AI’s First Day on the Job - Exposing the Gaps¶
Bringing AI into a company is like hiring a new employee — one that’s demanding, detail-oriented, and can’t rely on intuition. AI, like any new team member, needs everything explained clearly and thoroughly.
This process often reveals that our knowledge isn’t as well-structured or organized as we thought. Bringing AI into our operations makes us take a closer look at our processes and documentation, showing us gaps and inefficiencies we might be missing.
When AI Joins Your Team, Get Ready for a Reality Check¶
To use AI effectively, companies need standardized processes and comprehensive documentation. Many fall short here, internal documentation often lacks the necessary rigor because it’s considered “good enough” for internal use — outdated, imprecise, and full of gaps that only certain employees can fill with their personal knowledge. This might work in a human-only environment where employees can adapt and fill in these gaps intuitively, but for AI, imprecision is not an option.
Time to Clean the House¶
Preparing documentation for AI forces companies to raise their standards across the board, ultimately benefiting not only the AI but also every team member who relies on this information. A well-documented, standardized knowledge base helps everyone operate more effectively, reduces misunderstandings, and creates a more seamless flow of information throughout the organization.
Integrating AI forces us to confront the disorganization we’ve ignored for years. It highlights how much of our operational knowledge is informal and reliant on individuals rather than being part of a structured system. Many organizations depend heavily on the tacit knowledge of key employees — information that is undocumented and inaccessible to others.
No Knowledge Superheroes Allowed¶
Humans are adaptable; we can work around inefficiencies and navigate ambiguities with ease. However, AI does not have this luxury — it demands clarity and precision. Addressing this need for clarity doesn’t just help AI; it helps everyone within the organization. By making processes more explicit and reducing reliance on informal knowledge, we create a more robust and reliable working environment for all employees, ensuring that critical knowledge is available when needed, regardless of who left the team last week.
Let's Get Real, Nobody Reads Documentation¶
Let's face it - even with well-organized documentation, humans rarely read it thoroughly. But this is where AI changes everything. Instead of searching through documents, we're moving towards AI-indexing — where AI can directly quote from our documentation to give immediate, precise answers. This makes all that standardized documentation we created not just accessible, but highly useful in daily operations.
AI is not just a tool — it is the 'new hire' that shakes things up, questions our habits, and demands transparency. By challenging the way we do things, it exposes the flaws and gaps in our processes and pushes us to build a stronger foundation.
Yes, it is uncomfortable to face disorganization debt. Yes, it requires effort and a willingness to change. But becoming LLM-native is the opportunity we have been needing to elevate our standards, sharpen our processes, and take our business to the next level.