1. HBR on the Hidden Cost of AI Productivity Gains

Harvard Business Review just dropped a bombshell: while AI makes your team more productive, it's secretly killing their motivation for non-AI tasks.

New research shows that employees using generative AI experience increased boredom and decreased intrinsic motivation when working on tasks without AI assistance.

This wasn’t completely surprising to me because I do feel that sometimes with my daily tasks.

The takeaway

Here are a couple of tips that the article recommends leaders do:

• Task rotation: implement "AI rotation" schedules where team members alternate between AI-assisted and traditional work.

• Training: Reframe non-AI tasks as skill-building opportunities rather than "stepping backward."

This prevents the motivation drain while maintaining productivity gains. The key is managing expectations with your employees. You can read the full HBR article here.

2. Google's Veo 3 is Making Hollywood Nervous

Google's new Veo 3 AI video generator is flooding social media with clips so realistic that users can't distinguish them from human-made content.

We're talking 4K video with synchronized audio, realistic physics, and professional camera movements (all from just a text prompt).

I haven’t tried it yet but plan on doing so soon.

The takeaway

For business leaders, this democratizes high-quality video content.

Marketing teams can now create multiple ad variations for A/B testing without expensive production costs. Training departments can generate realistic scenarios for employee education.

The ROI potential is massive: what used to cost thousands in production can now be done for the price of a monthly software subscription. Start experimenting with use cases like product demos, internal communications, and social media content.

You can check out Google Veo here.

3. Write a Book (Quickly Using AI)

I’m creating the next iteration of my “4-Week Write Your Book on the Side” system.

It’s a course that will help you write and publish a bestselling nonfiction book in just four weeks (using AI to write it quickly and in your own voice).

The course used so be a live cohort-based course, but I’m now building a couple of different versions of it (with updated content).

There will be limited seats when I launch it so if you’re interested in getting notified as soon as it’s out, click here to fill in your info:

Click here to be the first to know before I open the course to the public.

4. 10 Free AI Tools That Actually Move the Needle

Forbes just highlighted 10 free AI tools that can reclaim up to 8.1 hours per week per employee. They listed some known tools like ChatGPT, but a couple of standouts for leaders include: Perplexity AI for research synthesis, Notion AI for meeting follow-ups, and Otter for automatic meeting transcription and action items.

The secret sauce isn't using these tools individually. It's creating integrated workflows.

For example, have Otter transcribe your strategy meetings, feed the key points to Notion AI for action item generation, then use Perplexity AI to research competitive intelligence. This combo can turn a 2-hour post-meeting workflow into a 15-minute automated process.

5. One Prompt You Can Use at Work Today

Here’s a practical ChatGPT Prompt you can use at work:

For example,