AI is Not a Productivity Tool. It’s a New Operating System Business
By Marion Burchell, Managing Director & Principal Consultant at Azolla Holdings Pty Ltd
For decades, business leaders have pursued productivity through a familiar lens: do more with less. Every major technological advancement has promised greater efficiency, lower costs, and improved output. Artificial intelligence is the latest chapter in that story.
But viewing AI purely through a productivity lens is causing many organisations to miss the bigger opportunity.
The real shift underway is not about working faster. It is about fundamentally redesigning how work is organised, how decisions are made, and how value is created.
Throughout history, transformative technologies have changed far more than individual tasks. The printing press changed access to knowledge. Electricity transformed industries. The internet reshaped entire business models. AI belongs in that category.
Yet many organisations are still treating it as a bolt-on tool designed to automate existing processes or reduce headcount. In doing so, they risk optimising yesterday’s operating model rather than creating tomorrow’s.
The organisations seeing the greatest gains are asking different questions. Instead of “How can AI make this process more efficient?” they are asking “If we were designing this organisation today, enabled by AI, what would it look like?”
That distinction matters.
Increasingly, AI is automating components of work rather than replacing entire jobs. This is creating a new reality where people spend less time executing routine activities and more time directing, validating and orchestrating systems. The most valuable employees of the future may not be those who simply produce output, but those who can frame problems, exercise judgement, navigate uncertainty and effectively collaborate with both humans and machines.
In many ways, knowledge workers are becoming managers of digital workforces.
This shift has profound implications for leadership. AI is no longer solely a technology conversation. It is a business model conversation, a workforce conversation and ultimately a leadership conversation.
The challenge is that technology alone will not deliver transformation. Organisations are complex systems comprising people, processes, culture, governance and technology. Sustainable productivity gains occur when these systems evolve together.
The leaders who thrive in the coming decade will be those who resist the temptation to pursue efficiency for efficiency’s sake. Instead, they will focus on creating adaptive organisations capable of continuously learning, evolving and responding to change.
As Australia grapples with demographic shifts, workforce constraints and increasing global competition, AI presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
The question is no longer whether AI will change work. It will.
The question is whether we will use it to simply do the same work faster—or consciously design a better future.
About Marion Burchell
Marion Burchell is the Managing Director of management consulting firm Azolla Holdings. She is an experienced strategy, innovation, and change agent in the public and private sectors. Previous to establishing Azolla Holdings, Marion was a Director at Deloitte, co-leading the Civil Government practice, a member of the national open data and the national GovLab team.
Marion was the first female Government Chief Information Officer for Western Australia, delivering whole of government to deliver better services to people using technology. During this time, she drove the social inclusion and digital divide agenda, created the cyber security CRC in WA, created greater transparency and governance of the GovNext-ICT reform, and laid the foundation for the inter-jurisdictional data sharing initiative. In her role as the Executive Director, Policy and Governance, she delivered the State’s first innovation strategy and implemented a number of programs aimed at growing the startup ecosystem. She led the development and implementation of the State’s Open Data policy, including regularly supporting hackathons that delivered solutions to challenges.
Marion led the whole of government innovation agenda, which sought to inculcate a culture of innovation. The program received a Premier’s Award nomination for collaboration across government agencies.
Her experience spans a range of areas such as water, agriculture, intergovernmental relations, social policy, and data and digital reform.
She has been published nationally and internationally in over 20 publications, including peer-reviewed journals. Her work in public sector innovation and public participation in the development of public policy has been adopted by international governments as best practice.
Marion believes that the world is multi-disciplinary and therefore has degrees in Science, Sociology, Policy, and Planning. She has also studied at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, graduating with a Certificate in Public Leadership. She is an UNSW adjunct faculty member and an active Board member.
Marion is the vice-chair of WAITTA, a Board member of a local tech company, SingularityU Perth Chapter licence holder, and a senior associate at Intermedium. Marion is an international award-winning advisor featured in over 800 media outlets, including abc, NBC, CBS, Telemundo, and more.
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