I have a question for every business owner and executive investing in artificial intelligence.

What are you planning to do with the time it saves?

Not the money.

The time.

I've been having this conversation quite a bit lately. With business owners, executives, and people trying to figure out what artificial intelligence will mean for their organizations.

Most of those conversations begin in familiar territory. How many hours can we save? How much more can we produce? Which processes can we automate? What will it do to our costs?

Those are reasonable questions. I ask them myself. I build technology that helps organizations become more efficient, and I understand why business leaders are excited about what AI makes possible.

But there's another question I keep bringing into these conversations.

What if we gave some of those hours back to the people doing the work?

Not as unpaid time off. Not by cutting someone's paycheck because their job can now be done faster.

What if we actually gave them more of their lives back?

We're so accustomed to thinking about productivity as something a company captures that the idea of sharing it through additional free time can seem almost counterintuitive.

But why?

Why should every technological advancement result in an expectation that human beings produce even more?

If artificial intelligence changes the economics of work as dramatically as many expect, shouldn't we at least consider doing something different this time?

We Keep Saving Time. Where Does It Go?

Think about the technologies that were supposed to make our lives easier.

Email made communication almost instantaneous. Smartphones allowed us to work from practically anywhere. Software automated tasks that once consumed entire days.

And yet, for many of us, the workday didn't get shorter. The expectations grew.

When communication became faster, we were expected to respond faster. When information became more accessible, we were expected to know more. When technology allowed us to work from home, work gradually found its way into our homes.

The tools improved. Our capacity increased. But the time we supposedly saved had a way of disappearing into the next responsibility.

I don't think this happened because every business owner is greedy or every manager is unreasonable. Businesses face competition. Customers expect good service. Costs increase. Growth can create jobs and support families.

I understand those pressures because I've experienced them.

But we've developed an almost unquestioned assumption that if technology allows us to accomplish more, then accomplishing more must be the goal.

What if that assumption deserves another look?

The Fifteen Hours Nobody Talks About

Imagine a company with employees working forty hours a week.

It introduces AI tools that simplify reporting, reduce administrative work, and help people accomplish their responsibilities more efficiently. Eventually, some employees can complete what used to require forty hours in twenty-five.

This is a hypothetical example, not a prediction about every workplace. Some jobs will change dramatically. Others will remain dependent on human presence, judgment, and physical work.

But suppose it happens.

Fifteen hours have been freed.

What should the company do?

It could increase production, reduce staffing, take on more customers, or improve margins. Depending on the circumstances, some of those decisions might be necessary or beneficial.

But there's another possibility.

What if those employees could work thirty hours instead of forty, with the same pay?

What if the company used some of its gains to create shorter workweeks, greater flexibility, or additional paid leave?

What if someone could finish their responsibilities on Thursday afternoon and spend Friday with their family?

I know that won't work in every industry or financial situation. Increased productivity doesn't automatically create enough profit to fund shorter schedules at unchanged wages. Someone has to do the math.

But shouldn't we be willing to do that math?

We already measure the financial return on technology investments. Why not measure the human return?

Efficiency is an economic calculation. What we do with the people affected by that efficiency is a moral decision.

When Did Being Busy Become a Virtue?

I have to admit something.

I'm not particularly good at resting.

I enjoy building things. I love solving problems. I get excited about new ideas, and AI has made it possible for me to pursue more of them than ever before.

There's almost always something else I could be doing.

Somewhere along the way, many of us began treating busyness as evidence that our lives matter.

We ask people how they're doing, and they tell us how busy they've been. We admire people who work long hours. We celebrate those who seem capable of accomplishing more than everyone around them.

We wear exhaustion almost like a badge of honor.

But when did being constantly occupied become the measure of a meaningful life?

I've spent much of my life wrestling with the temptation to find my worth in what I can accomplish. It's one of the reasons AI has been so personally challenging.

If I already struggle to stop working, what happens when technology makes it possible to work even more?

Perhaps the problem isn't simply that businesses keep demanding greater productivity. Perhaps we've also forgotten how to recognize the value of time that produces nothing measurable.

We Were Created for More Than Work

As a Christian, I find it fascinating that work appears in the biblical story before sin enters the world.

In Genesis, human beings are given responsibility to cultivate and care for creation. Work isn't presented as a punishment. It's part of what we were created to do.

But there's something else in that opening story.

Rest.

Genesis describes God resting on the seventh day. Not because He was exhausted or had run out of ideas, but because rest was part of the rhythm He established.

Long before factories, offices, computers, or artificial intelligence, Scripture presented a vision of life in which work was good, but work was not everything.

The Sabbath commandment later made that principle even more explicit. People were not meant to labor without interruption. Neither were the servants, the foreigners, or even the animals within their households.

Rest wasn't reserved for the people at the top. It belonged in the life of the whole community.

I think there's something remarkably relevant about that today.

We're entering a period when technology may allow some organizations to accomplish the same amount of work with fewer human hours. We have an opportunity to ask whether some of that efficiency should become rest.

Time to be present. Time to be with people. Time to remember that we are more than what we produce.

We were created to work. We were not created to be consumed by work.

What Would You Do With Ten More Hours?

Imagine having ten additional hours every week.

Not because you lost your job or your income was reduced, but because technology made your work more efficient and your employer decided some of the benefit belonged to you.

What would you do?

Maybe you'd pick your kids up from school. Coach their team. Visit your parents more often. Volunteer at church. Take a class. Work in the garden. Sit with a friend going through a difficult season.

Maybe you'd take your spouse out for lunch on a Friday afternoon.

Maybe you'd go fishing, read a book, or do absolutely nothing for a while.

And you wouldn't have to feel guilty about it.

I think about my own children and how quickly the years have passed. There are moments you don't get back. Conversations that happen only because you were available. Ordinary afternoons that become memories.

A child who wants to tell you something important, even if it doesn't seem urgent to you. An aging parent who doesn't need another gift as much as they need your company.

We talk about improving quality of life through technology. But what could improve someone's life more than having enough time to actually live it?

Not everyone would spend those hours the same way. That's the point. The value of free time is that people get to decide what matters to them.

Not every hour needs to be optimized. Some hours are meant to be lived.

The Part We Don't Like to Admit

Of course, there's a problem with this vision.

Human beings don't have a particularly impressive track record of voluntarily giving up advantages.

When we've discovered ways to produce more, we've often found ways to consume more. When we've gained power, we've often looked for ways to increase it. When we've created tools that make life easier, we've frequently raised our expectations until the new convenience feels like another obligation.

I don't think we should pretend AI will make us more generous or compassionate simply because the technology is extraordinary.

It won't.

The same human tendencies that shaped earlier technological changes will shape this one. Some people will use AI to improve lives. Others will use it primarily to accumulate wealth and power. Many will be trying to balance competing responsibilities and imperfect choices.

But here's the part I keep coming back to.

Someone has to be the first generation to decide that progress should mean more than producing more.

Why not us?

Why couldn't business leaders begin competing not only for productive workforces, but for workplaces where people have room for family, service, and rest?

Why couldn't we look at an efficiency improvement and ask how much of the benefit should go to the people whose work made that improvement valuable?

I'm not naive enough to believe every company will do this. Some won't. Some can't, at least not immediately. Others will choose short-term financial gains.

But the fact that something hasn't been our usual practice doesn't mean it can't become our practice.

And I think we owe it to the generations coming behind us to try.

What Are We Leaving Our Children?

I wonder what our children and grandchildren will think when they look back at this moment.

They may inherit technology that makes today's AI systems seem primitive. They may have opportunities we can barely imagine.

But what kind of working culture will they inherit?

Will they be expected to accomplish twice as much in the same forty hours? Will constant availability become an even deeper expectation? Will the gains continue flowing mainly to those who control the technology and capital?

Or will we begin building a different expectation?

One in which technological progress is measured partly by how much more freedom it creates for ordinary people.

One in which parents have more time with their children, and people can care for aging family members without feeling that they're failing professionally.

One in which the ability to work faster doesn't automatically become an obligation to work harder.

We won't solve all of that with a new company policy. But decisions business leaders make now can help establish expectations that last for generations.

Because our children won't just inherit our technology.

They'll inherit the values we chose to build into the way we use it.

The Business Case for Giving Time Back

I realize some readers may be thinking this sounds wonderful, but businesses still have to make money.

Of course they do.

I've built businesses. I understand payroll, operating expenses, customers, investors, and the uncomfortable reality that good intentions don't pay invoices.

A company that isn't financially sustainable cannot provide lasting opportunities for employees. Sometimes efficiency is necessary simply to stay competitive.

I'm not suggesting every organization should immediately move to a four-day workweek. I'm suggesting we expand the conversation about what a successful AI implementation looks like.

Perhaps a company starts by giving employees one afternoon a month. Perhaps it experiments with shorter Fridays. Perhaps it shares gains through additional paid leave, flexible schedules, or a gradual reduction in required hours.

Some of the gains might support higher wages, while others create more time away from work.

The right approach will vary. What matters is that employees are included in the benefit.

And this cannot be limited to people who sit behind computers.

Nurses still need to care for patients. Tradespeople still need to work on physical systems. Teachers still need to be present with students. Caregivers still need to care for people.

If AI creates new wealth and productivity across the economy, we should think about how those benefits can improve life for people whose work remains deeply human.

Otherwise, we risk creating a future where the people whose jobs are easiest to automate gain more freedom while everyone else is simply expected to keep up.

Christian business leaders have a particular opportunity to model something better. Not because Christians have always gotten business ethics right. We haven't.

But because our faith gives us a reason to see employees as more than units of labor.

They are people created in the image of God. People with families, responsibilities, hopes, limitations, and lives outside the workplace.

Their worth doesn't increase when they produce more. And it doesn't decrease when technology makes part of their work unnecessary.

Maybe We Need to Learn How to Rest Again

Even if we succeed in giving people more time, will we know what to do with it?

I ask that question of myself as much as anyone.

I know how easy it is to fill an empty hour with another email, project, idea, or way to feel useful.

In last week's article, I wrote about the temptation to become so self-sufficient through technology that surrender begins to feel unnecessary.

I think this is connected.

If our identity is built around what we accomplish, then having more free time may not feel like freedom. It may feel like a threat.

Who are we when we're not producing? When we're not solving a problem? When we aren't needed for something?

The Christian answer is simple and surprisingly difficult to live.

We are loved before we accomplish anything.

Our worth isn't a reward for productivity. We don't have to earn our right to exist by filling every hour with something useful.

Perhaps one of the gifts of rest is that it forces us to remember that.

The world continues turning when we stop working. Our families don't need us to be productive every moment. And God doesn't love us more on the days when we get everything done.

Sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is simply be present.

That's not laziness. That's remembering what our lives are actually for.

A Friday Afternoon Worth Fighting For

I don't know whether AI will eventually make a twenty-hour workweek realistic for large portions of society. There are too many economic, technological, and human variables to promise that.

But I believe we're approaching a moment when some organizations will have genuine choices about what to do with the time AI saves.

I hope we don't simply default to the choices we've made before.

I hope business owners experiment, employees have a voice, and we begin measuring success not only in dollars saved and output increased, but in time returned to people.

Those of us who build this technology are helping shape what everyday life might look like for the next generation. I take that responsibility seriously.

I want my children, and someday perhaps my grandchildren, to inherit a world where technology serves human flourishing rather than demanding an endless increase in human output.

A world where people can work hard, contribute meaningfully, and still have room for family, faith, friendship, service, and rest.

A world where being human isn't something we squeeze into the hours left over after the work is done.

Maybe that begins with something as ordinary as a Friday afternoon.

A parent leaving work early enough to pick up their child. A couple taking a walk. Someone visiting a lonely friend. A family sitting around a table without rushing to the next obligation.

None of those moments will show up as an increase in productivity.

But I suspect many of them will matter far more in the end.

Humanity doesn't have a perfect record of using progress wisely. We know that.

But someone has to decide that this time, we can do better.

Some generation has to be willing to say that the purpose of technological progress isn't simply to extract more work from human beings.

Why not ours?

We owe our children and grandchildren more than faster machines and bigger economies. We owe them an honest attempt to build a world where those advances make life more human.

Because the greatest gift artificial intelligence might give us isn't another hour of productivity.

It might be an hour we no longer have to be productive at all.

And what we choose to do with that hour may say more about our humanity than anything the machine helped us accomplish.

That's part of what it means to remain Faithfully Human.