Stop Sprinkling AI Fairy Dust: Why Redesign Beats Retrofit

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 advises executive teams and has worked with heavyweights like American Express, Barclays, IBM, SAP, Walmart, and the UK Cabinet Office. In 2024, TEC Canada named him Speaker of the Year for his work on AI. In this exclusive interview, he explains why companies need to redesign processes from scratch, how leaders can ease employees' fear of AI, and why keeping humans in the loop still matters as adoption accelerates. ### Q1: How can leaders introduce AI without triggering fear or resistance? **Jim Harris:** "First off, it's important to create psychological safety. The majority of people in developed nations actually fear AI. They fear job loss. As adults, we tend to fear things or are 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." ### Q2: Why does applying AI to an existing process limit the gains? **Jim Harris:** "I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, and I interviewed the head of AI for Ernst & Young in the US. EY has 400,000 employees and they've spent a billion dollars on AI. "They had a 46-hour risk management process they'd historically run for clients, and they thought, 'Okay, let's apply some AI to it.' "With the people who designed the process, they got it down to 32 hours, which is a 20% gain, which is great. "But then they said, 'Let's try something different. Let's take people who've got no experience with the process but who are technology-first, AI-first, chomping at the bit, new individuals in our organization, and pair them with risk managers who've 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 we have to verify everything.' So they added some steps back in and got it back to six hours. "Look at this: 46 hours, 32 hours, 15 minutes, then back to six. It highlights a couple things for me. "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 and 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." ### Q3: What example best shows AI moving beyond tools like ChatGPT? **Jim Harris:** "There's so many, but I've had the pleasure, I'm a journalist, of being in interview sessions with Demis Hassabis, who's the founder of Google DeepMind, and he won the Nobel Prize in 2024. "Why? PhD student..." **[Interview continues]** > "You can't just sprinkle some AI fairy dust on your existing processes and hope to get the greatest gain." – Jim Harris ### The Bottom Line AI isn't a magic wand. It's a power tool that demands a fresh approach. Companies that redesign from the ground up—and bring in fresh perspectives—will see gains that retrofit efforts can't touch. And as Harris points out, keeping humans involved isn't just nice; it's necessary for compliance, verification, and ethical use. So before you sprinkle that fairy dust, ask yourself: Are you enhancing a dinosaur or building a rocket ship? The choice is yours.