Your business doesn't need a robot.

Here's how to find the "time sucks" that are secretly killing your team's productivity and morale.

Author

Pallas Advisory
June 25, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

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Welcome, AI Strategists

💫 Current thoughts: Have you seen the slick demos for "AI agents" that promise to run your business for you? It's a great story, but it's also a fantasy for 99% of us. The truth is, chasing futuristic tech is a distraction from the real, boring problem that's quietly costing you a fortune: operational drag.

It’s the dozens of manual, clunky workflows that feel "good enough" but are secretly wrecking your productivity. Before you invest in a robot assistant, you need to pave the road.

This week's post argues that a 10% operational fix beats a 100% AI promise. I like those numbers.

This Week's Breakdown

Weekly Blog

"AI Agents" Won't Save Your Business. Better Operations Will.

For business owners to marketing leaders—the path to growth isn't chasing AI hype. This guide clears away operational roadblocks to pave a smooth highway for your business, helping you reclaim hours and boost revenue.

pallasadvisory.com/2025/06/24/fix-your-workflows

AI News Roundup for SMB Decision-Makers and Marketing Professionals

CEOs Using AI to Terrorize Their Employees

This reveals AI's true corporate application: workforce manipulation, not optimization. Smart leaders should recognize this fear-based approach backfires—demoralized teams produce worse results. The real opportunity lies in transparent AI integration that amplifies human capability rather than weaponizing insecurity.

futurism.com/ceo-ai-scare-labor

Why we’re measuring AI success all wrong—and what leaders should do about it

The fundamental evaluation gap is treating AI as a performance tool rather than a strategic partner. Smart leaders are shifting focus from raw capabilities to trustworthiness, collaborative potential, and sustainable business impact—the qualities that actually drive long-term value.

www.fastcompany.com/91353406/why-were-measuring-ai-success-all-wrong-and-what-leaders-should-do-instead-ai-leadership-success

Companies That Replaced Humans With AI Are Realizing Their Mistake

As AI agents have yet to pay for themselves, more and more executives are waking up to the sloppy reality of AI hype.

futurism.com/companies-replaced-workers-ai

AI Might Take Your Job. But These Roles Could Be Your Future

The AI job market is crystallizing around three human advantages: trust (someone must own AI outputs), integration (systems need strategic implementation), and taste (curation separates good from great). Smart leaders are already hiring for these roles while building AI fluency across teams.

www.marketingaiinstitute.com/blog/jobs-created-by-ai

Your AI strategy is stuck in the past — here’s how to fix it

Most AI failures aren't technical—they're strategic. Without unified messaging architecture, AI amplifies brand confusion instead of competitive advantage. The winners align AI with brand positioning first, then scale with governance frameworks that turn tools into strategic assets.

martech.org/your-ai-strategy-is-stuck-in-the-past-heres-how-to-fix-it

Study shows AI agents struggle with CRM and confidentiality

This Salesforce study reveals a crucial gap between AI marketing promises and current capabilities. While agents excel at single-step workflows (83% success), their inability to gather contextual information and maintain confidentiality protocols makes them unsuitable for customer-facing CRM work without significant human oversight and robust safeguards.

martech.org/study-shows-ai-agents-struggle-with-crm-and-confidentiality

From fear to fluency: Why empathy is the missing ingredient in AI rollouts

Empathy and trust are not optional. They are essential for scaling change and encouraging innovation, particularly in this age of AI.

venturebeat.com/ai/from-fear-to-fluency-why-empathy-is-the-missing-ingredient-in-ai-rollouts

Prompt of the Week:

The most expensive problems in your business are often the most "boring" ones. This prompt acts as a diagnostic tool to find the single task that makes you groan and identify the one bottleneck that's silently costing you time and money.

 

Act as an expert operations consultant. I am going to describe a recurring workflow in my business that is manual, slow, and a major source of frustration. My goal is to identify the single most inefficient step in this process.

First, here is the context for my business: [Describe your role and business in one sentence. For example: "I am a marketing director at a B2B tech company

"]

Here is the step-by-step workflow that makes me groan: [List the steps of your frustrating task in simple, numbered points. For example:

  1. A client asks for a custom proposal.

  2. I open an old proposal and "Save As."

  3. I manually copy and paste their details from our CRM into the document.

  4. I spend 30 minutes re-formatting the text and images.

  5. I save it as a PDF and manually email it to the client.]

Now, please analyze this workflow and provide the following:

  1. The Bottleneck: Based on my description, which single step is the biggest "bottleneck" that causes the most delay and frustration?

  2. The "Stupid Step": Identify the one action within that bottleneck that is the most repetitive and mindless (the "stupid step" that a machine should be doing).

  3. The Hidden Cost: Describe the hidden cost of this single step in terms of:

    • Wasted time (estimate the hours per month).

    • The risk of human error.

    • The impact on morale or opportunity cost (e.g., time not spent on sales, strategy, etc.).

 

Use AI as Your Personal Assistant

Ready to save precious time and let AI do the heavy lifting?

Save time and simplify your unique workflow with HubSpot’s highly anticipated AI Playbook—your guide to smarter processes and effortless productivity.

Just Because

  • 🤖 AI models discovered blackmail—apparently they skipped "customer service" and went straight to "mob boss."

  • 🌋🍌 AI finally figured out how to make ASMR even more unsettling than it already was.

  • 🤖 CEOs create AI clones to avoid talking to employees—the bots hallucinate less than expected.

  • 🏭 Someone's finally treating pre-AI content like the artisanal, small-batch humanity it always was.

  • 🤨 Well This Sucks: Job search survival kit 🎉 

  • 🆒 Sharing is caring, and it makes you look cooler too! Share this newsletter

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