I keep finding articles making statements similar to this one and it drives me crazy…

“Take a moment and be grateful you are alive during the greatest tech explosion in the history of human kind.”

“The OpenAI Finance team used ChatGPT 5.5 to review 24,771 K-1 tax forms totaling 71,637 pages and accelerated the task by two weeks compared to the prior year.”

“The greatest tech explosion in the history of human kind”?

And we’re explaining efficiency gains?

Don’t get me wrong, efficiency is good… bring it on.

But alignment unlocks real value.

So the question I would ask every CEO is this: would “the greatest tech explosion in the history of human kind” save your teams 2 weeks?  Two months?  Two million dollars?

Or, would it align your entire workforce – connecting every employee to the best work of their colleagues, and ultimately create more value for clients, shareholders, and you as the leader or owner of the business?

Appropriate adoption of technology, including AI, can do that.

It’s how we put technology to work in service of value creation across an organization – not in pockets of efficiency – that should be our north star.

This simple reframe protects me from succumbing to endless hype cycles.