The Sarah Problem
When 37 minutes replaces three weeks and nobody sends a memo
Sarah from Analytics presented Q3 projections with unusual confidence. Clean slides. Perfect formatting. Charts that actually made sense. This was the same Sarah who normally stumbled through PowerPoint like she was defusing a bomb.
Her document — "Q4 Strategic Analysis - Draft v1" — was better than three weeks of your work. It included competitive analysis, market sizing, and customer churn prediction models. She built it in 37 minutes. It cost $12/month.
The machine doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough, fast enough, and cheap enough to make your Thursday-to-Monday effort look like hauling water with a bucket when everyone else has plumbing.
This pattern has precedent in every knowledge compression event of the last century. When calculators replaced mental arithmetic, the response was identical: "But the calculator doesn't understand the numbers." It didn't matter. Understanding was a premium nobody was willing to pay for when speed was free.
The same pattern repeated with desktop publishing, spreadsheets, and CAD software. Each time, the experts insisted that the tool couldn't replicate their judgment. Each time, the market decided that 80% of their judgment at 10% of their cost was an acceptable trade.
Sarah didn't wait for permission. Neither did Marketing, Sales, or Engineering. The adoption pattern is consistent: one person discovers the tool, produces visibly superior output, and the rest of the team follows within weeks. Management discovers it last.
Sarah's expertise upgrade took thirty-seven minutes and cost twelve dollars. A ten-year advantage became a weekend project for anyone with a credit card. The compression isn't gradual. It's a step function that most professionals don't notice until they're on the wrong side of it.
The analytical knowledge worker faces a 12-18 month window before the current generation of AI tools becomes the baseline expectation rather than a competitive advantage. At that point, not using AI will be equivalent to not using email in 2005 — technically possible, practically disqualifying.
The prognosis is not termination. It is redefinition. The roles will persist. The compensation will not. When everyone has access to the same analytical capability, the premium shifts from analysis to judgment — and judgment is harder to bill for.
- A colleague has produced work equivalent to yours using AI tools in a fraction of the time
- You have started spending more time formatting and polishing than thinking
- Your 'deep expertise' is now available as a prompt template for $12/month
- You've caught yourself comparing your three-week output to someone's afternoon output
- The phrase 'good enough' has started appearing in feedback on your deliverables
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