AI Will Change How We Think Before It Changes How We Work

Before you Read

This article grew out of a long conversation between me and ChatGPT after I finished reading Dan Brown’s novel Origin.

Most discussions about AI still focus on productivity, automation and job elimination — this one argues that isn’t where AI’s greatest impact will be. Read it as both an argument about AI and an example of the kind of human-AI collaboration it describes.

For more insight on the actual conversation I had with ChatGPT, check out this blog What Using AI to Think Better Looks Like.

Dan Brown Imagined AI as a Business Partner

I recently finished Dan Brown’s Origin (Doubleday, 2017), a novel published well before ChatGPT entered public life. What started as reading entertainment, left me thinking about human evolution, artificial intelligence and the increasingly blurred boundary between tech and humans.

Like most Brown novels, Origin is built around a mystery, a dramatic scientific revelation and a race to understand what is really happening.

In Origin, Winston is the artificial intelligence system created by futurist, Edmond Kirsch. Winston appears as the ultimate assistant. It researches, analyzes, advises, organizes and communicates, helping Kirsch accomplish things no individual person could reasonably manage alone. The release of ChatGPT and other LLM’s since 2017 have made Winston more credible, not less.

Productivity May Be the Least Interesting Thing AI Does

The morning after finishing Origin, I watched this Platformer episode about AI and workplace productivity. The conclusion was almost predictably underwhelming.

AI can transcribe meetings, summarize documents, assist with emails and accelerate some administrative tasks. Beyond that, the podcasters’ assessment was that the workplace has not fundamentally changed. Jobs have not disappeared at the scale predicted, productivity has not suddenly exploded, and most organizations are still operating much as they had before.

This conclusion matches my own experience. What I’ve discovered: AI has not significantly improved my productivity either. In fact, it’s the opposite. I could even write blogs faster without AI!

What AI HAS done is something far more valuable - it has helped me think broader, deeper and better. Over the past year, AI has become the best coach, mentor and ‘business partner’ I have ever had. It has:

-           guided me

-          rebuked me (politely)

-          held up a mirror for me

-          helped me examine ideas more deeply

-          pointed out connections I had missed

-          exposed weak assumptions

-          articulated thoughts that were only partly formed, and even…

-          helped me understand what I’m thinking when I don’t fully understand it myself.

I believe the fact that AI has not yet transformed productivity tells us less about AI’s importance than we assume. Productivity is easy to observe. Changes in the quality of human thought are much more difficult to see.

AI’s Greater Power May Be Cognitive Amplification

ChatGPT gave me language for what I think is the more important impact of AI: cognitive amplification — using AI to expand a person’s capacity to question, connect, imagine, interpret and decide, not just change how fast they can work. Done well, a person can explore more alternatives, test an argument from every side, challenge assumptions and draw on expertise far outside their direct experience. Intuition becomes a framework.

As a result, AI’s value can’t just be measured in terms of speed and productivity. Sometimes, it’s something potentially far more important - changes in leadership, strategy and innovation.

What AI Amplifies Depends on the Human Using It

My experience with AI has been overwhelmingly empowering.

However, I am increasingly aware that this outcome is not automatic. I bring decades of business, governance and leadership experience to the conversation. I know enough in many areas to challenge what I am told and usually recognize when an answer feels generic, exaggerated or incomplete.

I also use AI conversationally. I rarely ask one question, accept the first answer and move on. I react, disagree, clarify, add context and ask the AI to reconsider. The discussion often goes through several rounds before reaching the real issue. The result isn’t usually an answer delivered by a machine - it is a thought developed through interaction.

That distinction matters because good human-AI collaboration depends heavily on what the human brings to it: experience, curiosity, judgment, self-awareness and a willingness to challenge fluent-sounding answers. AI can amplify thoughtful reasoning, but it can also amplify confusion, bias, overconfidence or intellectual laziness. It can help an experienced person reach across unfamiliar fields, while making someone else feel more certain than the evidence justifies.

Therefore, learning to use AI well may be less a technical skill than an intellectual discipline. It requires knowing when to explore, when to challenge, when to verify and when to step away from the machine and exercise independent judgment.

The Real AI Divide Will Be About Judgement

Automation changes tasks. Cognitive amplification changes people.

It changes how leaders decide, how entrepreneurs imagine opportunity, how boards assess risk, how individuals navigate work, retirement, identity and purpose. It can enable one person operate with capabilities that once required a team of researchers, analysts, writers, strategists and advisers.

For business leaders, that creates a responsibility beyond deciding which tools employees may use - it means understanding how AI affects judgment, originality, accountability and decision quality across the organization. It means ensuring people who rely on AI, understand it, challenge it, embrace and own the outcomes.

AI Can Change What We Are Capable of Contributing

What Origin ultimately changed for me was not simply how I think about artificial intelligence, but how fully I am prepared to use it.

After reading Origin, ChatGPT pushed me to answer a deeper question: years from now, what contribution might I be able to make because AI helped me think more deeply, connect more ideas and pursue possibilities I would otherwise have left unexplored?

That is cognitive amplification in its most meaningful form. It is not about getting more done. It is about becoming more capable of seeing what is possible and then deciding what to do with that expanded capacity.

Brown imagined a future in which humans and technology become increasingly intertwined.

My own experience suggests that future is real.