The AI Efficiency Revolution: The CEO of Goldman Sachs Just Said Something Every Business Owner in Northern Ireland Should Hear
Last week, David Solomon — the man who runs Goldman Sachs, one of the most powerful and well-known financial institutions on the planet — wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about artificial intelligence. He didn't write about robots taking over the world. He didn't write about Silicon Valley hype.
He wrote about work, about your work, my work, and how we will all be working moving forward, and particularly about the 25% of tasks that AI could automate across the global economy within the next 10 years.
25%…
Let that sit for a moment. One in four hours worked. Gone.
Not because people are being sacked, but because machines are getting better at doing the routine stuff faster, cheaper, and without complaint.
Solomon's point wasn't to scare people. His argument was designed to be reassuring — that this is creative destruction, the same process that happened when electricity replaced gas lamps, when spreadsheets replaced rooms full of accountants, when sending emails replaced typing letters. The economy adapted. It created new jobs. It always does.
But here's the part of his argument that I think is worth some reflection and consideration. He said that AI would raise performance standards within existing roles in the workplace.
In other words — the bar is moving. The people who embrace AI will be able to do more, faster, at a higher standard. And the people who don't? They'll be competing against those people for the same work.
As someone who still considers himself considerably young, I have to say the speed at which technology is moving right now is way too fast for me, but what I also accept is that it’s like all of these things: if you do not embrace it or try and figure out how it can add value to you or your business, there is no doubt you will be left behind.
So what does this actually mean if you run a business?
GDP Partnership or any of the companies I am involved with or invested in are not Goldman Sachs. We're not spending $400 billion on data centres. More accurately, our own business and the hundreds of businesses we are helping and have worked with over the last fifteen years are SMEs. Owner-managed businesses. Professional services firms. Builders, lenders, developers, retailers, entrepreneurs. People who work hard, carry risk, and don't have unlimited time or resources.
But here's the thing — AI doesn't care about the size of your balance sheet. The same tools that Goldman Sachs is rolling out across its investment banking division are available to you right now, for the price of a fish supper every month.
Over the last six months, I have started to use AI every week in my own business. For drafting documents, proposals and presentations that previously over the last five years would have taken me hours. For research that used to take days. For stress-testing ideas before I put them in front of clients or investors. For producing content — like this newsletter — faster and at a higher standard than I could manage alone.
I'm not replacing anyone. I'm multiplying what I can do with the time I have. I am developing my writing skills, presentation and knowledge base, and my understanding of the challenges facing our client base, which is adding value to me and my businesses. Finally, it is helping me hugely with the one most finite of resources each of us has a very limited amount of – TIME!!!
The three questions you should be asking yourself
Solomon's op-ed identified three dynamics that will define how AI reshapes the economy: the automation of routine tasks, higher performance standards within roles, and the emergence of entirely new jobs built around managing AI itself.
For a business owner, those three dynamics translate into three very practical questions.
First — what am I doing right now that a machine could do better? Report writing. Data entry. Following up leads. Drafting standard correspondence. Analysing financial information. Creating business plans and presentations. If it's repetitive and rule-based, it's a target.
Second — am I operating at the standard my clients will expect in two years, not just today? Because your competitors are asking the same question. And some of them are already moving.
Third — do I have anyone in my business who understands this well enough to help us use it properly? If not, that's a gap worth closing quickly. Ask for help, it’s there, you just have to look!
The one thing AI will never do
Despite all of this hype, and how amazing the technology is and could be for your business, here's what I am not hearing enough people say. For all its capability (and it is genuinely remarkable) — AI cannot build a relationship with another human being. It cannot sit across a table from someone, look them in the eye, and earn their trust. It cannot pick up the phone at the right moment, read the room, or stand behind its word when things get difficult. It doesn’t have, store, or have an ability to express emotional capital in scenarios you will find yourself in with your customer or client base.
In business, particularly in a place like Northern Ireland where reputation travels fast and relationships are everything, that matters enormously. The best deal I've ever done wasn't won on a spreadsheet or by me entering data into a computer. It was won because someone trusted me. Because they believed I was the best person for the job. They had experience of how our business operated, delivered results, and they trusted us.
No algorithm will ever replicate this, and no chatbot can build this kind of relationship/customer base over time.
In my own view, and I accept I am a novice when it comes to discussing this topic — a curious novice at that — here's the edge you already have, and always will have — you're human. You can build genuine trust with clients, with lenders, with partners, with customers and investors, in a way that AI fundamentally cannot.
The businesses that will win are the ones that use AI to handle the heavy lifting on routine work, and then redirect that time and energy into deepening the relationships that actually drive growth. Use AI to free yourself up for the things only you can do. That appears to be the trick.
The honest truth
I'm not going to pretend AI is magic. It isn't. It gets things wrong. It needs direction. It needs someone who understands the business well enough to know what good looks like. The output is only ever as good as the person steering it.
But the businesses that figure that out now — that build AI into how they work, how they pitch, how they serve clients — will have a structural advantage over those that wait and see.
Solomon put it well. This isn't a job apocalypse. It's a reallocation. The question is whether you're on the right side of that reallocation.
The tools are there. The cost is negligible. The learning curve is shorter than you think. And the relationships? Those are yours, just don’t take them for granted.
Until next week, look after yourself.
P.S. Remember, if you need some help with debt, equity, or perhaps you are acquiring a new business – whatever the need is, feel free to reach out in confidence. We would be delighted to help.
Conor