AI didn’t eliminate our work. It changed what our team could do

What happens when your team needs a designer, a salesperson and a researcher, but you don’t have the resources to hire all three? For many small businesses, this is a familiar challenge.

I lead Stories of Asia (SOA), where our work spans several areas, including leadership development through SEED Academy, personal and leadership branding through Personal Brand Lab, and professional community building. Yet, like many growing businesses, we don’t have a dedicated specialist for every function. We don’t have a full-time in-house designer. We don’t have a dedicated sales team beyond myself. And sometimes, we need industry knowledge that nobody on the team has developed expertise in yet.

But as we’ve integrated AI into our daily operations, something interesting has happened. AI hasn’t simply helped our team work faster. It has allowed people to do things they previously couldn’t. And I believe that’s an opportunity more business leaders should pay attention to.

When job descriptions become less restrictive

One of the most noticeable changes has been how our team approaches work outside their original responsibilities.

Our operations team, for example, isn’t made up of trained salespeople. Yet with AI, team members can now help develop pitch decks, structure proposals and research potential business opportunities. Similarly, colleagues without formal design backgrounds can create marketing collaterals, presentation visuals and banners for client projects.

We also develop leadership and organisational development programmes for clients across different industries. Sometimes, we’re exploring an industry or organisational challenge that our team isn’t deeply familiar with. AI helps us understand the context, explore possible approaches and develop an initial programme proposal.

Of course, understanding the client’s actual needs, designing meaningful learning experiences and making the final recommendations still require human judgement. But the difference is that our team can now contribute meaningfully to work that might previously have been beyond their experience. It’s not about replacing specialists. It’s about expanding what people are capable of contributing.

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The hardest part has moved somewhere else

That doesn’t mean working with AI is always straightforward.

We learnt this when researching corporate training costs across several Southeast Asian markets. AI generated what looked like a comprehensive comparison, complete with pricing figures and supporting references. However, when we started checking the information, we discovered that some figures couldn’t be reliably substantiated. The problem wasn’t an obviously incorrect answer. It was an answer that looked ready to use.

We’ve encountered similar challenges in creative work. When we support professionals and leaders with their personal branding and LinkedIn content, AI helps our team research topics, organise ideas and develop initial drafts.

But producing content isn’t the same as capturing someone’s perspective. AI might generate a polished leadership post, but it doesn’t necessarily understand a person’s experiences, communication style or what makes their point of view distinctive. Our team still needs to listen to clients, understand their stories and refine the content so it reflects who they are.

The same applies to design. Sometimes, asking AI to change one element leads to several unintended changes elsewhere.

These experiences have taught us something important: The ability to generate work is becoming easier. The ability to exercise good judgement is becoming more important.

AI adoption also means rethinking people’s roles

Another interesting change has been how AI is influencing the way we organise our team.

Recently, we reviewed our digital marketing activities and identified areas that weren’t delivering the results we wanted. Rather than simply continuing with the same approach, we began exploring how AI could support different ways of working.

One team member who had been working on digital performance and website optimisation started developing AI-supported workflows for content production and short-form video editing. The goal is to make content creation more scalable, allowing us to experiment with organic channels such as YouTube and TikTok.

This isn’t just about introducing another AI tool. It’s about someone learning new capabilities and gradually expanding their role as the needs of the business evolve. Of course, technology alone doesn’t make this possible. It also requires people who are willing to learn, experiment and step outside their comfort zones.

As a leader, I’ve found this particularly encouraging. Instead of looking at AI purely as a way to automate existing tasks, we’re beginning to see how it can help our people develop capabilities that keep them relevant as work changes.

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What do we do with the time AI gives us?

There’s another change that I find equally meaningful.

A significant part of our work involves bringing people together through professional communities, leadership conversations and networking events. Previously, much of our team’s attention went towards coordinating activities, preparing materials, drafting communications and handling repetitive operational tasks. AI now helps with portions of that work.

This creates an opportunity to redirect more attention towards engaging community members, understanding client needs and building relationships. For instance, rather than spending most of their time preparing event communications, our team can devote more attention to conversations with participants and identifying opportunities to connect people. That’s a much more valuable use of their time.

According to Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index, 53 per cent of leaders say productivity must increase, while 80 per cent of workers report insufficient time or energy to complete their work. But perhaps the more interesting question isn’t simply how many hours AI can save us. It’s what we choose to do with those hours.

The real opportunity lies in developing people

Looking back at our experience, I don’t think the greatest benefit of AI has been producing more content, generating proposals faster or automating repetitive tasks. It’s seeing our people become more capable.

Someone without a sales background can contribute to business development. Someone without design training can create useful visual materials. Someone working in digital marketing can explore new technical capabilities and workflows. And our team can spend more time on the human connections that matter to our clients and communities.

For business leaders, I believe this calls for a different conversation about AI adoption. Instead of asking only which jobs or tasks AI can replace, perhaps we should also ask: What new capabilities can AI help our people develop?

Because ultimately, technology will continue to evolve. The bigger question is whether we’re helping our people evolve alongside it. And from what we’ve experienced, that’s where the real opportunity lies.

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