Thought leadership is about authentically sharing what you know. But what if you’re out of time and want AI to pinch hit? Here’s what I learned from a recent experience where I tried to sub in AI for my own care, intention, and reflection.
A couple of weeks ago, I was out of time. I needed to make a plan for the first book club meeting of the season, but I hadn’t had a second to think about it.
So I asked ChatGPT for help. I told it about the group and the book, and it spit out some conversation starters and discussion questions.
I gave the plan a quick once-over, but didn’t have time to edit it. It would be fine.
That night at book club, I looked around the table at the eager and open faces ready to go deep on the book passages we’d all read.
And my ChatGPT plan suddenly felt completely hollow. I was frustrated: I did have things to say about the book, and I did want to lead a meaningful conversation. But my plan didn’t have any of me in it. I hadn’t carved out enough of my own attention and creativity to make a plan that rose to the challenge.
Have you had an experience like this? I’m well into my AI Disillusionment era as a writer, but I still occasionally pull in AI to help with quick tasks. And even when it does a perfectly perfunctory job, it doesn’t hold a candle to human thought and intention.
Are you feeling this phenomenon? It’s becoming easier and easier to shoo away our thinking work — to delegate it to tantalizingly fast robots that are always ready to burp out a stunningly thorough answer to even the simplest prompts. And I still get fooled by the mirage that I can get AI to finish my to-do list for me…even when the items on that list matter a lot to me.
AI can’t do our most important thinking
I’ve been beating the drum for years that AI can’t do our thinking for us. See:
- March 2023: Can AI Write Thought Leadership Content for You? [NOPE]
- October 2023: AI Can’t Do Your Most Important Thought Leadership Work for You
- March 2024: 3 Things Thought Leaders Need to Know as ‘AI Slime’ Takes Over the Internet
- March 2025: How to Make Your Thought Leadership AI-Proof
- November 2025: AI for Ghostwriters: Who’s Eating Your Words?
My advice about using AI for thought leadership
Here’s the advice I’ve been repeating:
- AI can’t guess the answers to the most important questions about your work.
- You are the only one with your unique perspective. A robot can’t replicate that.
- Your perspective is your most valuable asset.
I know these things, and I practice them in my work, but I still feel the pull to use AI as a shortcut.
This feeling is what prompted me to read reflections like this one from Abby Falik about “presence, absence, and what we can’t afford to forget”:
Our screens don’t just distract us; they bypass the need for our minds to show up at all.
[…]
Technology’s gifts are seductive—ease, support, speed. But as my friend Courtney Martin reminds me, we should be suspicious of efficiency. What’s all this so-called optimization costing us?
Everything.
My antidote to the AI blahs
Here’s what I’m committing to this season: When I feel overwhelmed or time-strapped and consider pulling AI in as a helper, I’m going to follow the opposite instinct: I’m going to slow down, reconsider what I need, and put more of myself into the task, not less.
In my book club example, I could have slowed down, recognized that prepping for the book club meeting was a priority over the rest of my to-do list that day, and spent 20 minutes of my focused attention on it. I could have closed my computer, opened my paper copy of the book, and gone inward, reflecting on which words stood out most to me to inform how I might lead a discussion that meant something to me and the others in the room.
Or I could have called my (human) co-leader and asked if she had any brain power to put toward the task.
Maybe I can use the urge to use ChatGPT as a flag — a sign that I need to take a breath and regroup. If I have too much on my plate to spend my human attention on it, maybe I just have too much on my plate, period.
More reading about AI
What AI is doing to content
If you’re thinking about the AI sloppification of online content at large, you might enjoy this piece on “the K-shaped era of content”:
“For You” or “By You”: The K-shaped era of content – Jessica Lackey
We went from “too much content” to “too much noise masquerading as content.”
And when there’s this much noise? The middle disappears.
* * *
What AI is doing to careers
For the most part, I still see companies (including my client companies) pushing full steam ahead on AI-adoption-for-everything.
The group of people I feel most concerned about is people who are new to the workforce. What career advice do I give a 22-year-old now? Are we paying attention to how we mentor young people at work? I found this helpful explanation of the “judgment paradox” in HBR:
How Do Workers Develop Good Judgment in the AI Era? – David Duncan, Harvard Business Review
the paradox organizations are now encountering: To use AI effectively, people need judgment about the task at hand, but as AI takes over more of the work, the very experiences that once produced judgment start to disappear.
* * *
Our relationship with tech
We’re still in New Year’s Resolution season, and after I finished Careless People (a must-read!!!!), I’ve continued to reflect on what Big Tech knows about me and my family, asking questions like, “Even though I don’t use Facebook or Instagram anymore, do I need to delete all of the data saved in those dormant accounts so Meta doesn’t have access to my kids’ baby photos? Or is it a lost cause now?” and “Wait, Grammarly just told me I’ve written 23,815,126 words since 2020, and…it’s read…all of them?” and “How much are Alexa and Siri hearing all day every day in my house?”
I’ve been drawn to articles like…
How I disconnected from tech in 2025 – Derek Beyer
In the course of one year, I systematically attacked every device, service, and app that in any way distorted my experience of reality. I came out of the experience changed.
So it isn’t surprising to me at all that many people have chosen “disconnect from tech” as one of their New Year’s resolutions. In the hopes that it may help people on that journey, I’m going to share what I did, what I learned, and offer some tools for escaping the technosphere
…and counterpoints like this one:
Why This Luddite Is Letting Go – Molly Caro May
Humans are now recognizing, in a felt-sense somatic way, that the beast of tech is large and looming and threatening to take part of our life force away.
However, I no longer think the answer is to 100% opt-out.
[…]
Tech isn’t going away in the same way that climate change isn’t going away.
How then do we live with a chronic and consistent threat?
[…]
Let us learn to build our nervous system resilience alongside it. That doesn’t mean condone. That means HOW DO I WANT TO LIVE WITH AND ENGAGE THIS. Nothing passive! Not a white flag surrender. Not sloppy or aloof. Fully intentional. Wrestling with this tech reality can unearth and teach each one of us a lot about our patterns.
