A startup CEO now scores every employee 1 to 5 on AI competency. Score a five? You've built systems that improve how others work. Can't demonstrate AI fluency? You don't get an interview.
This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce are all formally tracking AI use in performance reviews.
Big Tech is grading employees on AI. Workers with AI skills earn 56% more (PwC). Half of all workers still never touch AI. Whether you run a team or a solo business — ignoring AI just became a career risk.
The Numbers Behind the Mandate
🔹 56% wage premium for workers with AI skills — doubled from 25% in one year (PwC, ~1 billion job postings analyzed)
🔹 4x productivity growth in AI-exposed industries since 2022 (PwC)
🔹 42% of tech managers now expect daily AI use — up from 32% eight months ago
🔹 130% surge in job postings mentioning AI while overall hiring is flat (Indeed)
🔹 49% of U.S. workers still never use AI at work (Gallup Q4 2025)
🔹 Skills employers want are changing 66% faster in AI-exposed roles
What Happens When You Actually Try It
We ran today's prompt with an example persona — a COO of a luxury home builder. No tech background. No AI experience. Just a busy executive buried in subcontractor disputes and budget fires.
In five minutes, AI interviewed him, mapped his time drains, and built this:
RESULTS: COO — Luxury Residential Construction
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
⏱️ HOURS RECOVERED: 14 hours/week
💰 VALUE RECAPTURED: $210,000/year
TOP 5 AI-POWERED WINS:
1. Client emails in high-stakes disputes
→ AI drafts calm, authoritative responses in seconds
→ 3 hrs/week saved | Easy to start
2. Subcontractor bid comparison
→ AI extracts scope, flags exclusions, catches gaps
→ 4 hrs/week saved | Medium difficulty
3. Dispute analysis & positioning
→ AI identifies both sides' strongest arguments
→ 2 hrs/week saved | Medium difficulty
4. Budget vs. actual variance diagnosis
→ AI summarizes drivers, flags estimating patterns
→ 3 hrs/week saved | Medium difficulty
5. Preconstruction risk modeling
→ AI stress-tests allowances, flags under-budgeted items
→ 2 hrs/week saved | Advanced
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ACTION PLAN:
✅ This week — Use AI to draft every high-stakes email
✅ 30 days — Run every bid comparison through AI first
✅ 90 days — Build a preconstruction risk review workflow
He doesn't write code. He builds houses. AI just became his most valuable team member.
The prompt below does exactly this — customized to your role, your industry, and your weekly time drains.
The Prompt (Copy This)
You are an AI productivity strategist. Before giving me any advice,
interview me first. Ask me these questions one at a time and wait
for my answers:
1. What's your job title and what do you actually do day-to-day?
2. How big is your company or team?
3. What industry are you in?
4. What's your approximate hourly rate (or salary, and you'll calculate it)?
5. What are the 3-5 tasks that eat up most of your week?
After I answer all five, do this:
- Identify the top 5 tasks where AI would save me the most time
or improve quality
- For each task, explain exactly how AI handles it (step-by-step),
estimate time saved per week, rate difficulty (Easy / Medium /
Advanced), and recommend the best AI tool for the job
- Calculate my total hours saved per week and translate that into
annual dollar value
- Format everything as a clear action plan ranked from quickest
wins to biggest impact
Start by asking me question 1 now.
Paste this into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini and answer 5 questions. You'll have a custom AI action plan in under 10 minutes.
📰 Quick Bites
INDEED: AI JOB POSTINGS SURGE 130% WHILE OVERALL HIRING STAYS FLAT
The job market is splitting in two. Postings mentioning AI have more
than doubled since pre-pandemic levels while total listings barely
move. If your resume doesn't mention AI, you're invisible to a
growing chunk of employers.
────────────────────────────────
AUTODESK CEO: AI HOLDOUTS "PROBABLY WON'T SURVIVE LONG TERM"
Andrew Anagnost told WSJ that access — not resistance — was the
real hurdle. Some employees were using AI tools stealthily because
the company had blocked them. His fix: focus on specific workflows
AI improves, not dumping tools on people.
The 56% premium doubled last year. The performance reviews just went live. The only real question: are you getting graded — or getting ahead?
About This Newsletter
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