Productivity Was Just the Beginning

It’s AI Super Week. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA – every major player is announcing, launching, unveiling. The internet is buzzing with features, roadmaps, frameworks, and predictions. You’re not wrong to follow the hype. But for a moment, I want to pause the feed, step out of the livestream, and look at something happening just beneath it all.

Because while we’ve been busy measuring output and automation, something more personal has shifted. Something about what it feels like to work. We’ve spent so much time talking about what AI can do that we’ve skipped over something more important: how it feels to work with it. This isn’t about productivity anymore. It’s about experience. The emotional texture of getting things done. The confidence to ask, the space to think, the absence of judgment. AI is changing that – sometimes quietly, sometimes radically.

So what is it that makes AI feel safe, even comforting, to work with?

Infinitely patient
Never judging
Zero fear of asking “dumb” questions

That’s not just a user experience benefit. That’s a cognitive shift. That’s a psychological redesign of the modern workspace.

In The Cybernetic Teammate study from Harvard Business School, individuals who worked with AI – completely solo – reported more focus, more enthusiasm, and less stress than those working in human teams. Not because the AI was smarter. But because it was consistent. Calm. Patient. It didn’t interrupt. It didn’t roll its eyes. It didn’t make you feel slow.

This mirrors what I’ve seen in practice. Teams working with AI report sharper thinking – not because the model adds intelligence, but because it removes hesitation. The fear of asking something obvious disappears. People stop performing. They start thinking. And with that shift, we don’t just improve speed – we improve the experience of thinking itself.

Something else happens when you work with AI at this level: it reflects you back to yourself. You start seeing how you think. What you avoid. What you repeat. Where you hedge. And while it’s subtle, that’s the kind of awareness that doesn’t go away. It changes your mental rhythm. You don’t just think faster – you think differently.

This doesn’t mean human teams become obsolete. But it does mean team dynamics change. The emotional landscape changes. Collaboration begins to carry a different weight, because now there’s an alternative: a digital colleague that listens, doesn’t interrupt, and never competes. That’s not a replacement. But it is a rebalancing.

And it raises new questions. Where are humans still essential? What kind of work remains truly human? What do we protect – not just for efficiency, but for meaning?

Understanding this shift is essential if you’re supporting a company or organization on its Gen AI strategy journey. Because AI doesn’t just reshape tasks – it reshapes the emotional and cognitive structure of work. And if that shifts, everything else follows.

That’s a shift. A real one.

This idea was at the core of my keynote at TestExpo Norway 2025. If it resonates, use it. Quote it. Share it. Drop it into your next deck. And if you do, feel free to point people here. That’s how useful thinking travels.

Curated Source Material

This post is built on experience from the field – but if the topic tickles your brain, here’s a curated collection of sources that offer the academic and research-backed layer behind what we’re seeing unfold:

State of AI Report 2024, Ian Hogarth & Nathan Benaich

The Cybernetic Teammate – A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise, Harvard Business School, 2025

What Will Remain for People to Do?, Daniel Susskind, Knight Institute, 2025

How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025, Marc Zao-Sanders, Harvard Business Review, 2025

AI and the Modern Knowledge Worker, Ethan Mollick, 2025

The AI Dilemma, Reid Blackman & Beena Ammanath, Harvard Business Review, 2025