This year started with a shift in how I think about automation. Instead of asking how much I can remove myself from a workflow, I began asking where my judgment matters most. I stopped chasing full autonomy and started designing systems where AI drafts, structures, and summarizes — but I make the final call.
The interesting realization is that leverage isn’t about elimination. It’s about placement. When I move my attention to the highest-value decision points and let AI handle the scaffolding, the quality increases rather than declines. The human-in-the-loop model feels less like compromise and more like architecture.