When Speed Becomes a Liability: Why Accelerating the Wrong Things Destabilizes Your Business

By Christoph Burkhardt

AI Strategy Advisor | Founder, AI Impact Institute

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AI has turned speed into a commodity. Drafting, producing, analyzing, responding—everything is instantaneous. But speed without intention is not a competitive advantage. It’s a silent destabilizer. When organizations automate without asking what the work is for, they accelerate noise, dilute meaning, and fracture trust. True leadership requires resisting the instinct to equate velocity with value.

The Myth of Faster = Better

Many teams assume that if a process becomes faster, they’ve improved it. Marketing workflows shrink from days to minutes. Customer responses are generated instantly. Reports that once took four people now require one click.

All of this feels progressive—until you zoom out.

Fast answers aren’t always right answers.

Fast workflows aren’t always human workflows.

Fast content isn’t always meaningful content.

Speed is only beneficial when it follows clarity.

Without clarity, speed amplifies misalignment.

The Hidden Risk: Accelerating the Wrong Direction

When organizations adopt AI quickly, they often integrate it into yesterday’s systems. Processes built years ago—on outdated assumptions, old customer expectations, and legacy structures—get pushed forward at scale.

Instead of improving the system, they accelerate the decay.

This leads to:

• Faster irrelevance

• Faster miscommunication

• Faster erosion of customer connection

• Faster internal confusion

Speed magnifies whatever exists—good or bad.

Automation Without Intention Erodes Trust

Customers are not fooled by efficiency. They can tell when they’re interacting with a model instead of a human.

They sense when a brand is optimizing for volume rather than care.

They notice when communication feels generic instead of thoughtful.

Trust doesn’t erode in sudden drops.

It erodes silently, in small automated exchanges that feel dismissive or hollow.

The Airline Case: A Perfectly Efficient Failure

When the major airline automated its customer service chat, internal teams celebrated:

• Response times were down.

• Resolution times were down.

• Escalations were down.

But customer satisfaction collapsed.

Not because the answers were wrong—but because the tone was wrong.

The automation solved for speed, but customers needed empathy.

The emotional function of the workflow had been deleted.

The airline moved faster by removing the very thing passengers value most in stressful moments: human presence.

Strategy Is What You Choose Not to Automate

Before accelerating any process, leaders must ask:

• What emotional purpose does this serve?

• Does speed increase or diminish its value?

• Does automation strengthen or weaken the relationship?

• What does our customer actually need in this moment?

Some moments deserve efficiency.

Others deserve presence.

Great companies know the difference.

Conclusion

Speed is not a strategy.

Speed is the outcome of a strategy rooted in clarity, empathy, and intention.

Organizations that fail to distinguish the two will lose trust.

Organizations that master the distinction will gain an enduring edge.

AI has made speed cheap. But when organizations automate the wrong things, they don’t improve the system—they destabilize it. This piece unpacks why clarity, not velocity, determines whether automation deepens trust or damages it. And if you want the full framework for building AI that strengthens relationships instead of accelerating noise, it’s all in AI Done Right.

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