As organizations grapple with the proliferation of AI tools, ServiceNow's Group Vice President of Employee Experience, John Phillips, is challenging the prevailing approach to measuring AI success. In a recent episode of the podcast "You Should Know," Phillips argued that counting how often employees use AI tools misses the point entirely. Instead, he said, the focus should be on whether jobs are completed faster, with less friction, and with better outcomes for both employees and the business.
Phillips did not mince words when describing the current state of AI in the workplace. "Every system of record is now got their little AI agent and it's creating chaos for these practitioners," he told hosts Ryan Leary and William Tincup. "We're watching this like train wreck of productivity." The problem, he explained, is that organizations are adopting AI tools from multiple vendors, each with its own agent, and these tools often do not integrate with one another. He described customers arriving with eight purchased AI tools plus one they built themselves, none of which communicate effectively.
Phillips predicts a significant shift in how AI success will be evaluated. "We're going to quickly stop talking about AI adoption as tool usage, and we're going to start looking at the outcomes and jobs to be done," he said. This perspective comes as CHROs face mounting pressure to demonstrate AI productivity gains across increasingly fragmented technology stacks. The conversation highlighted the two-sided value exchange between employee and employer, questioning what happens to the 23 hours a tool claims to save employees.
The discussion also touched on the changing nature of work and employee well-being. Phillips noted the collapse of work boundaries post-COVID, linking it to burnout and an internal dialogue of "am I enough." He emphasized the importance of discretionary effort over traditional engagement surveys, advocating for hyper-personalization instead of one-size-fits-all pulse data. Tincup, a long-time critic of engagement surveys, pushed Phillips on whether discretionary effort is a truer metric, while Leary shared a personal story of applying to Home Depot and never receiving an acknowledgment email, illustrating the impact of poor employee experience.
ServiceNow's approach, as described by Phillips, involves layering an agentic companion across existing systems rather than ripping and replacing them. This "AI control tower" vision aims to stitch together 15 large language models and 100 systems, providing a unified interface for employees. Phillips believes this approach can reduce the chaos caused by fragmented AI tools and improve overall productivity.
On human performance, Phillips offered a compelling insight: "High performance has both extreme focus and extreme recovery. It's in any environment, the highest performers in the world have those things." This philosophy, shaped by his time in refugee camps, underscores his belief that "skills and talent is universal and opportunity is not."
The episode, part of the WRKdefined Podcast Network, resonates with leaders navigating the complexities of AI adoption. With over 3.9 million verified monthly listeners, "You Should Know" provides a platform for unfiltered conversations on pivotal workplace challenges. Phillips' message is clear: stop measuring AI adoption by tool usage and start measuring work outcomes. This shift could redefine how organizations assess the value of their AI investments, ensuring that technology serves the ultimate goal of improving work for everyone.
