AI Didn’t Break the Work. It Just Showed Us What Was Already Broken.

I posted a simple thought on LinkedIn and didn’t expect it to turn into a proper conversation.

But it did.

The post wasn’t really about AI. It was about something much more everyday: how work actually happens inside businesses — and how messy it can get when no one’s ever sat down and agreed a shared way of doing things.

And the more comments came in, the clearer one thing became:

Most businesses don’t struggle with AI. They struggle with alignment.

That’s not an insult. It’s normal. It’s just the truth of day-to-day work.

The biggest surprise from the thread

I expected people to argue about tools.

Instead, people kept coming back to the same point:

That’s it in one line.

AI doesn’t walk into your business and cause chaos like some villain. What it does is move fast — and when you introduce speed into a business where work is inconsistent, undocumented, and trapped in people’s heads…

The gaps show up immediately.

Or as one comment put it:

That line got repeated, reshared, and agreed with more than once. Because it’s true.

What people were really saying (without even realising)

When you strip away the “AI talk”, most people were describing the same problems:

• Different people doing the same task in different ways
• No shared “this is how we do it”
• Work living in inboxes, chats, and people’s heads
• No clear ownership when something goes wrong
• Everyone busy, but no one sure what “good” looks like

One comment nailed it with a simple comparison:

That’s the part most businesses skip. Not because they’re lazy — but because they’re busy. They’ve grown. They’ve adapted. They’ve survived.

But AI doesn’t play nicely with “we’ll just figure it out”.

The real value of AI isn’t magic. It’s thinking space.

This was one of my favourite themes in the thread, because it’s the most human one.

People weren’t excited about AI because it can write emails or summarise meetings.

They were excited because of what it gives back: headspace.

I’ve felt that myself.

When you’re carrying everything in your head — tasks, follow-ups, decisions, “did I reply to that?”, “what did we say last week?” — you’re always reacting. Even on a good day.

AI, used properly, can remove some of that mental clutter. Not by “doing your job for you”, but by taking the repetitive noise out of the way so you can think properly again.

And that’s where the real value sits.

Not in shiny tools.

Not in new dashboards.

Just in less noise.

“But what about governance?”

This came up too — especially from people in leadership and governance-heavy environments.

They weren’t wrong. They were just using bigger words to describe the same thing.

When you translate it into GrowthZone language, what they mean is:

• Who owns the decision?
• When do we trust the output?
• When do we override it?
• What happens when someone challenges it?
• What do we do when something feels “off”?

One person put it brilliantly:

That’s not a technology problem.

That’s an ownership problem.

And you don’t fix ownership with buzzwords. You fix it with simple rules.

The GrowthZoneAI way to make AI work

I’m not interested in making AI sound complicated. The North East doesn’t need more jargon. It needs straight talking and practical help.

So here’s the simple version of what this whole thread revealed:

1. 1.Start with the work, not the tool. If you can’t clearly describe the problem, AI won’t help. Ask: Where does time leak every week? What repeats? What lives in people’s heads? What creates delays or mistakes?

1. 2.Agree a “good enough” way of doing it. This is the alignment bit. Not a 40-page process document. Just a shared understanding.

1. 3.Use AI to remove the boring bits first. This is where AI earns its place. Used properly, AI should take admin off people’s plates, reduce inbox overload, and cut repetitive, time-wasting tasks. That’s the win.

1. 4.Keep people responsible for decisions. This came up repeatedly, and it’s a line I’ll repeat forever: AI doesn’t get the final say. People do.

That’s the line between useful and risky.

The “aha” moment is real — and it’s what businesses need

One thing that kept coming up was how quickly people shift from overwhelmed to confident once they see one practical example that fits their world.

That’s why I keep saying: it’s not about more AI. It’s about the right use, in the right place, with the right boundaries.

Final thought

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this thread, it’s this:

AI isn’t a shortcut to success. It’s a mirror.

It reflects your work back at you.

If your work is clear, AI makes it faster and calmer.

If your work is messy, AI makes it obvious.

Either way, that’s not a bad thing.

Because once you can see the problem clearly, you can fix it.

And that’s what GrowthZoneAI is here for — real people, real work, made simpler.

If you’re a North East business and you’re curious where AI could genuinely save you time (without adding more noise), start with this question:

What’s the part of your work you wish technology would make simpler — not bigger?