Why It’s Hard to Redesign Work Processes with AI

There is increasing consensus that to get value from AI, you have to redesign your business processes and embed AI within them. A McKinsey 2025 survey, for example, found that redesigning workflows is the factor most highly correlated with getting value from AI. A 2026 paper from MIT researchers argues that AI benefits will come from supporting “chains” of business activities, i.e. processes. My friend Erik Brynolfsson, head of Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, has long argued that in a “J curve” situation, productivity with AI initially lags as companies re-engineer processes, but then increases significantly once AI is fully integrated into new, redesigned workflows.

Tom DavenportTom DavenportMay 6, 2026AI, Process Driven

Is AI Data Driven, Algorithm Driven, or Process Driven?

There are those that think that data is the oil of AI and the focus should be clean data, data science and deep understanding of what the data means. There are those that say data is meaningless without context that can be with other data, models/algorithms or processes. Let’s explore the arguments in a concise fashion to discover the advantage of each view.

Jim SinurJim SinurSeptember 15, 2020Jim Sinur, Algorithms, process, data driven, Algorithm Driven, Process DrivenComment

Editorial