Shift focus from viewing AI as a tool for individual or team productivity to a force for fundamental structural change in how work is organized and executed across the entire company. This requires a mindset that moves beyond incremental improvements.

Notion's CEO compares current AI adoption to swapping a water wheel for a steam engine but keeping the factory layout the same. The real gains will come from fundamentally rethinking workflows, meetings, and hierarchies to leverage AI that works 24/7, rather than just layering it onto existing processes.

Drawing a parallel to the slow adoption of PCs in the 90s, Boris Churney argues companies won't see AI productivity boosts by simply layering it onto old workflows. The biggest benefits come from placing AI at the core of the business and redesigning processes around its capabilities, eliminating old bottlenecks entirely.

The historical adoption of electricity in factories shows that true productivity gains came from redesigning the factory floor, not simply replacing steam engines. Similarly, companies must fundamentally re-engineer processes around AI to unlock its transformative potential.

True productivity gains from AI will mirror the adoption of electricity. Early factories that just replaced steam engines with electric motors saw little benefit. The revolution happened when they completely redesigned the factory floor around the new technology. Similarly, companies must reimagine entire workflows around human-AI collaboration.

Adding AI tools to current processes yields only incremental efficiency. To achieve significant business impact, leaders must rebuild their entire go-to-market system—roles, workflows, and data flow—with AI at the core, not as an add-on.

The adoption of AI mirrors the introduction of electricity; initial, limited gains come from plugging it into existing processes. Massive productivity leaps will only be achieved by fundamentally redesigning organizational structures and workflows around AI's capabilities, just as factories were redesigned for electricity.

AI does more than speed up existing work. It unbundles traditional workflows, jobs, and organizations, allowing for fundamentally new structures to emerge. The real value is in this "reshuffle," not in simple efficiency gains on today's work.

Just as electricity's impact was muted until factory floors were redesigned, AI's productivity gains will be modest if we only use it to replace old tools (e.g., as a better Google). Significant economic impact will only occur when companies fundamentally restructure their operations and workflows to leverage AI's unique capabilities.