Are We Using AI to Think Better – or to Think Less?
The promise of AI is to free humans from the mundane so we can focus on higher-value work.
But what happens when we also outsource some of the thinking required to get to higher-value work?
Daily, we ask AI to:
- generate the first idea
- write the first draft
- summarise the information
- analyse the problem
- suggest the options
- create the strategy
- formulate the questions
- solve the problem.
And because the output is often good enough, we stop exercising the cognitive muscles that would have produced those outcomes ourselves.
I read an absolutely fascinating article – written by David Rock, and recommended by the Harvard professor Amy Edmonson (expert in psychological safety) – that got me thinking.
David Rock in his article, AI Is Fast Food For The Brain, discusses research that demonstrates that AI is making us fundamentally lazy, with profound impacts that follow.
Arguably, the enemy isn’t AI. It’s cognitive complacency.
Do we use the extra time AI gives us to think more deeply… or are we simply using AI to avoid thinking altogether?
There are many skills that leaders need to be cultivating right now… skills that are undeniably human and deeply needed in this AI generation. Skills such as:
1. Problem framing
Before asking AI for an answer, can your team articulate what the real problem actually is?
2. Critical thinking
Can your team challenge information, identify assumptions and question the obvious answer?
3. Creative thinking
Can they generate genuinely innovative ideas – rather than rehashing ideas based on previous known information?
4. Judgement
Can they make a decision when the answer isn’t obvious, the information is incomplete and there is no algorithmic ‘right’ answer?
(Read a related article: 5 Critical Leadership Capabilities in a World of AI)
What Does The Research Say?
A 2025 study of 319 knowledge workers found that greater confidence in GenAI was associated with less critical-thinking effort; the researchers also found that AI shifted critical thinking away from problem-solving and toward verifying and integrating AI-generated responses.
More recently, BCG reported in its recent study, When Everyone Uses AI, Companies Risk Losing Critical Skills, that half of the C-suite and senior executives they surveyed were already observing organisational de-skilling, with judgment, decision-making, problem framing and creative thinking among the capabilities they considered particularly vulnerable.
What Does Healthy AI Adoption Look Like?
This is a question every leader needs to ask.
- What does healthy AI-adoption look like in our team?
- When should we use it?
- When should we rely on our collective intelligence instead of defaulting to asking AI?
As a leader, encourage the team to ask critical questions such as:
- What do we think is actually happening here?
- What are the roadblocks?
- Does this still make sense?
- What are three possible options to move forwards?
- Whose opinion should we consult?
- What assumptions are we making?
Then use AI to challenge, expand or test that thinking.
Team exercises that should be encouraged, to avoid same-think through overuse of AI, include:
- Debating issues collectively
- Developing recommendations (before asking AI to sense-test them)
- Seeking alternate views from other humans from different divisions and teams
- Coming to conclusions and best guesses as a group
Organisations need people who can think, question, connect dots, exercise judgement, challenge assumptions, solve ambiguous problems and imagine what doesn’t yet exist.
AI can support all of those things but it shouldn’t become the substitute for them.
Cognitive complacency can result in cognitive decline which means less creativity, less collaboration, less innovation and more same-think, more same-solutions, and more me-too products and services entering the market.
The future won’t belong to organisations that use the most AI. It will belong to organisations that learn how to combine the speed and scale of AI with the curiosity, judgement and creativity of human beings.
Work With Us
Potential alone won’t prepare your emerging leaders and their teams for the future. Your future leaders need to be better equipped to take on greater scope, build stronger teams and be confident with more complex business challenges.
We work with your emerging leader cohort – with each leader 1:1 as well as with the cohort in a group coaching environment – throughout the year. Core skills that we often work on include: defining leadership identity and business impact; strategic and enterprise thinking; building trusting relationships and influence; developing emotional intelligence and human-centred leadership; and creating the conditions for teams to succeed. If you’re looking for a leadership coach in Sydney or Australia, get in touch. We would love to speak with you.
