Digital Transformation, AI, and the Productivity Problem

By Rob Enderle for COMPUTERWORLD

The age of generative AI comes with the promise that it will significantly increase productivity. I can certainly see the potential given I’m using a form of it writing this column and it is doing a decent job of anticipating the next word I intend to write. But I’m also noticing that to get the most from this feature, I need to hit the right arrow key, which slows me down considerably. So, I generally end up typing the entire word anyway because the keyboard I’m using doesn’t lend itself to making autocomplete work.

In a nutshell, rather than speeding up my writing (the promise), the impact on my productivity may be negative (the reality) because, when I do hit the arrow key, it breaks my typing flow and forces me to reposition my right hand.

For this kind of AI tool to be a benefit, I’d need to not only modify my keyboard, I’d also need to retrain myself to use the correct arrow key rather than typing the complete word. (This could take a while, given I’ve been typing without doing this for around 55 years.)

The critical path

When we learn about process optimization, we usually discuss a concept called “the critical path.” This is the path a process has that defines how quickly something can get done. If you improve anything but the critical path…