When small business leaders talk about AI, productivity is the most common focus.
Time is money, after all — so if an AI tool can save time that’s worth more money than what you’re paying for the tool, that’s a win.
This is why free or baked-in AI tools seem so promising: for nothing extra over what you’re already paying for your office suite, Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot promise to save you significant time.
And it’s absolutely true: AI can do certain tasks in seconds that would take your team way longer.
But it isn’t automatically true that AI is saving you the kind of time it appears to.
This is the AI speed illusion, and it’s something every small business leader or team lead needs to consider.
The Promise: Less Time on Slow, Repetitive Work
The promise of these AI tools is an attractive one: team members who aren’t staring at their screens, agonizing over how to word an email, are team members who can do other things. The same goes for slogging through meeting notes or recordings to pull out information.
When team members spend less time on slow, repetitive work and the kinds of tasks that humans aren’t all that good at anyway, they have more time to do the rest of the work. Soft skills, human touchpoints, thinking about how to move the business forward— that sort of thing.
The Lie: “AI Can Do It in Seconds”
OK, it’s not technically a lie: AI can do a lot of things in seconds. But the implication — that you’ll get all the time back you would’ve spent on the thing — that’s a lie in most cases.
Here’s an example of what we mean. Your team member might use Copilot or Gemini or a hundred other tools to generate a first draft of a training document, sales flyer, or proposal. What would’ve taken that team member an hour to craft one letter at a time appears in seconds!
But it isn’t a finished product, and assuming that it is can get teams and businesses into really awkward spots.
Various people still need to review the draft to make sure it’s on target. Your human wordsmiths may still need to add some character or smooth out some awkward wording. Every fact and figure still needs checking.
How much of that work is new because of AI? Some of those things wouldn’t be a concern (or wouldn’t present in the same ways) if your team member had actually written the draft. You might be able to rely on that team member to get the details and figures right, for example.
The Reality: Understand the Costs and Benefits
None of this means you shouldn’t use AI where it benefits you. Many businesses should and are.
No one criticizes a power drill because it still needs a human operator, and it’s not Excel’s fault that knowledgeable humans still need to do the accounting.
Think of AI in the same kind of way: it’s a tool for humans to use, not a superintelligence that can replace them.
So as you calculate how much value you’re getting out of an AI subscription, it’s important to account for costs in a real, genuine way.
Take the sales flyer or proposal draft: If AI enables the team to complete all those steps in an hour instead of 90 minutes, that’s 30 real minutes saved. But it’s not 90 minutes saved. Consider the real savings against what you may be paying for one or more AI tools to determine your real ROI.
A Better Question: What Problems Can AI Solve?
It’s natural for business leaders to focus on productivity when discussing AI, but “how much time will this save us?” may not always be the best question to ask.
Instead, start with asking what problems your business needs to solve, and how AI might be part of those solutions.
AI starts to deliver outsized value when it solves problems you couldn’t practically solve before. That’s a much bigger discussion than how much time people can save typing up reports and emails.
Could your business use an assist in figuring out the best uses of AI? Our team is here to help. Schedule a free consultation now.