-Amar Kondekar, Head – Brand Services & Business Growth- Jio Creative Labs
No leader wakes up wanting to micromanage.
Most of us do it for one simple reasonwe care about the outcome.
Whether you’re leading a marketing team, an advertising agency or a business function, the pressure is the same. Tight deadlines. Multiple stakeholders. Constant change. When something doesn’t look right, it’s tempting to step in.
You review another presentation. Rewrite a few lines of copy. Join one more meeting. Ask for another update.
Over time, that becomes the way the team works.
The problem is, micromanagement is rarely caused by a lack of trust. More often, it’s caused by a lack of visibility.
For years, leaders had very few ways of knowing what was happening unless they were directly involved. So they stayed close to every decision.
Artificial Intelligence is beginning to change that.
According to McKinsey, 78% of organisations now use AI in at least one business function, making AI one of the fastest-adopted technologies in business. The firm also estimates that Generative AI could create between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion in annual economic value, with marketing and sales among the biggest beneficiaries.
The interesting part isn’t the technology. It’s what it means for leadership.
Today, AI can summarise meetings, track project progress, analyse campaign performance, identify risks and generate reports in minutes. Leaders no longer have to rely only on status meetings or endless follow-ups to understand what’s happening.
That doesn’t remove the need for managers. It changes where managers spend their time.
Marketing Has an Opportunity to Work Differently
Marketing and advertising have always been collaborative industries. They are also known for long approval chains and multiple opinions.
Creative ideas often go through countless rounds of revisions. Strategy decks are updated repeatedly. Teams spend hours preparing status reports before they actually begin solving problems.
Most marketers would agree that this isn’t where their value lies.
McKinsey estimates that marketing and sales could capture nearly 75% of Generative AI’s economic value through faster content creation, better customer insights and more
personalised communication.
Imagine removing hours spent creating first drafts, compiling reports or analysing campaign data.
That time doesn’t disappear.
It gets reinvested into understanding consumers, improving ideas and having better conversations with clients.
That’s a much better use of human capability.
Better Information Creates Better Leadership
One of the biggest advantages AI offers leaders isn’t speed. It’s better information.
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index found that 75% of knowledge workers already use AI at work, while 79% of business leaders believe AI is essential to staying competitive.
Yet many organisations are still managing people as if information is scarce. It no longer is.
When leaders have access to real-time insights, they don’t need to ask for constant updates. Conversations become less about tracking activity and more about solving problems.
That’s a healthier dynamic for everyone. People feel trusted.
Managers spend less time checking and more time coaching. Work moves faster without people feeling constantly watched. We Should Measure More Than Productivity
Most conversations about AI eventually come back to efficiency. That’s understandable.
But efficiency shouldn’t be the end goal.
The real question is whether AI improves people’s experience of work. Does it remove repetitive tasks?
Does it reduce unnecessary meetings?
Does it help teams spend more time thinking instead of formatting presentations? Does it give managers more time to develop people instead of chasing updates?
If the answer is yes, then AI is doing something much bigger than improving productivity. It’s improving the quality of work itself.
For those of us in marketing and advertising, that’s particularly important. Great campaigns have never come from having more meetings. They come from curiosity, observation, empathy and creative thinking.
AI can’t replace those qualities.
It can create more room for them.
Leadership Is Becoming More Human
Ironically, as technology becomes more capable, leadership becomes more human. AI can organise information, automate workflows and generate recommendations. It can’t build trust with a client who’s nervous about a campaign.
It can’t mentor a young strategist who’s finding their voice.
It can’t sense when a team is overwhelmed or celebrate the small wins that build culture. Those moments still belong to people.
Perhaps that’s why I don’t see AI as replacing leadership.
I see it removing many of the tasks that stopped leaders from actually leading.
The organisations that will benefit most from AI won’t simply be the ones using the latest tools.
They’ll be the ones that use those tools to create better experiences for their employees, their clients and ultimately their consumers.
Because if AI only helps us work faster, we have solved an efficiency problem.
But if it helps us spend more time creating, collaborating, mentoring and understanding people, we have solved something much more meaningful.
And in an industry built on human behaviour, that might be AI’s biggest contribution of all.