The zero value of average work

The useful part

The economics of knowledge work are changing in ways that are easy to underestimate. Before AI, people understood that producing competent work at scale required time, specialized skills, and organizational infrastructure. This meant that work activities like writing articles or building functional software came with meaningful costs.

How it works

• When competent work is available at nearly zero cost, it provides little competitive advantage.
• Search historically required considerable execution across content production, keyword research, technical recommendations, reporting, and analysis.
• THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE HAS SHIFTED The barrier to production has fallen, but knowing which work produces meaningfu...
• AI brought on a similar reset across a broader range of knowledge work.
• When knowledge work becomes abundant and cheap, where does the value move?

What to take from it

Now AI's output is the new average and "competent" execution is abundant. Cloud computing changed the skills required to manage infrastructure and GPS reduced the value of navigational skills. Those capabilities needed specialized people and processes, along with technology.

Details worth keeping

LLMs have driven those costs down to practically zero. My industry, search marketing, offers an early look at the answer. Executing this consistently and efficiently was a competitive advantage.