Chris Card, Sr Director | Technical Support Engineering | Hyperscience
We hear about it more and more with the advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, China’s DeepSeek, and stories of companies investing billions to develop AI or integrate its capabilities into the workplace. These stories often highlight AI’s potential to drive efficiencies, reduce costs, and save time. They tout AI as a tool that enables employees to focus on tasks that are more valuable to the business than the rote daily tasks they’re asked to perform. The message from AI evangelists is clear: we should embrace AI as a liberating force, one that allows us to make a real impact in our businesses and for our customers.
But these narratives tend to be corporate-focused, emphasizing benefits for employers and shareholders while leaving out a crucial perspective: how does AI impact employees? What does it mean to “spend time on more valuable tasks”? The broad, business-centric discussions fail to address the tangible concerns employees have about AI’s role in their lives and careers.
One thing is certain: AI is here to stay. Just like the internet, text messaging, and collaboration tools like Slack and Zoom, AI is now an integral part of our world. The question isn’t whether it should exist and be used but how we can apply it effectively and in alignment with the broader goals of both businesses and employees, ultimately benefiting customers as well.
So how do we break down the corporate jargon and illustrate the critical role humans will continue to play in a post-AI world? Let’s examine one of AI’s biggest promises: freeing employees to focus on more valuable tasks.
Consider an insurance claims processor. Their job is to review claim packets, ensuring all necessary documentation is included before approving payments. Real people depend on their work—people facing stressful medical bills, car repairs, or other financial burdens. Accuracy and efficiency matter to both the insurer and the insured.
Before AI, claims processors manually reviewed every submission, ensuring compliance with reimbursement guidelines. It might take an average of 15 minutes to process a single claim, meaning a processor could complete about twenty-six claims per day, taking into account scheduled meetings and ad-hoc conversations. Of those twenty-six cases, nineteen might be in good order, while seven require additional work—missing forms, incorrect details, or other issues requiring human intervention. Before AI, the claims processor had relatively little time to spend on the valuable task of connecting with policyholders to assist them with the claims process. The majority of their time was spent reviewing claims that were complete and ready to be paid—claims that required no special insight or knowledge beyond documented rules and requirements.
Enter AI. In a post-AI workplace, an AI assistant can automate the initial review, checking for completeness and accuracy. Because it runs on powerful computers, the AI assistant can perform these tasks more quickly than the claims processor, reducing processing times by 70% or more compared to fully manual data entry and review. If a claim is straightforward, AI processes it instantly. If there are issues or uncertainties, the AI flags the case for human review. Now, instead of spending time on routine approvals, the claims processor focuses solely on cases that require expertise and human judgment.
This shift might allow the AI assistant to process over one hundred claims in the same eight-hour period, compared to the twenty-six a human could handle alone. The processor may still handle twenty-six cases—but now, each one genuinely requires human insight, empathy, and communication. Instead of being replaced, the worker is now focusing on the most meaningful aspects of their role: helping customers with complex issues, providing reassurance, and ensuring fair outcomes. And the policyholders with complete claims? They get paid much more quickly thanks to the AI assistant’s faster processing speed.
And this transformation isn’t limited to insurance. Financial services, transportation and logistics, public sector agencies, and many other industries stand to benefit from AI in similar ways. The goal isn’t to eliminate jobs but to remove the repetitive, low-value tasks that consume time and energy. With AI handling routine work, human workers can dedicate themselves to the tasks that require creativity, critical thinking, and, most importantly, human connection.
AI is not the end of work. It’s a shift—one that requires us to recognize the truly valuable aspects of our jobs and become comfortable shedding the mundane work that prevents us from doing what we do best. The future of work is not just about automation—it’s about unlocking human potential.
