The AI Ladder of Leverage

"Retrained for AI" shouldn't be a threat. It should be a Human+AI ladder of leverage.

Let's not take away from these five headlines of AI-related job cuts that all businesses must follow suit.

Rather, these multiple examples of orgs trying to make sense of changing realities only proves it is time to redesign work.

Not just to automate, but also to augment and assist.

To give human teammates more time, more energy, more devotion to each other.

More freedom to craft experiences for both customers and employees that wow.

When leaders say "retrain," most teams hear "replaced."

Let's fix the language so progress feels possible.

The AI ladder of leverage...

Assist (everyone): Draft, summarize, compare, extract—within guardrails.

Augment (some): Own workflows where AI changes how work gets done (proposals, QA, reporting).

Automate (few): Build/run small automations, evaluate vendors/models, manage risk & audit.

Amplify (excellence): When the first three tiers work together, teams reach levels of performance that WOW customers and teammates alike.

Leveraging the ladder...

1. Add an AI-Assist block to every role charter (can/can't/cite/sign-off).
2. Pick one metric per role (e.g., proposal cycle time −20%).
3. Offer two sprints of Augment rotation before any replacement talk.
4. Capture an evidence trail (prompt, sources, output, human sign-off).

Question for CXOs...

What's one Assist-layer task you'll standardize this quarter and which metric will prove it worked?