Concept
Three strategic imperatives for AI: augment, automate, invent
Not every AI initiative delivers the same kind of value. Before scoping a project, we sort it into one of three strategic imperatives, each with a different bar for success.
How it’s structured
Three imperatives, in increasing order of ambition. Augmentation, “everyday AI”, increases employees’ productivity in everyday tasks: broad, company-wide, typically worth 10-20% productivity gains. Automation, “reshape AI”, enables new workflows that change multiple processes at once, a bigger lift with a correspondingly bigger return of 30-50% improvements in speed and quality. Invention, “rethink AI”, is the most ambitious tier: rethinking business models or creating new sources of competitive advantage and entirely new revenue streams.
Where we use it
We use this framework early, before a use case gets scoped in detail, to set the right expectations on both sides of the table. A client asking for “automation” but budgeting for “augmentation” effort, or expecting “invention”-scale returns from an “everyday AI” pilot, is one of the most common sources of a disappointing AI project, not the technology itself. Naming the imperative up front keeps ambition, effort and expected return honestly aligned before any work starts.