---
id: "concept-narrow-deep-use-cases"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ What to Do Instead"]
tags: ["ai-implementation", "use-case-selection"]
related: ["action-controlled-experiments", "concept-individual-vs-process-productivity"]
definition: "Highly targeted enterprise AI applications focused on specific business problems and a limited number of job roles, enabling accurate measurement of productivity impacts."
sources: ["execution"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-execution"
originDay: 8
articleStem: "hbr-foci-62-layoffs-ai-potential-not-performance"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/01/companies-are-laying-off-workers-because-of-ais-potential-not-its-performance"
sourceTitle: "Companies Are Laying Off Workers Because of AI’s Potential—Not Its Performance"
---
# Narrow and Deep AI Use Cases

**Definition:** Highly targeted enterprise applications of generative AI aimed at a specific business issue or domain, rather than broad, generalized deployment.

Narrow-and-deep use cases typically involve only one or a few specific job roles — the article names **programming, system development, and customer service**. Because the scope is constrained, it becomes possible to carefully and accurately measure AI's impact on jobs and productivity through **controlled experiments (A/B testing with and without AI)**.

This concept is the practical answer to the measurement problem in [[concept-ai-economic-value-measurement]] and the translation problem in [[concept-individual-vs-process-productivity]]: you cannot measure diffuse, org-wide AI value, but you *can* measure it in a bounded slice. It is operationalized by [[action-controlled-experiments]] and sits inside [[framework-effective-ai-implementation]].

**Counter-perspective (enrichment):** McKinsey notes that some organizations realize measurable revenue gains from broad gen-AI deployment even before fully redesigning processes — a softer challenge to the claim that narrow, deep use cases are the *only* sensible path.


## Related across articles
- [[concept-experimentation-trap]]
- [[concept-pilot-theater]]
- [[action-sunset-redundant-efforts]]