Artificial intelligence (AI) can help business leaders reclaim up to four hours of productive time every week by automating repetitive work, connecting to business applications and providing persistent organisational knowledge, according to digital transformation firm V5 Digital.
Speaking during the company’s First Fridays executive breakfast in Windhoek, V5 Digital executives urged organisations to move beyond basic AI prompting and begin integrating AI into everyday business workflows to unlock measurable productivity gains.
V5 Digital founder Armin Wieland said many organisations are underutilising AI by treating it as a chatbot rather than a business productivity platform.
“What we see as the danger is that busy leaders and executives are wasting precious time with simple tasks that could actually be delegated to AI. The focus is how we can buy you four hours back by next week,” Wieland said.
He said the greatest gains come from creating dedicated AI workspaces containing organisational knowledge, company documents, communication preferences and operating procedures instead of relying on isolated conversations.
According to Wieland, separating work into dedicated AI projects enables platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini to deliver more accurate, consistent and context-aware responses while keeping client information organised.
“Stop using one continuous messy chat thread for everything. Organise your work into projects inside Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. These projects keep your client data isolated and give the AI access to the specific background documents needed for answering,” he said.
He added that enterprise AI platforms also strengthen data governance by allowing organisations to keep corporate information within secure business environments instead of exposing it to public AI systems.
Customer Success Consultant and Generative AI Tools Guide Jürgen Teichert said AI adoption should focus on eliminating repetitive work rather than replacing employees.
“AI isn’t about replacing people but really more about removing repetitive work so that people can spend more time doing the work only humans can do,” Teichert said.
He identified four major productivity drains within organisations: repeatedly providing background information to AI tools, routine administration, report preparation and manual business processes.
Teichert demonstrated how persistent AI profiles can store users’ roles, responsibilities, communication styles and organisational rules, eliminating the need to repeatedly explain context before every interaction.
“You don’t need to ever reintroduce yourself to the AI platform. Your identity, responsibilities, communication style, work priorities and rules are already there before it answers,” he said.
He also highlighted AI integrations with business applications such as email, calendars, accounting software and collaboration platforms as one of the fastest ways to improve workplace productivity.
Using AI connectors, he demonstrated how businesses can automatically generate daily briefings by analysing calendars, emails, outstanding tasks and priorities before employees begin work.
The technology can also review accounting systems to identify overdue invoices, analyse previous customer correspondence and prepare follow-up emails without manual intervention.
Teichert said AI has also matured to the point where it can automate business report writing and presentation development, significantly reducing the time required to produce management reports and slide decks.
“So we’re already really here. Automation has become easy and accessible for the average person. You don’t need coding experience or difficult technical knowledge,” he said.
V5 Digital said its First Fridays series is designed to help organisations adopt AI through practical implementation strategies that improve productivity, accelerate digital transformation and strengthen long-term business performance.
