AI Can Write the Report. Who Needs to Read It?

 

Imagine a team using AI to turn a weekly status update into a polished report. Another team uses AI to summarize it.

Somewhere between those two accomplishments, it might be worth asking what decision the report is supposed to support.

I enjoy what these tools make possible. A rough thought can become a useful explanation. An intimidating blank page becomes something you can work with. That is real help.

But making something easier to produce does not automatically make it worth producing.

Suppose the weekly report exists because someone needed to track a problem two years ago. The problem was resolved. The report survived. Now it has better formatting, an executive summary, and a faster production cycle.

We have improved the machinery without examining the assignment.

The difficulty is that a new tool gives us something visible to demonstrate. Questioning an old requirement gives us a conversation we may have been avoiding.

Who uses this? What happens because they read it? Could the same need be met with three sentences—or a notification when something actually changes?

Sometimes the answers justify the whole report. Good. Now we know why we are doing it.

Sometimes they give someone back an hour.

For people working in technology, that is a useful distinction to carry into the next AI discussion. There is value in learning how to generate more. There is also value in knowing when more creates another obligation for somebody else.

Before we ask AI to help us keep up with the work, perhaps we should make sure the work still deserves to be kept.

Image by franganillo from Pixabay