The Simple Rule That Made AI Make Sense

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Last week, we shared the #1 takeaway from the 346 participants who submitted reviews about our AI in the Workplace training days: 

Prompting. 

Specifically, the RICCE Framework, a simple structure for getting dramatically better results from any AI tool. (If you missed it, it’s worth going back to read.)

This week: the takeaway that changed how people think about their relationship with AI entirely.

Before we get to the rule, let’s talk about the question that was in the room at every single one of our last 18 sessions.

“Is this thing going to replace me?”

A fair question.

When Shopify’s CEO says teams need to prove they can’t accomplish goals with AI before asking for more headcount, when a Stanford study shows a 13% decline in early-career employment in AI-impacted roles… it’s rational to feel uneasy.

But here’s what we’ve seen across hundreds of participants: the anxiety almost always comes from not knowing where they fit in the AI equation. Not from the technology itself.

That’s exactly what the 10-80-10 Rule solves.

The 10-80-10 Rule

It’s the simplest framework we teach. And it was the second most referenced takeaway across every session we’ve run.

Here’s how it works:

The 10-80-10 Rule for AI Use in the Workplace

The First 10%: You set the direction.

This is where the human does what only the human can do: think. Define the problem. Identify what “good” looks like. Craft the prompt using RICCE. Gather the context, the examples, the constraints. This 10% is pure strategy, and it’s the part that determines whether AI gives you something brilliant or something generic.

The Middle 80%: AI does the heavy lifting.

This is the drafting, the researching, the formatting, the number-crunching, the first pass at the thing you used to spend three hours building from scratch. AI handles the volume. The grunt work. The part that used to eat your afternoon. This is where you get time back.

The Final 10%: You make it yours.

hours building from scratch. AI handles the volume. The grunt work. The part that used to eat your afternoon. This is where you get time back.

The Final 10%: You make it yours.

Review. Edit. Audit. Apply judgment. Integrate to create value. Add the nuance that only someone who actually knows your business, your client, your market can add. This is quality control, and it’s non-negotiable. The output is never the final product. You are.

Why This One Landed So Hard

We’ve taught a lot of frameworks. But 10-80-10 hit differently. And when we looked at the feedback, the reason became obvious:

It answered the replacement question.

The moment people saw where they fit in the loop, at the beginning and the end, where the actual thinking happens, the anxiety dropped. AI wasn’t replacing them. It was replacing the part of the job they didn’t love anyway.

“AI doesn’t replace us as the contributor and creative core of my business. It is an enhancement that gives us the opportunity to work with great intelligence that inherently flexes the brain for growth.”

— Shannon, AI Day participant

“Augment rather than replace is a mindset I will take from this.”

— Jes Davey, AI Day participant

“It’s to amplify and serve as a co-pilot. 10-80-10 structure.”

— AI Day participant

“Judgment is the most important skill. Figure out what you spend the most time on and use AI to reduce the amount of time spent on that activity.” 

— Anonymous AI Day participant

And the quote that showed up in some form at nearly every session:

“AI will not replace people. But people who use AI will replace those who don’t.”

— repeated by multiple participants

The Real Danger Isn’t AI Replacing You

Here’s what we tell every group, and it bears repeating: 95% of AI projects fail.

The automation rate of even the best AI models sits around 2.5% for real-world commissioned work. AI is not some omnipotent force about to swallow your job whole.

The real danger is simpler and more human than that: it’s doing nothing.

It’s watching your competitor figure out how to produce proposals in 30 minutes while you’re still spending half a day. It’s losing talent to companies that have already made AI part of the workflow. It’s falling behind not because AI is too powerful, but because you never gave it a clear role.

10-80-10 gives it a clear role. And more importantly, it gives you a clear role.

“AI is not intimidating! RICCE. 10-80-10.”

— Starr Cunningham, AI Day participant

“AI isn’t going to take your job, but someone using AI will. The right prompt will make or break your AI experiences—RICCE. The rule of 10-80-10.”

— Mallory, AI Day participant

Coming Next Week

The third and final installment in this series covers a takeaway that surprised even us. 

It’s not about prompting. It’s not about workflow. It’s about something more fundamental. And it’s the reason some businesses will thrive with AI while others stay stuck.