1.1

Most of Your Job Isn't Your Job

AI can handle the 70% that drains you. Here's what that means.

💡 Concept ⏱️ ~10 minutes

The Split You Already Know

You've felt it. The gap between the work that uses your expertise and the work that just consumes your time.

Drafting learning objectives. Writing scenarios. Creating assessment items. Formatting. Reformatting. Fixing inconsistencies. All necessary. None of it the reason you became an instructional designer.

The strategic work—deciding what learning experience to build, how to sequence concepts, what will land with this audience—that's maybe 30% of your time. The other 70% is execution.

AI flips that ratio.

Not perfectly. Not without your oversight. But well enough to fundamentally change what your workday looks like.

You're Not a Creator Anymore. You're a Director.

Traditional workflow:

  1. Analyze learning needs (strategy)
  2. Write learning objectives manually (execution)
  3. Draft content manually (execution)
  4. Create scenarios manually (execution)
  5. Build assessments manually (execution)
  6. Design visuals manually (execution)
  7. Iterate on everything manually (execution)

AI-augmented workflow:

  1. Analyze learning needs (strategy) ← Still yours
  2. Direct AI to generate objectives ← AI drafts, you refine
  3. Direct AI to draft content ← AI drafts, you shape
  4. Direct AI to create scenarios ← AI generates, you select
  5. Direct AI to build assessments ← AI creates, you validate
  6. Direct AI to design visuals ← AI generates, you approve
  7. Iterate strategically (strategy) ← You focus on what works
One sentence:
You stop creating everything. You start directing creation—then ensuring it's pedagogically sound.

Three IDs, Right Now

Sarah, Corporate L&D:
"Eight hours to write a compliance course from scratch. Now? Two hours with Claude drafting, three hours refining. Same quality. Three hours back. I spend them on interactivity and user testing."
Marcus, Higher Ed:
"I ask ChatGPT for 20 scenario-based nursing questions. Twelve are usable. Eight need work. Still faster than writing all 20—and the AI surfaces clinical situations I wouldn't have considered."
Aisha, Freelance:
"DALL-E for custom illustrations. Not perfect, but specific to my content. Eighty cents instead of fifty dollars."

What AI Can't Touch

  • Strategic decisions — AI can't determine what learning experience will work for your audience
  • Quality judgment — AI doesn't know your organization's standards or brand voice
  • Stakeholder navigation — AI won't negotiate with SMEs or present to executives
  • Context — AI doesn't understand your organizational culture or constraints
  • Ethics — AI won't catch bias, accessibility gaps, or compliance issues unless you tell it to look

💡 The Core Insight

A table saw doesn't replace a carpenter. It multiplies what a skilled carpenter can build. AI does the same for instructional design expertise.

The Career Math

IDs who learn AI will outproduce those who don't. Not by 10%. By 2-3x on routine tasks.

That's not a threat. That's leverage.

Some designers use AI to do the same work faster. The smart ones use it to do better work:

  • More realistic scenarios (iteration is faster)
  • Multiple tested approaches (drafting costs nothing)
  • Richer multimedia (creation is cheaper)
  • Actual user pilots (development cycles shrink)

🎯 Your Move

What task on your current project do you dread? The one that's time-consuming but not intellectually demanding? Writing 30 objectives? A storyboard? Facilitator notes?

That's your first AI experiment.

The Sameness Problem

"If AI generates content, won't everything sound identical?"

Right question. Wrong assumption.

Generic output happens when you:

  • Accept first drafts
  • Skip audience context
  • Skip QA
  • Let AI replace your judgment instead of extend it

Distinctive output happens when you:

  • Give specific instructions
  • Iterate instead of accept
  • Add your organization's voice
  • Treat AI as a partner, not a replacement

Module 5 covers exactly how. For now: sameness is a choice, not a destiny.

What's Next

Next topic: What AI can and can't do—realistic expectations, no hype.

Then: The tools (Claude, ChatGPT, DALL-E) and when to use each.

Then: Ethics—maintaining quality and integrity with AI in your workflow.

By module's end: a clear map of where AI belongs in your work. And where it doesn't.