In a recent episode of the podcast You Should Know, hosted by Ryan Leary and William Tincup, John Phillips, Group Vice President of Employee Experience at ServiceNow, made a bold case for rethinking how organizations measure the success of artificial intelligence. Phillips argues that counting how many employees click on an AI tool is a meaningless metric. Instead, he insists, the only thing that matters is whether work gets done faster, with less friction, and with better outcomes for both the employee and the business.
Phillips did not mince words about the current state of AI in the enterprise. 'Every system of record is now got their little AI agent and it's creating chaos for these practitioners,' he said. 'We're watching this like train wreck of productivity.' He points to the proliferation of AI agents from every software vendor, each operating in a silo, creating a fragmented technology landscape that overwhelms employees and undermines productivity gains.
The conversation comes at a time when chief human resource officers (CHROs) are under increasing pressure to prove the value of AI investments. Phillips predicts a rapid shift in how that value will be assessed. '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 means moving beyond engagement surveys and adoption rates to measure tangible improvements in work output and employee experience.
Phillips also delved into the concept of a two-sided value exchange between employee and employer. He challenged the notion that AI should simply save time, asking what happens to the 23 hours a tool claims to save. He emphasized the importance of discretionary effort over traditional engagement metrics, a point that resonated with co-host William Tincup, who has long criticized the limitations of engagement surveys.
The episode also touched on the collapse of work-life boundaries post-COVID, leading to burnout and the internal dialogue of 'am I enough.' Phillips stressed that high performance requires both extreme focus and extreme recovery, a principle that applies across all environments. 'The highest performers in the world have those things,' he added.
ServiceNow's approach, as described by Phillips, involves layering an agentic companion across existing systems rather than ripping and replacing them. He noted that customers often arrive with eight different AI tools they've purchased, plus one they built themselves, none of which communicate with each other. ServiceNow's AI control tower vision aims to stitch together 15 different large language models and 100 systems, creating a unified overlay that coordinates AI agents across the enterprise.
Phillips' perspective is shaped by his time spent in refugee camps, where he learned that 'skills and talent is universal and opportunity is not.' This philosophy underpins his belief that AI should democratize access to opportunities within organizations, rather than exacerbate existing inequalities.
The episode concluded with a personal anecdote from co-host Ryan Leary, who shared his frustrating experience of applying to Home Depot and never receiving an acknowledgment email. This highlighted the disconnect between the promises of AI-driven efficiency and the reality of poor candidate experiences, underscoring the need for a more holistic approach to measuring AI's impact.
As AI continues to permeate every aspect of work, Phillips' message is clear: stop counting clicks and start measuring outcomes. The full episode is available on the You Should Know podcast, part of the WRKdefined Podcast Network, which reaches over 3.9 million monthly listeners.
