Another AI-era phenomenon is causing us cognitive load and eating into our productivity. It comes down to these two questions: 1) what do we believe in, and 2) what do we agree on?
“Is that your opinion or the AI’s?” Have you ever actually asked someone that directly? Yourself, at least? AI adds to experts’ cognitive load in a specific way: it introduces uncertainty about what you actually know and believe — with or without AI’s input.
Here are two concrete examples:
- AI comments on your finished work and makes you doubt your own result
- A boss or a colleague shows up with a new or changed opinion
AI tools are designed to be convincing and agreeable. Because that’s the only way we keep using them. On top of that, they’re easy, tireless, and always available.
And now the answer to the same question depends on which tool you ask, whose tool it is, and how you phrase the question.
For example, someone has an AI tool that is trained with business goals and KPIs, competitor analysis, brand voice, etc. Someone else uses a tool that doesn’t even have a memory that flows between chats. The gap is massive.
And yet, we lean towards our tools.
When everyone has their own AI
Think about this. What happens when a single press release goes through multiple people’s AI tools for feedback — without any agreed processes, roles, or shared setup?
Feedback loops on steroids.
Now, stop and agree on these first:
- What’s the goal and focus of the work?
- How can AI support that goal?
- What are the human roles and responsibilities?
- Who validates the results and makes the final call?
In reality, the workflow could look like this:
- A press release of the new AI product for niche tech outlets
- AI analyzes angles that speak to the outlets’ audiences and writes the first draft
- People – a PR expert and a product expert – validates the angles and messages
- The PR expert edits the draft and finalizes the final press release
- The product expert gives a quote and does the final fact-checking
In this case, the PR expert has a tool trained for public relations, the product expert’s tool has all the details, data, and client cases about the product. Case closed.
These workflows won’t solve themselves – you need to talk them out.
