AI’s Real Impact: Why its productivity power is being underestimated

• AI is not a linear upgrade, it is an exponential force that will radically accelerate how fast and how much businesses can achieve.
• Productivity gains will reshape roles, skills and career paths, creating new opportunities rather than simply eliminating jobs.
• Those who learn, adapt and adopt AI early will capture disproportionate advantage in the next phase of economic growth.

Technology has always changed everything, this time it’s faster

‍Technology has always reshaped how we live and work. From the printing press to electricity, from the internet to smartphones, progress has consistently rewritten the rules of productivity and competition. What makes the current wave of innovation different is not the direction of change, but its speed.

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a pace that most organisations and many individuals are still struggling to comprehend. While public debate is dominated by fears of job losses and automation, far less attention is given to the far bigger story: the unprecedented opportunity for productivity, innovation and economic expansion.

Having spent more than five decades in business, half of them in a pre-digital world, I have seen this pattern before. When email emerged, many established companies dismissed it as unreliable and unnecessary. They clung to familiar systems and were quickly overtaken by those who embraced change. Progress did not wait.

Today, we are at a similar inflection point only this time the curve is exponential.

The Impact of AI: Exponential, not incremental

AI is already transforming how work gets done. Research by International Workplace Group shows that younger employees, particularly Gen Z, are leading adoption, with nearly two-thirds actively helping older colleagues integrate AI into daily workflows.

This “reverse mentoring” is accelerating learning, improving collaboration, and driving tangible productivity gains.

Yet anxiety still dominates. Many executives fear widespread job displacement and worry that entry-level roles will disappear. History suggests a different outcome. Technological revolutions rarely shrink economies; they expand them by enabling people to do more, faster, and at lower cost.

This is the essence of exponential change, a concept captured decades ago by Moore’s Law. Progress does not move in small, steady steps. It compounds. When tools become twice as powerful every few years, they don’t simply make tasks easier, they change what is possible.

AI will not just automate existing processes; it will redefine the velocity of business. When individuals can achieve ten or twenty times more in a day, organisations do not stand still. They scale, they innovate, and they create entirely new categories of work.

Crucially, AI is also becoming the most powerful learning accelerator we have ever seen. From classrooms to boardrooms, AI-enhanced training shortens the learning curve dramatically, enabling people to acquire complex skills faster than any previous generation. By removing routine tasks, it frees human capacity for creativity, judgment, and problem-solving – the areas where true value is created.

The New Advantage: Adaptability and self-starting talent

In this new environment, the winners will not be those who wait for formal systems to catch up. They will be the self-starters: individuals who actively experiment with AI tools, build fluency, and understand how to apply them to real business problems.

Just as ambitious professionals once taught themselves coding or earned additional qualifications after hours, today’s equivalent is AI literacy. Those who engage early will bring disproportionate value to employers and will shape the next generation of roles rather than compete for outdated ones.

Looking ahead

Every major technological shift follows the same pattern. Most resist change. A smaller group adapts early and captures the upside. What makes AI different is the speed and scale of its impact. It is a foundational technology, compounding across every industry and function.

AI is not the end of work. It is the beginning of better, faster, more creative and more productive work.

History is clear: in periods of exponential change, opportunity expands for those willing to learn, experiment and move first. Those who do will not only keep up with the future, they will help define it.

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