Episode 16: Why Corporate AI Needs to Focus on Efficacy, Not Efficiency

Last week I gave efficacy versus efficiency about a minute. This week it gets the whole episode. On Thursday I spoke at the GAIN Conference to business-to-government marketers, a room full of contractors and professional services firms still recovering from DOGE while facing heavy pressure to adopt AI. The distinction landed immediately, and it’s resonating with the nonprofits and professional services firms I work with, too. Efficiency has become AI code for cut costs, cut people, cut, cut, cut. Employees know it, and few employers have promised to bring them along if AI succeeds. Meanwhile, this year’s labor data suggests the promised productivity gains largely haven’t shown up. That leaves a hard question many executive teams can’t answer: beyond doing things cheaper, how does AI help you reach your business goals? Efficacy is where the hope is. It’s the mission, the North Star, and the brand promise to the customers you serve. If AI helps me reach more people, or improves the quality of what I deliver to the people I already reach, that’s efficacy. It also gives leaders a simple filter for use cases: is this on mission, and does it make us more effective? So what’s your North Star, and which AI use cases actually move you toward it? 0:36 The GAIN Conference and the federal market’s AI moment 2:23 Efficiency as code for cut, cut, cut 5:30 Efficacy as the mission and North Star 7:31 Choosing AI use cases that stay on mission