I built a system that cut three months of work down to a couple of weeks. Then I tried to cut it further - and that’s when I stopped and asked myself: why?
The Year the Doubt Died
If 2024 was the year AI became impressive, 2025 was the year it became undeniable. Not just to technologists or early adopters, but to everyone.
The numbers tell the story. Over 54% of adults now use generative AI - higher than personal computer adoption was three years after the IBM PC launched. Three out of four knowledge workers have integrated AI into their daily tasks. In Africa, the conversation has shifted from “should we adopt AI?” to “how do we build our own?” - with over 2,400 startups now building AI infrastructure across the continent.
Yes, there will always be holdouts. The “hardcore idealists” who insist this is all hype, that the bubble will burst, that we’ve seen this before. And maybe they’re right about some things. But the trajectory is clear. We’re only scratching the surface of what’s coming.
The Compression
Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground: timelines are collapsing.
What used to take months now takes weeks. What took years now takes months. An MVP that once required six months of development? One month. Maybe less. Microsoft’s CEO says AI tools are now writing 30% of their new code. Developers are shipping features in hours that used to take sprints.
I experienced this firsthand. I recently built a system that compressed three months of work into a couple of weeks. An 83% productivity gain. And my first instinct? To push further. To get it down to one week.
That’s when I stopped.
What was I optimizing for?
I’d already reclaimed most of the time. The gain from two weeks to one week was marginal compared to what I’d already achieved. But the compulsion to squeeze more was automatic. Reflexive. Almost unconscious.
The Productivity Trap
Companies are delighted by this new reality. Do more with less. Maximize output. Minimize headcount.
This isn’t speculation - it’s already happening. In the first eleven months of 2025, corporations cut over 1.17 million jobs - a 54% increase from the year before. UPS eliminated 48,000 positions. Amazon cut 14,000. Klarna’s CEO proudly announced they’d shrunk their workforce by 40%, “in part because of AI.”
The math is too compelling to ignore. Why employ ten people when three can do the same work with the right tools?
But here’s the question nobody seems to be asking: What happens to all the reclaimed time?
If we can build in one month what used to take six, do we:
- Ship six times more products?
- Work one-sixth the hours?
- Something else entirely?
History suggests we know the answer. The washing machine was supposed to free up hours of domestic labor. Instead, it raised cleanliness standards. We didn’t gain leisure - we just did more laundry.
The Greed Question
How far does productivity greed go?
Are we still going to work five days a week? Six? Seven?
Still grinding ten-hour days? Twelve?
Or do we finally normalize something different - four-hour workdays, three-day weekends, seasons of rest built into the rhythm of the year?
The evidence for working less is overwhelming. In the largest four-day work week study ever conducted - spanning six countries and 141 companies - 90% of participants kept the shorter schedule after the trial ended. Burnout dropped. Job satisfaction rose. And productivity? It held steady. Microsoft Japan saw a 40% productivity gain just by closing offices on Fridays.
The technology now exists to work dramatically less while producing the same output. The question is whether we have the collective imagination - and the courage - to actually do it.
There’s an African philosophy worth considering here. In many African cultures, time isn’t a commodity to be spent or saved - it’s generated through communal experiences. The Ubuntu principle of “I am because we are” suggests that productivity divorced from human connection isn’t progress at all. Maybe the West’s obsession with time optimization misses something fundamental about why we work in the first place.
But Why?
That moment when I stopped trying to compress two weeks into one - that was the real breakthrough.
Not the 83% gain. The pause.
What’s the goal? What’s the endgame?
We’ve spent decades optimizing for productivity without ever questioning the assumption underneath it all: that more output is always better. That efficiency is its own reward. That time saved should immediately be reinvested into more work.
Klarna learned this the hard way. After replacing 700 customer service agents with AI and bragging about the efficiency gains, they quietly started rehiring humans in early 2025. Why? Customer satisfaction tanked. The AI couldn’t handle nuance, couldn’t provide empathy. “We went too far,” their CEO admitted. Over 55% of companies that executed AI-driven layoffs now report regretting them.
Maybe more isn’t always better. Maybe the question isn’t “how much can we produce?” but “what’s worth producing at all?”
Where Do We Actually Go
I don’t have clean answers. But I have better questions:
- If AI handles the grunt work, what becomes uniquely human?
- If we can build faster, should we build more - or build more thoughtfully?
- If productivity is no longer the bottleneck, what is?
- What would you do with an extra three months every year?
The tools have changed. The timelines have compressed. The old excuses are gone.
Where do we go from here? That’s no longer a technical question.
It’s a human one.