A workflow audit is no longer the best way to figure out how to use AI in your job.
Despite the advice from AI labs, I'm more convinced, because of AI's reasoning capabilities and long context horizon, that the right starting point is goals + context connectors + interview.
The workflow audit is moving too many people into quick-win "yay I just did that one thing so much faster!" productivity land and missing the entire business transformation side.
For example...
Team does research. Person A reads six articles and hands them to Person B. Person B pulls it together into a report. The report goes to the client, who uses it to audit part of their own work.
If you run a workflow audit on that, the "AI upgrade" is both painfully obvious and dreadfully boring. You have AI do the research. You have AI draft the first pass. The human reviews.
Maybe a fancier version of that workflow builds a branded template, lets AI run the research itself, and a human adds a voice memo for context. Then you ship... the exact same report. But faster! Which feels great for about a week. And then you assume the next steps are making more frequent reports.
BUT that report only ever existed because it was the right asset in 2019 to help your client run their own audit, when your real constraint was time and people. That constraint is gone. So why are you still manufacturing the identical artifact at every step?
It just so happens that in 2019 the best way to complete that outcome for the client was a report. It just so happens that the best way to make the report was Person B compiling everyone's input. It just so happens that the best way to get input was reading articles and writing them up.
A lot of "it just so happens" from 2019 DO NOT hold in 2026. And based on my AI advising work, a workflow audit just doesn't surface them, because it optimizes the steps instead of questioning the destination.
Goals + context connectors + interview does.
Start from the goal (ex "help the client audit their work", not "produce a report"). Connect Codex or Claude Code into tools (especially notes, email, CRM, chat like Slack, meetings, docs/drive) so AI pulls from live sources and the client's own systems instead of a static handoff. Have AI interview the human to capture the nuance and judgment for why this process even exists.
The answer might look nothing like a report. Maybe it's a brand-new auditing product business line that you can launch. Maybe it's an interactive report that the end client can plug straight into. Maybe it's a more real-time research repository the end client can talk to all year instead of waiting for the big monthly drop. Maybe you realize that the client can make the same report in 2 seconds and the resources it takes to create and distribute it on your end just doesn't make sense to keep running in 2026.
For every asset you make, ask the very obvious question "why the hell do we do this thing?" Ask yourself what outcome or influence or action you are actually trying to solve for. Then ask the 2026 version. Is this still the most effective, efficient, valuable, creative, low friction, engaging, and long-term relationship-deepening way to get there?
A workflow audit gets you a faster horse.
Steal my prompt and replace your workflow audit - pasting it in the next tweet.
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