How much of your business should eventually be run by technology?
It feels like weโre reaching a point where almost every business problem has the same potential answer: AI.
A project is taking too long? Letโs automate it. A sales problem? AI could help. Process, product, peopleโit doesnโt seem to matter.
And to be fair, AI might be the answer to a lot of it. There are dozens of things inside most businesses that technology can do faster, cheaper, or more consistently than a person can.
Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School, has written extensively about something called the Jagged Frontier of AI: the uneven boundary between tasks AI handles well and those where it still falls short. And that frontier keeps moving as the technology changes.
For a leadership team, I think thereโs a question buried in that idea: Where do we want to draw the line?
What work should we hand over to technology? And where do our people still need to be part of the equation?
Some work is probably better served by a machine: repetitive tasks, admin, documentation, certain kinds of research and analysis.
Then there are places where the person is part of the value youโre delivering. The relationship, the judgment call, the years of experience that tell you when the usual answer isnโt the right one.
A transactional business might push much further toward technology than a relationship-based business.
But thereโs something missing when AI becomes the automatic answer.
In my experience, itโs easy to spend a lot of time asking whether AI could solve an issue without stopping to ask whether it should.
Thereโs something else Iโve been thinking about, too.
AI is an incredible accelerator. But what exactly are we accelerating?
If your people, processes, data, and priorities arenโt clear, making everything faster wonโt necessarily make the business better. You may just be moving faster without everyone moving in the same direction.
Thatโs where I keep coming back to the fundamentals of EOS.
EOS isnโt going to draw your AI line for you. But it does help a leadership team get clear on how the business operates, who needs to do what, what customers value, and where the organization is going.
And youโre going to need that clarity because the line isnโt going to stay put.
What requires a person today may not require one two years from now. AI will keep getting better. Your business will keep changing. The line will move with both.
So maybe the question isnโt whether youโre using enough AI. Itโs whether youโve been intentional about where youโre using it.
Where have you drawn the line in your business today?
And do you know why you drew it there?
Every Saturday, I share my personal thoughts, practical frameworks, and lessons learned from leading EOS Worldwide.
