Faster People, Slower Organizations

AI can make one person faster. It cannot make a team aligned.

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That distinction matters more than most companies realize. AI is sold at the individual level: draft quicker, summarize quicker, analyze quicker. That value is real. But organizations don't perform through individual output, they perform when people agree on what matters, share what they know, and turn all that activity into a decision someone can act on.

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So here's the risk nobody's talking about: one person using AI to generate more drafts and options means everyone around them now has more to read, reconcile, and question. Individual speed doesn't automatically add up to collective progress; sometimes it just adds up to more noise.

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A global BCG survey of nearly 12,000 workers found that 42% of regular AI users save at least a full workday every week. But 66% get little or no guidance on what to do with that time, and more than half never redirect it toward anything strategic. The saved hours don't disappear; they just get absorbed into more meetings, more drafts, more things to review.

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The fix isn't more tools. It's coordination: knowing who needs to be in the room, which handoffs actually matter, and when the team needs to pause and realign before it drifts apart.

‍This article is an extract of "The Human Skills Premium: Where Value Moves in the Age of AI" by Simon Blanchette, McGill University Desautels.