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Most leaders are asking the wrong question about AI.
They’re asking: How will AI change our business?
But the better question may be: How is AI changing our customers?
In a recent conversation with marketing strategist, futurist, and author Mark Schaefer on The Enlightened Executive, we explored a powerful idea: AI is not just changing workflows, content creation, or search. It is changing how people think, decide, trust, learn, and relate. Mark described it as AI “rewiring” humanity—an idea that came from his work with futurists studying how AI may change human behavior by 2035.
That has enormous implications for every leader.
Because your customers are not the same people they were five years ago. Your teams are not either. And if you’re leading with an outdated understanding of how people make decisions, build trust, or develop judgment, you may be solving yesterday’s problem.
AI Is Becoming Part of the Decision-Making Process
Mark offered a memorable metaphor: “We are all in the diaper business now.”
The baby may be the end user, but the parent is the decision maker. In the same way, your customer may still use your product or service—but increasingly, AI may influence or even make the decision.
Customers are already using AI to choose vacations, cars, colleges, products, providers, and even personal relationships. That means your brand is no longer speaking only to a human buyer. It is also being interpreted, summarized, filtered, and ranked by AI.
For leaders, this raises a critical question: Are you building trust with both the customer and the systems shaping the customer’s choices?
Traditional search rewarded links. AI appears to care more about validation: media mentions, credible thought leadership, academic references, trusted voices, and social proof. Mark called this a potential golden age of public relations because AI is looking for signals that others already trust you.
That doesn’t mean the fundamentals disappear. Brand still matters. Word of mouth still matters. In fact, they may matter more.
Mark shared how he used ChatGPT to plan a trip to Paris, but he still overrode AI’s suggestions when he had strong brand preference—Delta Airlines and a particular hotel. And when a trusted friend recommended a gluten-free bakery, that human recommendation carried more weight than the AI-generated itinerary.
The leadership takeaway: AI may influence decisions, but trust still travels through human channels.
The Risk of Cognitive Surrender
One of the most important themes in our conversation was cognitive offloading—the way humans hand thinking tasks over to technology.
Some of this is helpful. I don’t miss unfolding paper maps in a rental car. I am grateful for GPS. But there is a difference between using AI to support our thinking and using AI to replace our thinking.
Mark used an even stronger phrase: cognitive surrender. When we stop wrestling with questions, stop forming our own point of view, and simply accept the answer, something important begins to weaken.
This matters deeply for leaders.
Your organization needs people who can think critically, challenge assumptions, weigh tradeoffs, and make judgment calls in ambiguity. AI can accelerate research, generate options, and reveal patterns. But it cannot replace discernment.
Mark introduced a word I loved: phronesis—the wisdom and practical judgment you gain by doing the hard work. He made the point that he could have used AI to write his book, but the wisdom came from interviewing people, thinking deeply, losing sleep over the ideas, and making meaning from the research.
That is a leadership lesson.
You don’t build executive judgment by outsourcing every difficult thought. You build it by staying in the work long enough to develop discernment.
Curiosity May Become the Leadership Skill That Separates People
Here’s where I feel optimistic.
AI can make us passive—or it can make us more curious.
If you ask one question, take the answer, and move on, AI can narrow your thinking. But if you stay curious, ask better questions, test assumptions, explore contradictions, and follow the trail, AI can become a powerful learning partner.
Curiosity is not a soft extra. It is a core leadership capacity.
A curious leader asks:
What are we assuming?
Where might we be wrong?
What would our customers ask AI before they ever come to us?
What human experiences are we offering that cannot be automated?
Where are our teams relying on AI in ways that strengthen thinking—and where are they using it to avoid thinking?
These questions matter because the next competitive advantage may not be who uses AI the most. It may be who uses it with the most wisdom.
Human Agency Is a Brand Strategy
Another powerful idea from the conversation was the importance of agency.
As AI gives people faster answers, customers may also feel less involved, less capable, and less connected to the process. That creates an opening for brands and leaders who help people participate, learn, create, and feel ownership.
Mark gave the example of Home Depot workshops, where customers and their children learn how to build something themselves. In a world where AI can generate answers instantly, the experience of making something with your own hands becomes more meaningful.
That applies far beyond retail.
For a consulting firm, agency might mean co-creating the strategy rather than delivering a finished answer.
For a healthcare organization, it might mean helping patients understand choices rather than simply presenting a recommendation.
For a leadership team, it might mean using AI to generate scenarios—then asking the team to debate, challenge, and decide.
People don’t just want convenience. They want to matter.
What Leaders Should Do Now
Here are three practical moves to begin leading more effectively in this AI-shaped environment.
Protect the hard thinking
Before using AI, ask your team to write down their own point of view first. What do they believe? What evidence do they have? What tradeoffs do they see?
Then use AI to expand, challenge, and refine—not replace—their thinking.
Build trust signals beyond your website
AI is learning from the broader ecosystem. That means your credibility must show up in more places: podcasts, interviews, articles, trusted partners, client stories, industry conversations, and credible third-party validation.
Visibility is no longer just about being searchable. It’s about being trusted.
Create experiences that restore agency
Ask: Where are we simply giving customers or employees answers? And where could we invite them into the process?
The more AI automates, the more valuable meaningful human participation becomes.
The Leadership Question Beneath the AI Question
AI will keep advancing. The tools will get better. The pace will not slow down.
But the deeper leadership question is not, “Which platform should we use?”
It is: How do we help people become more capable, not less?
That includes your customers. Your employees. Your executive team. And yourself.
Transformational leadership starts with self-awareness. In the AI era, that means noticing when we are using technology to expand our thinking—and when we are using it to avoid the discomfort of thinking for ourselves.
Your greatest strength can also be your biggest blind spot. If you are a decisive leader, AI may make you faster—but not necessarily wiser. If you are a visionary, AI may give you endless possibilities—but not necessarily clarity. If you are a high achiever, AI may help you produce more—but not necessarily create more meaning.
The opportunity now is to lead with both innovation and discernment.
Use AI. Learn from it. Let it challenge you.
But don’t surrender the very capacities that make leadership human: curiosity, judgment, empathy, courage, and wisdom.
That is how we unlock our potential in the age of AI.