Legal review → Launch messaging finally ready 8 weeks after product completion.
Instead of automating that mess, she asked: “What if we could have launch-ready messaging within 3 weeks of product completion?”
That question led to a completely different approach. Rather than chaining GPTs to replicate the broken handoffs, the team redesigned the entire workflow around positioning, messaging, and creative development happening in parallel with shared context.
Reimagining workflows with AI actually looks like questioning everything about how work gets done.
When we do this, we get faster results AND better quality and outcomes.
