01
Subscription and credit sprawl
Teams add overlapping tools, premium plans and usage credits without one owner seeing the total cost or whether each tool is used.
AI Sanity at Work
Recover the Capacity AI Was Supposed to Save
Find where AI, interruptions and digital rework are consuming paid capacity. Then give your team clearer rules for what people do, what AI does, what gets reviewed and when the work stops.
- Make the hidden cost of fragmented work visible
- Reduce tool sprawl, duplicated effort and avoidable rework
- Turn AI use into a bounded workflow with accountable human decisions
Remote delivery worldwide · Programs from $5,000 USD
275 interruptionsMeetings, emails and chats interrupt employees every two minutes during core work hours in Microsoft's 2025 workday analysis. Source
2× the reported impactOrganizational factors account for twice as much reported AI impact as individual effort in Microsoft's 2026 research. Source
26% alignedOnly 26% of surveyed AI users said leadership was clearly and consistently aligned on AI. Source
Where the money goes
The expensive problem is not AI. It is work without an operating system.
A new tool can speed up one task while the organization quietly adds more tasks, more checking and more channels. These are the leaks the engagement is designed to find.
02
AI creates more work
Faster output leads to more drafts, more projects and more “almost finished” work instead of freeing capacity for the priorities that matter.
03
Verification becomes invisible labor
People spend paid time correcting context, checking facts, fixing tone and repairing output that looked complete before it was reviewed.
04
Task switching fragments the day
AI threads join chat, email and meetings as another place to check. Concentration breaks while payroll continues.
05
No one owns the finish line
The tool can always create another option. Without a human definition of “done,” work expands into evenings and unfinished queues.
06
Leaders and teams use different rules
Employees experiment in isolation because nobody has made task ownership, human review or acceptable use practical enough for daily work.
Use your own numbers
What could a small recovery in focused time be worth?
This calculator is a decision aid, not a promise. Change every assumption to match your organization.
Your assumptions
Use fully loaded payroll cost if you have it. The model uses 48 working weeks and 2,080 paid hours per year.
Estimated business case
Annual capacity cost at risk$461,538
Annual value of recovered time$57,692
First-year value after selected fee$42,692
Weekly recovery needed to break even4 minutes per person
Illustrative estimate only. “Value” means paid capacity, not guaranteed cash savings or revenue. It excludes implementation time, tax, travel, turnover and any productivity that cannot be reassigned to useful work.
The method
Measure the leak. Redesign the work. Verify what changed.
The aim is not to frighten people away from AI. It is to make AI use deliberate enough to produce a business result without expanding the working day.
Measure
Map AI spend, interruption, rework and the workflows where teams believe time is being lost.
Prioritize
Choose the few leaks worth fixing based on cost, frequency, risk and control.
Redesign
Define what AI does, what the employee owns, what needs review and what “finished” means.
Verify
Compare the agreed measures, document what improved and decide what to keep, change or stop.
The outcomes
Your team should leave with fewer open loops and clearer work.
The deliverable is not inspiration. It is a more usable way to work, with visible ownership and measures the organization can continue tracking.
Visible AI costA practical inventory of tools, owners, use cases and avoidable overlap.
Protected focusTeam rules that defend uninterrupted work without pretending messages are optional.
Human accountabilityClear responsibility for briefs, facts, judgement, approval and final decisions.
Bounded AI workflowsA starting brief, review point and finish line for the workstreams selected.
Less duplicated experimentationA shared view of what is being tested, why and who decides whether it continues.
An ROI recordA baseline, selected indicators and a final summary of what changed.
Current pricing
Choose the level of intervention your team needs.
All prices are in USD. Delivery is remote. Travel, specialist legal or security work, and scope beyond the limits below are quoted separately.
AI Work Cost Diagnostic
$5,000
For leaders who need a defensible view of the problem before funding a larger intervention.
- Leadership intake and objective setting
- Team pulse survey
- AI tool, spend and workflow inventory
- Five priority leaks with an impact model
- 90-minute leadership readout
- Written 30-day action plan
Leadership & Team Intensive
$10,000
For teams that know the problem and need shared rules, practical training and a way to start.
- Pre-session leadership diagnostic
- Leadership alignment session
- Tailored interactive team intensive
- Up to 50 participants
- AI and digital working agreement
- Manager discussion toolkit
- 14-day follow-up review
30-Day AI Sanity Implementation
$25,000
For organizations that want diagnosis, work redesign, team adoption and a final ROI record.
- Everything in the diagnostic
- Leadership alignment and team sessions
- Up to 100 participants
- Redesign of three priority workstreams
- Human-review and finish-line rules
- Before-and-after measurement
- Final recommendations and ROI summary
If you begin the 30-Day Implementation within 30 days of the Diagnostic readout, the full $5,000 Diagnostic fee is credited toward the $25,000 implementation.
Fit
Built for knowledge-work teams with a real operating problem.
This is likely a fit if…
- Your AI costs are growing faster than the business case.
- Employees are using AI differently with little shared guidance.
- Faster output has created more checking, projects or after-hours work.
- Leaders need a practical adoption plan, not another tool demonstration.
- You can provide honest baseline inputs and assign an internal owner.
This is not the right engagement if…
- You only want prompt training or a motivational keynote.
- You need legal, cybersecurity or technical AI governance.
- You want a promise of guaranteed savings without measuring the current state.
- You are unwilling to stop low-value tools or change team habits.
- You need clinical treatment for burnout or addiction.
Evidence, not hype
Why the intervention focuses on work design.
AI can improve productivity, but the result depends on the task, the worker and the organization around it.
- AI can produce meaningful gains in the right context. An NBER study of 5,179 customer-support agents found a 14% average productivity increase, with larger gains for novice and lower-skilled workers. That is one work setting, not a universal promise. Read the study.
- Leadership and operating conditions matter. Microsoft's 2026 research found organizational factors such as culture, manager support and talent practices accounted for twice as much reported AI impact as individual effort. Read the research.
- Saved time does not automatically become a shorter day. An in-progress eight-month UC Berkeley ethnography at one 200-person technology company found that AI expanded tasks and working hours rather than freeing time. Because this is one company and the research is ongoing, it is a warning to measure, not a universal conclusion. Read the report.
Questions leaders ask
Before you request a proposal.
Is this another AI tools training?
No. Tool skills may be part of the context, but the work focuses on cost visibility, task selection, interruption, human review, finish lines and team agreements.
How is ROI measured?
We begin with your payroll, time-loss and software-spend inputs. Together we select a small number of indicators your team can measure before and after the intervention. The calculator and final report estimate paid capacity; they do not guarantee cash savings or revenue.
Can you guarantee a productivity increase?
No. Any consultant who guarantees a specific gain before seeing your workflows is guessing. The engagement guarantees the agreed work and measurement process, not an invented business result.
Does this replace our AI governance, security or legal work?
No. It complements those functions by addressing daily work design, attention, adoption and behavior. Legal, security, data and technical decisions remain with your qualified specialists.
What size team is this for?
The published packages are designed for approximately 50 to 1,000 employees, with live delivery limits shown in each package. Larger or more complex organizations can request a phased proposal.
Is this clinical burnout treatment?
No. This is an organizational work-design and education service. Employees experiencing a mental-health crisis, addiction or clinical burnout should be supported by qualified health professionals and your existing employee-assistance resources.
Do you have organizational case studies for this offer?
This specific organizational offer is new. I will not disguise personal experience or general teaching results as corporate ROI proof. Early clients receive a documented baseline and final measurement summary so the result is visible to both sides.
Find out what AI and digital overload are costing your team.
Request a proposal and include your approximate employee count, the AI tools already in use and the one work problem that is costing you the most.
Request a ProposalThe contact page opens on Awakened Academy, Michael Mackintosh's education company. Mention “AI Sanity at Work” in your message.