AI beyond the demo
An AI demo can produce a good answer and still leave most of the job unfinished. Someone has to find the right information, check the output and decide what happens next. A useful product makes that whole sequence easier.
Follow the work first
Follow a piece of work from the moment it arrives to the moment somebody considers it done. Notice the information people gather, the decisions they defer and the work they repeat. The most useful starting point may be a small handover that nobody has thought to question.
Take a document-review workflow. The first useful version might identify missing files, extract a few required fields and assemble the sources for a reviewer. Write down how the existing process works, then compare the total effort, including the time spent checking the system’s output.
Keep the sources close
An interface should help a person understand what a system has done and decide what to do next. Show the relevant source material. Make it easy to correct an assumption. Keep review and approval close to the decision they concern.
We prefer to design those moments early. A polished answer without a useful way to question it can create more work than it removes. The path for uncertainty deserves the same attention as the successful path.
Plan for incomplete information
Ask how the experience behaves when information is incomplete, a service is unavailable or an answer is unhelpful. Decide who can intervene and how the work continues. These choices belong in the product brief, alongside the things the system should do well.
Start with a bounded workflow and a way to compare the result with the existing process. Observe the effort required to review, correct and maintain it. The question is whether the whole job becomes better, including the parts that remain human.
Put it into practice
Try one complete task.
Choose a recurring piece of work. Compare the time and effort needed to complete it with and without AI, including review and corrections. Keep the examples that reveal where it fails.
