Time saved turns into a return when the work is redesigned around it.
Reading the AI research for government buyers, part 2.
Every AI pitch to government comes with a time savings slide. The slide is usually right about the minutes. The return comes from deciding where they go.
Recent research looked closely at why AI is booming while productivity is not. It was written for companies and investors. I want to read it for finance, HR and IT leaders in public agencies who explain technology investments to a council, a board and the public.
Cost is covered
By the research’s own math, the typical company’s AI spend is a rounding error against what an employee costs, so AI only has to save that person about three productive minutes a week to pay for itself.
The real costs never show up on an invoice: change management, retraining and the institutional machinery around the work. So the question inside an agency is how you capture the value.
Design the coordination, not just the production
AI mostly speeds up producing work. A draft, a summary, a reconciliation. Most of a working week is coordination: meetings, alignment and sign offs. The research is direct: AI can hand back the minutes, but it cannot decide what happens to them.
In a public agency, a purchase request touches a department head, a budget analyst and procurement. A new hire touches HR, payroll, IT, the hiring department and benefits. The return shows up when those routes are redesigned around the faster first step.
The winners reorganized
The most useful finding is an experiment with young, fast growing companies. Every firm got the same AI tools, training and support. Some also saw how other firms reorganized their work around AI.
Most of the gains went to a small group of leaders, and the firms that saw how others reorganized pulled furthest ahead.
Identical tools. The leaders rebuilt their work. Every agency on the same platform gets the same features. Your process decisions are the differentiator.
Simplify, then automate
The research lays out a simple order. Question every process and requirement. Delete what you can. Simplify what is left. Speed it up. Then automate.
It adds a practical note: automation pays when AI steps are grouped so a person checks the work once, not after every step. In government that is a policy choice. Keep human review where it adds judgment.
Plan for the lag
The research recalls an old observation from economists, that you could see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics. Productivity picked up years later, once work was reorganized around the machines.
The gain came from reorganizing the work. Plan for that lag and build the business case on the redesign, not on year one savings.
Do this before the RFP
This belongs in Phase Zero, the work Avero does with agencies before the RFP is written.
Map where the time goes. Pick three workflows: a purchase, a hire, a month end close. Count the handoffs and the waiting.
Sort every approval. Keep the sign offs that add judgment. Challenge the ones that only add delay.
Name an owner for the time. Someone decides what freed hours become: faster service, a cleared backlog, a position not refilled. Say it out loud to your staff.
Measure outcomes. Days to pay a supplier, days to fill a position, days to close the books.
Group the checks. One review, at the point where judgment matters.
The minutes always go somewhere. Decide where before you buy.
I also publish this on Substack.
Read Chapter 1 of Start at Zero free
Planning your next move? Write to us.