We’re getting a little existential this week. Let’s play a little game.

Before you do your next task, whether it’s replying to an email, compiling a report, or trying to find that one slide you swear was in the folder, ask yourself this:

“Could AI be doing this instead of me?”

If the answer is even a hesitant maybe, then stop. Don’t do it. Not yet. Because here’s the reality: if you’re still approaching every task like it’s 2019, you’re wasting time, burning energy, and quite possibly working yourself out of a job.

Your level of job automation sits somewhere along this line:

Accordingly, any of these tools are at your disposal to do more work, better and faster.

This article is your permission slip (and subtle warning) to stop doing low-leverage work manually. Below are 10 deceptively simple questions to help you figure out whether you should be doing a task or whether it’s time to let the machines take over.

We’re not talking about “in theory” AI. No sci-fi here. We’re talking practical, generally-available, off-the-shelf intelligence. If the task is structured, rule-based, or based on information already online or in your systems, there’s a high chance AI can do it, or at least help.

Still writing templated emails from scratch? Still summarising Zoom calls manually? These are examples of tasks that won’t be required much longer.

AI doesn’t do magic; it does logic. If a task can be broken into conditions, steps, or triggers—like “If X, then send Y”—then it’s a strong automation candidate. You don’t need AI to take your job; you need it to take your flowcharts and run with them.

Zapier is a great platform for this, but there are a few in the market. On Zapier, though, you have to create the workflow step by step.

The next two years or so will deliver generally available solutions that will create the workflow for you from just a prompt.

Here’s a hard truth: some of the tasks you do aren’t yours because you’re brilliant. They’re yours because you were in the room when the question was asked.

AI doesn’t need to eat lunch or go to meetings. So if you’re the bottleneck only because no one’s written the automation yet… that might not last.

If you’ve done something more than twice, and you can describe the steps, it’s likely automatable. If you can describe it in a prompt, even better.

Repetition is the red flag. AI doesn’t complain about boring work, but it also doesn’t forget the steps.

Try it. If you can type, “Summarise this call into bullet points for a status update” or “Create a draft email responding to this request with a polite no,” then you’ve got a workflow.

Prompt fluency is fast becoming more important than Excel formulas. (You should still know a VLOOKUP though.)

AI eats admin for breakfast. It’s also getting worryingly good at analysis. Creativity?

Depends what you mean. If your “creative” task is assembling a social media calendar or turning notes into a blog post, GPT-4 can do 80% of it.

That remaining 20% containing your judgement, voice, and timing is where you stay valuable.

Before hiring consultants or declaring that your job is “AI-proof,” open a browser. There’s probably a GPT plug-in, a Zapier automation, a Notion widget, a Copilot feature, or a Chrome extension that solves the problem.

You don’t need to build AI. You need to use it.

Try it. One hour, max. ChatGPT plus your inbox plus a spreadsheet. That’s the new MVP.

If it works, great. Refine it. If it doesn’t, you’ve learned something. Either way, you're not doing it manually anymore.

The best use of AI today is not full automation. It’s partial delegation.

Let it do the donkey work, draft the brief, pull the stats, summarise the call, generate the outline. You can come in and make the decisions that matter.

You’ll move faster, think sharper, and frankly, work less.

Humans love rituals and are weirdly loyal to inefficiency. But AI isn’t sentimental. It’s ruthlessly pragmatic.

If your job relies on habits instead of outcomes, AI is going to feel like a threat. But if you focus on results, it becomes your sidekick.

So ask yourself: are you adding value, or just doing what’s always been done?

There’s good news in all this.

You don’t need to be replaced by AI to be made redundant by it. If your time is spent on tasks that AI could do faster, cheaper, or better—and you don’t adapt—you’re making a compelling case to be automated out of relevance.

The upside? You can do something about it. Right now. Today.

Start by asking better questions before you hit send, open a spreadsheet, or write that slide deck. Companies are not doing this in any meaningful way, yet. You could be the catalyst.

Could AI be doing this?

If the answer is yes, you’re not just saving time. You’re futureproofing your career.

Temrel is a software engineering consultancy that helps organisations implement the kinds of Agentic AI automations we’re talking about above. Want to know more?

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