Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.

Right now, every leadership team is looking at their P&L, looking at AI, and doing the exact same math: If an AI can do this task 80% as well as a human for 1% of the cost, we should automate it immediately.

The CTO sees the efficiency. The CFO sees the margin expansion.

But both are likely falling victim to The Doorman’s Fallacy.

What is the Doorman’s Fallacy?

Behavioral economists use the hotel doorman to explain how we misunderstand value.

If you believe a hotel doorman’s only job is to open the front door, then replacing him with an automatic sliding door looks like a 100% ROI no-brainer. The door still opens, and you save a salary.

But an automatic door doesn’t:

• Hail a cab in the rain.
• Recognize returning guests and welcome them by name.
• Act as a visual deterrent to loiterers or pickpockets.
• Signal luxury and status to anyone walking by.

You optimized the physical task, but you completely destroyed the hidden, implicit value.

The AI Trap in Business

We are making the exact same mistake with AI right now across our enterprises. We are automating the explicit tasks while ignoring the implicit value those roles provide.

• Customer Success: You replace Level 1 support with an AI chatbot. It successfully deflects 70% of tickets. What you lost was your early-warning system for customer frustration and the human empathy that prevents a minor bug from becoming a churned account.
• FP&A and Junior Analysts: You use AI to instantly consolidate data and write the first draft of the variance report. You saved 10 hours a week. But what you lost is the friction required for a junior analyst to actually learn the mechanics of the business so they can become a strategic senior leader three years from now.

Automate the Task, Not the Context

AI is undeniably incredible at executing explicit tasks. But it is fundamentally incapable of managing implicit context.

When you remove the human from the loop entirely, you aren’t just cutting a cost center. You are severing the connective tissue that catches edge cases, builds relationships, and holds institutional memory.

If your company’s entire AI strategy is just “replace human cost with compute cost,” you aren’t actually upgrading your business. You are just installing an automatic door and wondering why your lobby suddenly feels empty.

“What is a ‘hidden’ or implicit part of your role that AI could never replicate? Let me know in the comments!”

#AI #FutureOfWork #inersec #Automation #TheAccidentalCFO