What to do if AI is making your team feel unmotivated
As AI tools continue to embed themselves into daily workflows, the impact on productivity is undeniable. In creative, strategic fields like marketing, they’re helping teams write faster, clean data more efficiently and stay organised easier than ever. On paper, it’s a win.
But in reality it doesn’t feel great for some reason…and as many leaders I’ve spoken to have flagged, work-speed is up, but motivation is down. Teams may be asking what it all means: What’s the point of this now? Has the fun gone? Am I even needed?
It’s totally understandable
And truthfully, I do totally understand why many teams are feeling like this. I usually try to keep these blogs neutral and not about me, but I can relate a lot to this topic. There is so much that I do which AI has made easier, cutting out between 20 - 80% of the laborious work (formatting, changing the length of an article, doing initial cleaning of a messy data set, pointing out where I’m likely to find patterns in my data, helping write slide notes, etc.) but it’s taken away some of the fun and creativity that can come in these less interesting corners of my day.
What do we care about?
I think the problem lies in which parts of work energise us – one might assume that in a creative marketing role, it’s the thinking up of ideas and organising them that might get the workplace motivation going. And so if AI is helping with this, and is doing a reasonably good job, then why bother doing the work more slowly (and potentially less well) just because it makes us feel better about things? That is surely the way to get priced out of the job market. So when you’re a leader, you need to help your team to use AI for what it can help with, without everyone losing their sense of self.
Name what’s happening
The best starting point is a conversation, where you and your team confront what’s happening. ‘Yes, AI is making work faster, and sometimes better, but it’s making some of our work feel a bit more boring or flat, I think. Are you feeling that way?’ Acknowledging what’s going wrong – actually naming it – can help to reduce the feeling of tension or stress which can come from not talking about it. I’m finding there’s still quite a lot of guilt around AI – both in terms of not being up to speed on it, and/or using it too much and feeling as though you have somehow failed at your role. So the more we can talk about how we feel about it, the better!
Where does the human spark still matter?
Once the issue is on the table, start to explore where the real value of human creativity still lives in their work. Where are the places that still need imagination, context and a human touch – all the things that AI can’t quite replicate?
When people are doing improvised comedy, the big rule is you never block – it’s always ‘yes, and’, and I think this rule applies really well to AI. Take what it’s done, and build on it, make it better, reinject that human spark. (NB: if you are working with what AI has done, don’t forget it’s not always the most reliable thinking partner and you’ll need to check it hasn’t got anything wrong or made anything up before you ‘yes, and’ it).
Thinking (and writing) about this has made me feel a bit more positive about the role AI can play in my work, reducing the boredom a little. I hope, maybe, it’ll have the same effect on you.
3 resources to reduce boredom at work:
How to make work fun (this is a gorgeous article! Strongly recommend!):
Why boredom makes us feel tired and how to counteract it
Why AI leads to a sense of boredom and what we can do to stop it
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