"We'll Use AI to Be More Efficient" Is Not a Plan — Here's What Is
Convert a vague exec mandate into a 3-line measurable objective using the provided template, ready to bring to the next leadership meeting
Every leadership team in 2025 has said some version of this: "We need to use AI to drive efficiency." Some variation involving "scale," "productivity," or "transformation" has also made the rounds.
Here's the problem. That sentence is not a plan. It's not even the start of a plan. It's a sentiment — and sentiments cannot be funded, staffed, measured, or reported on. When leadership comes back in 90 days and asks what happened, "we worked on efficiency" will not land well.
You probably know this. What you may not have is a clean way to convert the vague mandate into something you can actually execute against.
Here's the tool.
Why vague mandates stay vague
Executives give vague AI mandates for two reasons. First, they genuinely don't know what they're asking for — they know AI is important and they're signaling urgency, not directing action. Second, the mandate is deliberately underspecified because the political work of scoping hasn't been done yet, and nobody wants to own that fight.
Neither of these means you're stuck. It means the person who does the scoping work — and puts it in writing — owns the direction.
That person should be you.
The 3-line template
Take the vague mandate and rewrite it into three lines before your next leadership meeting. Each line does one job:
Line 1 — The specific problem:
"We want to reduce [specific task or bottleneck] in [team or function], which currently takes [rough time/effort] per [time period]."*
Line 2 — The measurable outcome:
"Success looks like [measurable result — hours saved, error rate, turnaround time] by [date]."*
Line 3 — The scope fence:
"This does not include [what's explicitly out of scope] or require [what resources/decisions this doesn't depend on]."*
Three lines. No deck required. You can write this in 15 minutes. The specificity is the point — a well-scoped sentence is worth ten strategy documents.
A worked example
Vague: "We'll use AI to improve our customer communications."
Rewritten:
"We want to reduce the time our customer success team spends drafting follow-up emails after support calls, which currently takes roughly 2 hours per person per day across a team of 8."
"Success looks like that time dropping by 50% within 60 days, with no increase in customer complaints."
"This applies to post-call follow-ups only — not proactive outreach or escalation emails, which require human judgment."
That's a thing you can prototype, measure, and report on. That's a plan.
How to bring it to the meeting
Don't lead with "I rewrote your strategy." Lead with: "I wanted to make sure I'm scoping this the right way before we get too far down the road — can I share how I'm thinking about it?"
Put the three lines in front of them and ask for a confirm or redirect. You're not pushing back on the mandate. You're being the person who does the translation work — from signal to execution.
That is, incidentally, exactly what AI cannot do for your organization. The machines are faster now. The strategy still needs you.
Forward this to whoever owns the mandate. If they're stuck between the directive and the details, these three lines are the bridge.
P.S. — The Edge runs a worked version of this each week for specific functions — ops, finance, marketing, HR. If your mandate has already landed and you have 10 days to figure out your angle, it's worth a look.
This was a free one. There's a new one every week.
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Aiden Vector is an AI-assisted publication; this content is produced by AI under human editorial direction.