A Half Step Kept Shoppers Out. Now It Gets Workers to Use AI.
Long Lake does not order its 30,000 employees to use its AI tools, it tries to make them so easy and useful that people want to use them.
David Senra · Bringing AI to the Real Economy | Alexander TaubmanShoppers in the years after World War II often faced a strange obstacle course. Stores put big display windows up front, filled with merchandise, and tucked the actual door in back, down a dark hall or narrow passage between the windows. Few people bothered to find it.
Alexander Taubman, an investor who buys established service businesses and puts artificial intelligence inside them, grew up hearing what came next. His grandfather entered the real estate trade after the war and helped pioneer the modern shopping center. A book about him called Threshold Resistance is in Long Lake's office, and Taubman counts him as a major inspiration.
The threshold meant the doorway itself, and anything that made crossing it harder kept people out. His grandfather brought the door to the front and removed the threshold, so shoppers could walk straight in.
The rule of thumb was that even a half step up could cut the number of people who entered by about one fifth, and Taubman agreed.
Three generations later, the lesson has moved from concrete to software. Taubman leads Long Lake, which owns service businesses with about 30,000 employees around the world and supplies them with an AI system called Nexus. The system takes on routine office work such as responding to emails and data entry, leaving workers more time for the customer focused parts of their jobs that Taubman says they find fun.
Long Lake does not order workers to use it. Taubman says that if the company has to force someone to use Nexus, the software is not good enough. He treats those 30,000 employees as the customer, and wants the tool to be so helpful that use spreads on its own from team to team.
Taubman applies his grandfather's idea directly to that problem. As he put it, "You wanna minimize threshold resistance on AI adoption."
It appears to be working. Taubman says it once took about six months to get a new group of workers actively using the system. Now, as the models, the product, and the training have improved, a group can start in days. Taubman says team members now tell him, "I don't feel like I'm working anymore," pointing to less mental friction from routine work like emails and data entry.
Questions people ask
What does Long Lake actually do?
Long Lake buys established businesses in ordinary service industries, such as homeowner association management, HR services, specialty tax, and engineering services, and then installs its shared AI system inside them. The firm has bought close to 40 companies and aims to hold them for decades, making money as the businesses get more productive and grow.
What is Nexus?
Nexus is Long Lake's internal AI platform. About 70 to 80 percent of it is shared across industries, handling common chores like reading long email threads and drafting replies, while the rest is customized to each business's data and workflows. The company does not sell it as outside software, it uses it inside the companies it owns.
Do tiny frictions really change behavior that much?
Yes, and retailers and software designers study them closely. Easier entrances, fewer checkout steps, and fewer clicks consistently increase entries and purchases. The effects are often large relative to the size of the friction, which is why companies test door widths, curb cuts, signup forms, and default settings.