What if the Real Dividend of AI is Space, Not Pace?
4 minute read
Evolution or revolution? The jury is still out on how profoundly AI will reshape the business landscape.
One school of thought, the evolution camp, sees AI as a powerful tool that enhances how we already work, improving quality and performance. More radical voices argue it will replace over 80% of professional jobs within a few short years.
Somewhere between these poles, one thing is already clear. Tasks that once took hours can now be completed in minutes. AI productivity gains will undoubtedly free up time. The real question is what we choose to do with it.
The knives are already being sharpened by efficiency-driven COOs, with headcount reductions firmly in their sights. But more thoughtful CEOs might pause before reaching for them.
What if AI’s greatest advantage is not the speed it enables, but the space it creates?
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The pace of business has accelerated to something approaching warp speed. The temptation will be to chase a short-term hit to the P&L through cost-cutting. But there is a more valuable alternative. Leaders could choose to reinvest this dividend, not in more output, but in their people, creating space for reflection, experimentation and learning.
Why does this matter? Three reasons stand out: differentiation, mental wellbeing, and what I call “Analogue Intelligence”.
First, differentiation. As AI becomes ubiquitous, access to information will no longer be a competitive advantage. What will matter is how organisations harness the uniquely human qualities of their people, ingenuity, creativity, judgement, and empathy.
Yet creativity requires space. And right now, most organisations are starved of it.
“Too many organisations are locked in a cycle of relentless execution, with no room for thinking.”
We are witnessing a kind of collective attention deficit, a culture of perpetual distraction and busyness. In the recent T Minus Disruptive Leadership Report, 60% of respondents said they were too busy to be innovative. That should be a wake-up call. Too many organisations are locked in a cycle of relentless execution, with no room for thinking.
Neuroscience reinforces the point. We are most creative when accessing the brain’s Default Mode Network, often associated with mind-wandering. It is no coincidence that our best ideas arrive in the shower or towards the end of a holiday, when the mind finally has space to roam.
The second reason is mental wellbeing. The “always on” culture of modern work carries a significant human cost.
Roles have expanded dramatically over recent decades, fuelled by automation, digitalisation and globalisation. While these shifts have driven efficiency, they have also created strain. Deloitte’s 2024 report estimates that poor mental health costs UK businesses £51 billion annually. Nearly half of that comes from presenteeism, people showing up, but unable to perform at their best.
And in a world of hybrid working, you no longer need to be physically present to experience it.
“Smartphones, in the hands of distracted humans, do not make us smarter.”
Which brings me to the third argument, “Analogue Intelligence”, the human counterbalance to AI.
Technology has not always delivered the productivity gains it promised. In some cases, it has done the opposite. Constant connectivity and device addiction can erode focus and fragment attention.
I cannot be the only one frustrated by a 20-minute ping-pong exchange on Slack or WhatsApp that could have been resolved in a one-minute phone call. You do not need the latest iPhone to improve productivity. Just the common sense to use a much older invention, the telephone.
Smartphones, in the hands of distracted humans, do not make us smarter.
So, if the AI productivity dividend is space rather than speed, how should we fill it?
“Technology is advancing faster than our wisdom.”
The answer is simple. We should resist the urge to fill it at all.
The Japanese concept of “Ma” describes intentional space, an emptiness full of possibility, the silence between notes that gives music its meaning. In a business context, it points to something we have lost, the discipline of creating space to think, reflect and imagine.
We are living in an age where technology is advancing faster than our wisdom. Amid the rush to deploy AI, the most effective leaders may be those who recognise that the next transformation will not be purely artificial.
It will require a deeply human shift as well.
Gib Bulloch spent 20 years in Accenture, most of it as the “intrapreneur” Founder and Executive Director of the company’s not-for-profit consulting business, Accenture Development Partnerships. His changemaker journey was chronicled in his first book, The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent – a personal story of the challenges of driving change in the face of the “corporate immune system”. Bulloch is now focused on growing Craigberoch, an exciting new platform for social and environmental innovation and more conscious leadership in business.
Read Gib Bulloch’s previous columns here.
