# Whoever understands AI leverage does not take a job.

Momo Maximilian Feichtinger · Companies and AI · planted 2026-08-28, last grown 2026-09-03 · 5 min · https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen

**I asked more than 200 people who work professionally with AI whether any of them wanted the full-time role at MyGym. Nobody wanted it. That is how you can tell what leverage means, and why this work has to be bought differently from a role.**

This group has worked for years with agents and the automations changing every company right now. They know the difference between a tool you operate and a system that thinks along. When people like this turn down a permanent role, it says something about the labour market you are hiring in.

![A balance scale: coins labelled Gehalt on the left, a small lever labelled Hebel on the right, the lever side hangs lower](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/gehalt-oder-hebel.webp)

*The mental model: whoever knows the lever chooses the lever. For a company that means buying the lever rather than the person.*

## What real leverage means

A full-time role ties a person to one task and one employer. Someone who commands the leverage works on several projects at once, for several clients, in a fraction of the time. The market pays more for that than a salary. Whoever applies for a single role with a normal salary usually does not command that leverage yet. That is no reproach to the applicants. That is the situation.

> Whoever really commands this leverage works on many things at once with it, and is hard to hire for it.
>
> My leverage argument in the first meeting, YMAD conversation guide of 22 August 2026

## How I recognise leverage

Leverage stays an empty word until you tie it to habits. I test it against eight statements, and none of them asks about tools. They ask about the way somebody works.

### The marks I look for

- Recurring texts start as a draft from a system, a human checks them and approves.
- The AI has access to documents, emails and data, instead of everything being copied into a chat window.
- The AI asks questions before it delivers.
- Several models with clear roles: one thinks, one works, one handles the quick jobs.
- There is a fixed rule for what never happens without a human: sending, deleting, buying.
- One task has disappeared completely instead of being automated.
- The leverage can be named in one sentence.

Test it on yourself. The check here puts those eight statements to you, turns them into one reading and names two next steps. It runs in your browser, and nobody sees the result except you.

*An interactive tool sits here on the page: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen*

For one concrete project, [four questions about a bottleneck](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel) lead to the point where something is actually stuck. How far your own build goes is laid out rung by rung in [Which rung of the Jarvis ladder are you really on?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/jarvis-leiter).

![An empty office chair stands at an unoccupied desk while many smaller desks behind it are all taken by people at work.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen-2.webp)

*Whoever masters the leverage spreads it across many desks.*

## The person inside your own company

Almost every company has this one person. They go deep into AI in their own time, test models, build automations, ask the best questions in meetings. To the management this looks like the solution. In practice that person sits in a bind they cannot undo.

> If they can do it themselves, they do not need us. If they cannot, they will not admit that inside their own company.
>
> YMAD, description of the target person, 16 August 2026

Both paths end the same way. Nothing happens. The place for that person is still inside the company, just in a different seat. They become the contact person with roughly four hours a week, who approves, answers questions and brings in what the company knows. They stop writing the texts, they decide about them. In that role their knowledge counts, and their time is enough for it.

## What a department does differently

An AI department consists of several employees, each trained for their own task: newsletter, blog, social media, presentations. None of them resigns. None of them takes its training elsewhere. Once something is built in as a rule, it stays built in. The first employee we build is always the guardian of the brand, the check against tone, facts and rules before a human even sees the draft. Why that is the right order is in [The first agent is always the guardian of the brand](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/waechter-der-marke). Responsibility still sits with a human, because every draft goes through your approval first.

The signed agreement of May 2026 says what this builds: a controlled, learning work structure with roles, standards, feedback loops, review gates and clear human responsibility. Eleven separate tools do not add up to that.

## The bill you open instead

Say you hire the person anyway, for 3,000 to 5,000 euros a month. Such a role in Austria comes to around 6,000 euros of employer cost per month, all additional costs counted in. That is how I present it in the webinar. They learn, get good, understand the leverage and get better offers. After a year they are gone, and the search starts over. Imagine having to onboard two new employees every month just to keep the same work running. A single role puts you in exactly that position, stretched over a year instead of a month. The full comparison with the 4,800 euros net for a department is in [What does an AI department really cost?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/ki-department-kosten).

### Built at the reference client

- Eleven agents built, each for its own task
- Three brands connected: MYGYM, MYGYM PRIME and DSB-ONE
- A dedicated approval platform in production, every publication confirmed by a human

Source: DSB-ONE / MyGym, Salzburg. Agreement of 22 May 2026, status August 2026.

I only start a mandate when that comparison speaks for the department. That is written into my operating standard, and it is the one promise I give in advance. The way in is the strategy workshop for 1,800 euros net. Whoever commissions the department afterwards gets it credited in full. All the entry points are on [AI implementation for companies](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung).

### Sources and links

- [Momo Maximilian on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/momo-maximilian) · Ongoing posts on leverage and building departments.
- [KI DeepDive, open group on WhatsApp](https://chat.whatsapp.com/JUGEOUL1XayJgVLkAlh0Se) · Live every first Monday of the month, open to everyone, in German.
- [AI implementation for companies, with the case study](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung)
- [The lever check: four questions about one project](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel)
- [What does an AI department really cost?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/ki-department-kosten)
- [The first agent is always the guardian of the brand.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/waechter-der-marke)
- [Which rung of the Jarvis ladder are you really on?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/jarvis-leiter)

## Margin notes

- **Randnotiz** This note comes sentence by sentence out of a first meeting. I have been saying it across the table for months, long before I wrote it down for the first time.
- **Verknüpft**  [What does an AI department really cost?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/ki-department-kosten), [The first agent is always the guardian of the brand.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/waechter-der-marke), [Which rung of the Jarvis ladder are you really on?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/jarvis-leiter), [The entry points into a department](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung#einstiege)
- **Beleg** YMAD conversation guide of 22 August 2026, source of the leverage argument with the more than 200 conversations. YMAD webinar script of 22 August 2026, source of the roughly 6,000 euros of employer cost and the two new employees a month. Description of the target person, 16 August 2026. Case study DSB-ONE / MyGym, dated 13 August 2026.

## How this note grew

- 2026-09-03: Deepened: the marks I look for in leverage, the leverage check to try yourself, the bind of the AI enthusiast inside the company, the employer cost from the webinar and a list of sources.
- 2026-09-02: Paragraph on the department with several employees added.
- 2026-08-28: Planted after a first meeting with a company.

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