3 way AI can free organizations from legacy workflows

Legacy workflows can persist as organisational memory: old metrics continue to shape resource allocation, inherited brand language constrains market positioning, and untested customer beliefs become embedded in strategy. This article examines how AI can support organisational forgetting by identifying practices and assumptions that have outlived their usefulness. We develop the argument through three managerial cases: a retail organisation using AI to retire obsolete performance indicators, a software firm using language analysis to remove contradictory positioning from customer-facing materials, and a financial services company using behavioural evidence to challenge myths about older customers’ digital behaviour. Across the cases, AI performs three managerial functions: it detects patterns at a scale that exceeds conventional review processes, it creates a more neutral evidentiary basis for difficult internal conversations, and it helps leaders distinguish organisational knowledge from organisational residue. The article contributes to management practice by showing how AI can be used to support disciplined forgetting, not only faster analysis or better prediction.