Efficiency vs. Loyalty: The Tough Choices AI Brings
You ran the numbers.
The AI does in 30 minutes what your junior content writer used to spend 2 days on.
And now you’re sitting with something uncomfortable.
You could let them go.
You haven’t said this out loud yet. Not to your team. Not to your business partner. Maybe not even fully to yourself.
But the thought is there.
This is the part no one in your feed talks about.
The productivity posts tell you to “embrace AI.” Founders share screenshots of 10x output. Consultants sell you automation blueprints.
None of them tell you what it actually feels like to look at someone you hired ( someone who has been with you for 2, 3, maybe 5 years) and realize the tool you’re paying $50/month for just made their role optional.
That’s not a productivity problem. That’s a human one.
And there’s no clean framework for it.
Here’s what I’ve seen happen:
Some owners wait. They keep the person. They absorb the cost. They tell themselves it’ll work out.
Some move fast. They let them go. They feel guilty about it for months.
Some try to restructure. Retrain. Redeploy. Shift the role into something new. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it just delays the inevitable.
None of these are wrong. None of them are clean.
What I do know is this: the owners who navigate this best are the ones who face it directly instead of letting it fester quietly.
Because ignoring the decision is already a decision.
What makes this harder is that it’s not just about the person.
It’s about what it says about you.
About the kind of owner you want to be.
About whether efficiency and loyalty can coexist.
About what you actually value when the numbers are pointing in one direction and your gut is pointing in another.
That tension is real. Don’t let anyone make you feel naïve for feeling it.
If this is where you are right now, sitting with that uncomfortable number, not sure what to do with it, DM me.
No pitch. No framework. Just a conversation with someone who’s been there.