If you're using agents nowadays, the stress is real. A bait and switch happened. They told us we'd have less to do, and suddenly we're busier than ever. I hope you're at least seeing the business outcomes in proportion to the stress.

When I was a casting director (and even today), during auditions, the first thing I'd look for was if I could tell that the actor was acting. If you can "see" the actor acting, they're getting in the way of their character. They're self-conscious and trying too hard. They're trying to force the audience to believe their depiction of the character, not intentionally, of course, but that's what they're doing.

That's what I think a lot of people are doing with AI. We hear so much striving toward AI usage, and it's so religious sounding. Every technical or business podcast host or guest I listen to is pleading for the listener to use AI more. "Just make time for it." "You just have to do it." I don't understand the religious fervor of it. Do they really care that much about people falling behind in their careers that they're willing to evangelize the cause to no end, or are they motivated by something else? I honestly can't tell.

But I can see them acting.

Just as actors who don't really know their character will tend to use acting tricks that lead the audience to see them acting, so many AI enthusiasts don't really understand what the most important thing to do is, so they overact; they aimlessly spin things up in hopes that they're keeping pace with technology so that they don't get swallowed up. But as they say back home, they're just spitting into the wind. They have their priorities out of order.

Don't be them. Answer these questions first:

What’s the problem that you’re solving?
Is it a big enough problem to spend your time on?
Do other people care about this problem?
Do you first have clarity on the problem?
Do you have clarity on the solution?
Have you asked actual humans to validate the problem and solution?

If you answered yes to all of that, then as you build your solution with AI, you'll use all of that clarity along the way to incrementally make your solution better and better because if you just give your agent the problem and say, "Go fix it," you might get convinced by your agent that they solved it (they're good at convincing us, aren't they?), but it'll be just adjacent to the actual solution.

The AI part of it is just one tool in the overall project. Sure it speeds things up, but it doesn't do everything we need for a project to be successful. Because after you get your AI-generated solution, you go back to people and have to validate that you have a good implementation. And then you have to convince other people that it's good enough for them to leave their current solution in favor of the one you just created. That's way harder than actually creating it.

But don’t look over at the person in the next audition room who is playing for a stadium in a tiny room and think that you need to be doing the same. Just understand your character inside and out, where they came from, what makes them tick, what they love and hate, who they get along with - all of that. It's not a waste of time; it's doing the work. It brings depth and interest to the character. It makes others want to watch and interact with the character. That is what it takes to make a fully formed character.

Look, I use AI everyday in my work, but if I'm not crystal clear on all sides of the issue, from technical specs, to product-market fit, to messaging, to everything else in between, then I know that it's going to be a huge waste of money. Clarity always wins at the end of the day.

The way we become more relevant in the workplace is by doing what robots cannot do. And that's to be able to navigate human relationships. If you're someone who knows how to engage with stakeholders, cast vision for your projects, and lead people with purpose and intention, then you will stand out when others simply don't.

And the reason you will stand out is because you are a clarity-builder. Companies know that AI is an amplifier, and it will amplify either your clarity or your confusion. The companies that win will be the ones that value people who know how to work with other people to get clear on how to solve problems.

So slow down, take a deep breath, talk to another human about the problem/solution space, and get clear before going back to the machine. Hoping that AI will just figure it out is not a winning bet. Slowing down and getting clear will give you a much better chance at a clear solution on the other end.