How Leaders Can Use AI to Save Time—and Lead Better

Updated on December 17, 2025.

Leaders juggle strategy, decisions, team development, and culture—often with limited hours in the day. AI can help by offloading repetitive work, surfacing insights faster, and giving leaders back time for higher-value coaching and decision-making. The goal isn’t to replace judgment or relationships. It’s to create space for the parts of leadership that only humans can do. 

When it comes to hiring, we’ve found that AI is transforming the hiring process for leaders. Here are key insights from our 2025 AI in Hiring Report and practical steps leaders can take today to better utilize AI.

What AI Can Do for Leaders—Quick Wins 

Here’s a quick look at what AI can generally do for leaders right now: 

• Summarize meeting notes and research into actionable briefs 
• Draft emails, project updates, and job postings for faster turnaround 
• Retrieve answers from policies and playbooks in seconds 
• Automate scheduling and task coordination 
• Provide trend views and scenario comparisons for better decisions 

By reducing administrative load and surfacing actionable insights, AI creates space for better leadership. Leaders can focus on strategic initiatives, strengthen team relationships through mentoring and coaching, make more informed decisions with data-driven insights, and even reclaim time for personal growth and development.

Beyond productivity, AI is also reshaping how leaders hire and manage talent.

AI in Hiring: A Time-Saving Catalyst

Leaders tell us that AI is changing the way they hire, and the numbers are hard to ignore. Our report showed that AI is increasingly being adopted in the hiring process, with 93% of hiring managers recognizing its value. Its ability to streamline various aspects of the recruitment process frees up significant time in the managers’ work days.

Reduced Time Spent on Administrative Tasks 

73% of hiring managers reported that AI creates capacity for cross-training with other team members. They can invest more time in developing the skills and knowledge of their team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth. 

Enhanced Team Collaboration and Building 

56% of hiring managers stated that AI opens opportunities for team-building activities. This allows them to cultivate stronger team dynamics through social events, team-building exercises, and shared experiences, fostering a more cohesive and engaged workforce. 

Improved Work-Life Balance 

60% of hiring managers reported that AI frees up time for work-life balance. Leaders can recharge and maintain a healthy personal life, leading to increased job satisfaction and improved overall well-being. 

Streamlined Personnel Management 

61% of hiring managers indicated that AI allows leaders more time for personnel management. Leaders are able to focus on more strategic HR initiatives, such as employee engagement programs, performance reviews, and succession planning.

AI in Hiring: Bias Mitigation

Our report also suggests that AI has the potential to help mitigate bias in the hiring process.

Two-thirds of the hiring managers we surveyed believe AI will be able to remove or mitigate cultural biases from the interview process which is a significant development. This could help companies expand their pools of qualified job seekers and make it easier to find the best candidates to fill open positions.

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The Human Element Remains Essential

While AI offers significant advantages, it’s important to remember that it does not replace human interaction, decision-making, and emotional intelligence. The personal touch remains crucial in areas like: 

• Building Rapport and Trust: Human interaction is essential for building strong relationships and establishing trust between leaders and their teams. 
• Assessing Soft Skills: While AI can analyze resumes and skills, it cannot fully assess soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and leadership potential, which are critical for success. 
• Ensuring an Authentic Experience: As emphasized in the document, maintaining a human touch in the hiring process is essential to ensure a positive and authentic candidate experience. 

Leaders should pair AI with clear guardrails and real human oversight, especially for decisions that affect people and culture. 

Practical Ways Leaders Can Utilize AI Today 

When implemented strategically, AI empowers leaders. By automating routine tasks and providing valuable insights, AI frees up valuable time for leaders to focus on what they do best: leading, mentoring, inspiring, and elevating their teams.  

Here are three areas that leaders can start practicing strategic use of AI: 

1. Personal productivity 

• Draft agendas, briefs, and updates; let AI handle the first pass. 
• Ask for key points and risks from long docs; verify anything critical. 
• Use AI to generate follow-up plans after meetings. 

2. Team enablement 

• Create role-specific prompts or templates for common tasks (e.g., interview question sets, onboarding checklists). 
• Build reusable workflows for intake, triage, and handoffs to reduce wait time. 
• Offer micro-training on safe, effective AI use. 

3) Hiring and talent management 

• Use AI to screen for required skills and structure interview guides, and keep people in the loop for fit and potential. 
• Auto-generate consistent evaluation rubrics, and work with your team to ensure fairness. 
• Summarize panel feedback, and make final decisions with human judgment. 

Before scaling these practices, set clear guardrails for ethical AI use, governance, and culture. Define what data is safe to use, require human review for critical decisions, and communicate openly with your team to build trust and accountability.

Your Partner for AI Implementation 

Leaders don’t need another strategy deck. They need working solutions and the right talent, and that’s where Insight Global comes in. 

We go beyond staffing to help you operationalize AI services quickly and partner with you to design, implement, and optimize the workforce strategies that make AI practical and sustainable. From staffing critical positions to deploying AI agents and guiding cultural adoption, we help you lead transformation so your people can do their best work. 

Ready to turn AI into time saved and value created? Schedule a call with our experts—let’s build the future of work today.