Quick Win: The hidden reason AI isn’t delivering value at work, according to Dom Price

AI might be saving you time, but if you don’t know what to do with that time, it’s not worth much. In this Quick Win, I’m joined by Dom Price, who spent 12 years as the Work Futurist at Atlassian. Dom shares a powerful reminder: saving time with AI is meaningless unless you know how to reinvest that time intentionally. After watching organisations roll out sophisticated AI tools without upgrading the human system around them, Dom explains why people often use their newfound hours poorly - and how a single, deliberate question can transform the return you get from AI.  

Dom and I discuss: 

• Why organisations focus on AI tools but forget the human system that actually uses them  

• The surprising behaviour Dom saw when teams became “35 percent more productive” - including a huge spike in meetings  

• What happens when people gain time but aren’t guided on how to use it 

• The small mindset shift that helps you reinvest saved time more wisely 

• The reflection question that turns AI gains into genuine value: What’s the most valuable thing I can do with this time?  

KEY QUOTES 

“I don’t care what you saved. I care what you did with it.”  

“Take a moment before filling that space. Ask yourself: what’s the most valuable thing I can do with this time?”  

Connect with Dom Price on Instagram, LinkedIn and his website. 

Listen to the full conversation with Dom here.

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/ 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe 

Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. 

Get in touch at [e-mail] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Here's the thing no one wants to admit about AI
at work. The tech isn't the problem, It's the humans
that are the difficult part. In this quick win episode,
Dom Price, who spent twelve years as the work futurist
at at Lassian, says that organizations are rolling out powerful
AI tools but forgetting to upgrade the human system around them.

(00:24):
At at Lassian, Dom spent years sitting inside boardrooms watching
leaders throw millions at AI, only to leave their people overwhelmed, hesitant,
or unsure what to do with the time they suddenly save.
We unpack why saving time is meaningless if your people
don't know what to do with it, and how a

(00:46):
tiny mindset tweak can change everything.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals,
and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor
Amantha Imber.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
How about the human side of actually helping the humans change?
And it just their mindset? I know, we come across
all sorts at Inventium, and I think, like, unlike other
digital transformations, there's just there's so much more fear here.
And you know it's legitimate as well.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
We've already been sensing this for a while, which is
the nature of the change of AI is basically taking
what used to be computer programming or intelligent technology work
that was limited to people with software engineering degrees and saying, actually,
now it's just humanly accessible by our knowledge workers. You're like, oh,
that's a fundamental difference in accessibility. And here's the power

(01:52):
of it. You don't need an operator, you don't need
a person to roll it out or manage it or
trait like. It's just there as ubiquitous and as you
use it and gets more intelligent and you get more intaligy, like, okay,
this has changed all the rules of the game. So
essentially what I think has been happening for most of
the last year and a half, boards, certainly in enterprises
boards simile leaders have gone to their IT person and gone,

(02:13):
it's another IT thing. How much do you need for
this AI? And they're like forty mil And they go
and buy a few tools and they roll them out
and they're like, there you go, We've rolled them out.
But no one, no one has upgraded the human system
of how the organization actually works. And so they've given
my mother in law a ferrari. Right, It's like it's

(02:34):
not a good combination. She wants to toodle down the road,
she wants to look around, she doesn't want to go fast.
But you've given all these people who were just in
this mire of work something super bowerful, but not enabled
or activated them. The challenge I gave a CEO the
other week was, I think you've invested heavily in technology
systems integration, You've got the best of breed of all
the things. I don't think you've invested outs heavily in

(02:57):
your human system integration. The two are odds. And so
once we've got on a whiteboard in person, right high
fidelity on a whiteboard, we basically landed on a few
things that made up their human operating system that needed
an upgrade. And some of them were close. They needed
a nudge or a tweak. Others he was like, that's
probably five or ten years old. That's the way we've
used to do it, so let's not upgrade that. Let's

(03:20):
swap that out and find the new version. So I'm
working with them as an advisory capacity to go, how
do you build the best version of your organization. Don't
go look at Spotify, don't go look at Google or meta.
Don't go and copy anyone else. Be the best version
of yourself and your industry for your people and your customers,
and you'll be fine. You'll be relevant for it for
a long time.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
What are some of the other big problems that you
are seeing out there, like with the human side of
these tech transformations to.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
The two really like quite funny human traits that I'm
seeing kind of on repeat, and that's why I like them, Right,
It's just it just shows the fragility of us as humans. Right.
There's an organization I was working with early this year.
They did that very clever ab test with their AI.
Half their team's got AI, the other half didn't because
they wanted to see the comparison. I love it, and
the CEO is great. It's like, I want to know
the real impact. If I roll it out to everyone,

(04:09):
I'll never know the real impact. I'm like, now, ab test,
go for it, so random side by side for a
period of time. The vendor came back with a report
that the team that was using AI was thirty five
percent more productive. Right, So he rings me on a
Friday afternoon. He's like, this is amazing. Right, it's performance
review season. I'm going straight to the CEO, I straight
to the board, thirty five percent productivity. I'm going to

(04:30):
get my budget approved, roll this out. And I'm like,
before you do, can you tell me or go and check,
just double click where did that end up? Because I
don't care what you saved. I care what you did
with it. And he's like, good question. I'll come back
to it on the Sunday Commy. He's like, not going
to the CEO, not going to the board. So the
team that had had the thirty five percent productivity improvement

(04:50):
had a fifty percent increase in meetings, and when he
asked them, he just wanted to speak to a few people.
He's like, no, one's in trouble. What happened? And they're like, well,
we saved the time. We didn't know the next best
thing to do if you save me, if you go gone,
here's this magic tool says you ten hours a week.
I'm like, cool, what do I do with those ten hours?
I've never had those ten hours before. You've never gifted
me that much time, So what so we do the

(05:13):
first thing in front of us. We're like, well, we'll meet,
we'll have an intellectual joust, we'll make no decisions, We'll
have a great debate, will take no minutes, so we
do a lower cost think right, and so all the stats.
Every time I'm on any portal LinkedIn wherever else and
I see someone claim AI delivers x percent productivity, I
genuinely do not care. I'm like, how did you reinvest? That?

(05:36):
One goes? I can use AI to save time, so
we all know it with a better mental health state,
brilliant Like, I'd get behind that, but just saving time,
I don't know what that even means.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
What stood out to me most here wasn't the productivity
number that jomb shared. It was what happened after when
teams save time but they don't know what to do
with it, they sleep straight back into old habits. To
the next time AI helps you get something done faster,
take a moment before filling that space, ask yourself, what's

(06:08):
the most valuable thing I can do with this time?
That tiny pause can change the whole return you get
from AI. And if you want to go deeper on
this conversation, our full chat is linked to in the
show notes.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
If you like today's show, make sure you get follow
on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes
drop how I work was recorded on the traditional land
of the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation