Artificial Intelligence Gives You Days — Not Just Wings

We all remember the iconic tagline: “Red Bull gives you wings.” It promised energy, possibility, and the defiance of limits. In 2024, a new force emerged that goes far beyond a burst of energy. Artificial Intelligence (AI) doesn’t just give you wings—it gives you days. And this is no exaggeration. It’s a profound shift in how we work, lead, and create, one that holds the potential to redefine what productivity and leadership mean in the digital age.

For generations, conversations around productivity have centered on efficiency. From steam engines to assembly lines to enterprise software, every breakthrough promised more output with fewer resources. Cutting costs, shrinking teams, and extracting more from the same 24 hours defined the path to corporate success. This pattern has been consistent and relentless: progress meant doing the same or slightly more with ever-fewer people, forever trimming the edges of human input.

AI changes all that. It isn’t just another tool that shaves off a few hours here and there. It’s a transformative technology that elevates our capacity to think, create, and innovate. Crucially, the hours saved through AI are no longer an end in themselves. They become a means to something greater, a gateway to new realms of value creation once impossible to access.

Beyond Efficiency: Counting the Days

As we approach the year’s end, it’s hard not to take stock of what AI has delivered. In a world overcrowded with meetings, deadlines, and decision-making overload, AI has emerged quietly as a strategic ally. It distills complexity, elevates ideas, and—most importantly—gives us back time.

I asked a simple question to my AI assistant: “Based on my usage this year, how many hours did I save compared to doing these tasks manually?” The answer was remarkable. Drafting proposals, summarizing reports, synthesizing research, each task was completed faster, with greater accuracy and less friction. Hours stacked up like compound interest, turning into entire months reclaimed.

But here’s the real breakthrough: Unlike traditional productivity gains, where saved time often translates into reduced headcount or hollow cost-cutting, AI’s true potential lies in how we choose to use these newly freed days.

From Saving Time to Creating Value

This is the defining question for the digital economy: What do we do with the days AI returns to us?

For too long, leaders have been measured by their ability to squeeze more from less: fewer Full-Time Equivalents, smaller budgets, higher margins. But AI isn’t just another round of automation. It doesn’t merely enable us to do the same with fewer people; it empowers us to do more, differently, and better. It allows us to explore uncharted territories, open new markets, launch new products/services and tackle challenges with unprecedented creativity.

The leaders who flourish in this AI-driven landscape won’t be the ones who boast about how many jobs they replaced or how many costs they cut. They’ll be the ones who ask:

• How can we use these reclaimed days to create more value?
• How can we venture into areas we’ve never had the bandwidth to explore?
• How can we channel human talent toward work that is meaningful, strategic, and truly transformative?

For the first time, technology isn’t just giving us a few more drops of productivity; it’s delivering whole days to invest. Leaders can now focus on what was once sidelined: strategic opportunities, deeply understanding clients and communities, and nurturing innovation ecosystems that give rise to genuine breakthroughs.

Time as Privilege and Responsibility

AI’s gift of time is both liberating and humbling. It opens doors but does not dictate which ones to enter. AI can reduce the repetitive and mundane, but it’s up to us to ensure we don’t simply fill those empty slots with more of the same noise. Time reclaimed is a resource to be stewarded responsibly.

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s worth acknowledging the significance of this turning point. AI heralds an era not defined by cost-trimming but by value creation and meaningful growth. Those who view AI solely as a cost-reduction tool are missing the bigger picture—and the far brighter horizon.

The true leaders of the digital economy will be those who harness the days AI gives them to unlock new possibilities. They’ll see time not as a commodity to be spent, but as an opportunity to reimagine what’s possible. Because in the end, AI doesn’t add more hours to your day—but it can forever change how you use them.

And that shift, from doing more with less to doing more with meaning, is the real promise of AI. It gives us days not just to work, but to lead, to innovate, and to make our hours truly count.

Bruno Horta Soares

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