CEO Insider: Forget the AI mandate – start with the Time Wasters
This is the third of seven lessons from Ladina, Head of Media & CEO of Ringier Media Switzerland, that we will publish each day leading up to our World News Media Congress. Her first two covered:
Lesson #1 Building products is trivial. Running them isn’t.”
Lesson # 2 The living policy. Why AI guidelines are never finished.
By Ladina Heimgartner
President of WAN-IFRA and CEO Ringier Media Switzerland
In the first episode I wrote that the real wins in AI transformation don’t come from flashy showcases. They come from quietly automating the small, manual processes nobody talks about in board meetings. Which raises the obvious question: how do you actually find them?
I recently talked with an executive at a major AI infrastructure company. She told me they’re struggling to get their own people to use AI tools day-to-day. Let that sink in for a moment. Even there, AI dominates the leadership agenda but barely touches the front line.
Most companies respond to this gap with the same instinct: mandate it. Track usage. Chase the holdouts. I’ve yet to see that work.
At Ringier Media Switzerland, we tried the opposite. We launched a Time Waste Challenge: employees submit the tasks they find repetitive, tedious or soul-draining – the ones that need doing but feel like a waste of a working life. Our AI team picks them up.
One thing surprised me: the volume. Over 120 submissions within days.
The primary time wasters identified in the challenge are manual data entry, repetitive administrative tasks, and inefficient system workflows. These productivity bottlenecks affect a wide range of departments, with Product & Tech, Editorial teams, and Media Creation being the most impacted areas.
There is an overwhelming readiness for AI-driven transformation, as evidenced by more than 80 percent of participants expressing a strong interest in becoming AI Champions to foster innovation.
Every challenge needs an award. Ours was deliberate: up to three extra vacation days for the best idea. We wanted the symmetry – paying people in life-time to help us give life-time back to the organisation.
Finding hidden value and supporting fearful staff
What I’ve come to believe is firstly, that every company sits on hidden reservoirs of value buried in processes only the people doing them truly understand. Leadership almost never sees this layer.
And secondly: What the leadership teams might interpret as resistance against AI adoption isn’t resistance at all. It’s the fear of being replaced – and that fear doesn’t go away just because someone in leadership tells you it should. We can’t argue people out of it, and we shouldn’t pretend to. What we can do is help them find their footing in a world shaped by AI – something that will serve them, whether they stay with us or choose to move on.
How to organise a structured enabling programme for that is the topic of the next lesson (Tuesday).
WAN-IFRA is working on a report about how publishers are responding to the impact of AI Search and bot traffic. We would be thrilled to have your perspective. TAKE OUR SURVEY: in English, German, French, Spanish.
