Your AI Use Cases Are Cute. What Next?
AI doesn’t change the game by saving time. It changes the game when we reinvest it in what matters.
My LinkedIn headline says: “I help HR teams get AI ready.”
And to be honest? Some days I cringe at it.
Because it sounds so small now like running some workshops and helping teams explore use cases.
My goal for 2025 at my organization is AI adoption, awareness and education.
But recently, I had to ask myself…
Adoption for what?
Readying HR for what?
I have heard this pitch a thousand times by now..
“This tool will save your team X hours a week”
“This tool will boost productivity by 20%”
When I hear that?
I hear burnout. I hear people panicking. I hear jobs displaced.
Okay, by now you’ve got a few hundred AI use cases.
Your meeting notes are automated.
Your slide decks look prettier.
You will achieve your goals of agentic AI, you will build automation workflows and simplify everyone’s lives!
But what next!
Let’s get practical!
Take a typical Talent Acquisition workflow:
Writing Job Descriptions
Identifying Skills needed for a Role
Creating LinkedIn Marketing Content
Generating interview questions
Shortlisting resumes
Scheduling interviews
Onboarding
We can decompose each task each team does today and inject AI into the workflows to save 5-10 hours a week.
If all we do with AI is make our busywork look better and move faster, we’ve missed the point.
Here’s the kicker:
What you do with that time saved will determine whether AI becomes a tool or a turning point.
The Legendary Post-it Notes
You must know of 3M’s legendary "bootlegging policy"..
They gave employees 15% of their time to work on anything. That’s where the Post-it Note came from. And countless other innovations like Masking tape and Scotch tape that became commercial hits!
All because someone had an idea... and 3M let them chase it on the clock.
It wasn’t about output. It was about opportunity.
Employees used reclaimed time to follow curiosity, solve problems, test ideas - without asking for permission.
“Bootleggers” weren’t breaking rules. They were redefining them.
When Google copied the 3M model?
Google introduced their own version of 3M’s “15% time”, they gave engineers and other employees 20% of their time to work on side projects they were passionate about, outside of their core responsibilities.
🚀 What came out of it?
Some of Google’s most iconic innovations were born during that “discretionary time”:
Gmail
AdSense
Google Maps
Google News
That’s not “extra work.”
That’s company-defining innovation.
When people are trusted with time to explore, they don’t waste it.
They change everything.
👏 Why It Mattered
3M and Google understood something visionary:
Innovation doesn’t come from squeezing more out of people.
It comes from giving them space to think, explore, and tinker.
Now we have AI giving us that same kind of time back. What are we going to bootleg?
What can we do today?
That’s it. That’s the shift. That’s the reframing every smart HR leader - and honestly, every smart team -needs to hear right now.
IMO, we need to pack this message in to our Objectives and rephrase the way we set goals!
✅ Old objective: “Adopt AI to be more efficient.”
🚀 New objective: “Use AI to reclaim time - then reinvest that time in something that moves us forward.”
Think of AI like a time 401(k):
You make small, consistent deposits by automating low-value tasks.
But the real value? It comes when you reinvest that time into long-term gains:
Innovation
Strategy
Culture
Human connection
You’re not saving time just to have “more minutes.”
You’re building a portfolio of impact.
Final Thought:
If AI saves you time, you owe yourself one question:
What am I going to invest it in?
Let HR be that first function to reclaim its time - not to work less, but to work on what’s next, what’s important!
What’s your next pet project with the time saved?
Stay curious :)