AI Fairy Dust Won't Work: Why Jim Harris Says Redesign First

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-16

AI is moving into boardrooms faster than many businesses can figure out what to do with it. For Jim Harris, a specialist in GenAI and disruptive innovation, the bigger risk isn't moving too slowly—it's bolting new technology onto old ways of working and expecting transformational results. Harris has advised executive teams at American Express, Barclays, IBM, SAP, Walmart, and the UK Cabinet Office. In 2024, he was named Speaker of the Year by TEC Canada for his work on AI. In this exclusive interview with the AI Speakers Agency, Harris explains why companies need to redesign processes from scratch, how leaders can reduce employees' fear of AI, and why keeping humans involved remains critical as adoption accelerates. ### Creating Psychological Safety Around AI Fear is the first barrier. According to Harris, the majority of people in developed nations actually fear AI. They worry about job loss. As adults, we tend to fear things or feel uncomfortable with new ways of working. So an organization has to work really hard to say, "Your jobs are safe, number one. Number two, we're going to provide you training. And three, this is going to enhance your skill set and your employability." Those are a few things organizations have to do to create psychological safety. ### Why Sprinkling AI on Old Processes Fails Harris shared a story from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He interviewed the head of AI for Ernst & Young in the US. EY has 400,000 employees and has spent a billion dollars on AI. They had a 46-hour risk management process they'd historically run for clients. They thought, "Let's apply some AI to it." With the people who designed the process, they got it down to 32 hours—a 20% gain, which is great. But then they tried something different. They took people with no experience with the process but who were technology-first, AI-first, new individuals in the organization, and paired them with risk managers who'd never been involved in this process. They got the process down to 15 minutes. Then they said, "Well, we're EY, we have to have data compliance and verify everything." So they added some steps back in and got it back to six hours. > "You can't just sprinkle some AI fairy dust on your existing processes and hope to get the greatest gain." — Jim Harris Look at this: 46 hours, 32 hours, 15 minutes, then back to six. It highlights a couple things. Number one, you can't just sprinkle some AI fairy dust on your existing processes and hope to get the greatest gain. You really need to start with a blank sheet of paper and say, if we were designing this process today from first principles, what would we do? In other words, we're not going to take a 2018 or before process and try to enhance it with AI. How do we redesign it? Secondly, the people who have been involved in designing the process, unconsciously or consciously, are wedded to it. We need to have fresh eyes to bring in. When you actually look at 46 hours down to six hours, that's a more than 80% reduction. That is staggering. And now you can redeploy people for more important activities. ### The Transformational Power of AI Beyond ChatGPT Harris has seen many examples. As a journalist, he's had the pleasure of being in interview sessions with Demis Hassabis, the founder of Google DeepMind, who won the Nobel Prize in 2024. Why? PhD student... [content truncated for brevity]