Your Leaders Are Talking to AI. Are They Still Talking to Each Other?

Why the AI Age Could Create Faster Decisions—and Poorer Collective Intelligence

By Mukadam Olaitan Ajetunmobi
Human Intelligence Transformation Architect™

Something subtle is happening inside modern work.

Before artificial intelligence became an everyday thinking partner, a difficult decision often forced us toward another human being.

We walked into someone's office.

Called a colleague.

Asked a mentor.

Challenged an assumption.

Convened a meeting.

Argued.

Listened.

Changed our minds.

Sometimes this was inefficient.

Sometimes it was frustrating.

But hidden inside that apparent inefficiency was something profoundly valuable:

another human consciousness encountering our own.

Now there is another option.

Ask AI.

Within seconds, we can receive an analysis, counterargument, summary, recommendation, scenario or strategy.

That capability is extraordinary.

But it creates a question I believe leaders must begin taking seriously:

What happens when AI becomes easier to consult than another human being?

Because the danger is not simply that AI gives us incorrect answers.

A more subtle danger is that increasingly capable AI may allow us to become intellectually self-sufficient while becoming relationally isolated.

And leadership was never meant to be a solitary intelligence system.

A new leadership paradox

Recent research from the Center for Creative Leadership gives this issue concrete form.

It reports that 64% of leaders say AI enables them to make more decisions without consulting others. The organization warns that leaders are increasingly turning to AI before turning toward one another.

Think carefully about what that could mean.

AI may reduce:

waiting,

meetings,

coordination,

information gathering,

and dependence on colleagues.

Those can be genuine productivity gains.

But consultation does something that information retrieval does not.

Another human being can say:

“You're asking the wrong question.”

A colleague can notice your emotional investment in an outcome.

A team member can understand an organizational history absent from your prompt.

Someone affected by your decision can reveal consequences invisible from the executive floor.

A trusted adversary can challenge the assumption you didn't realize you were making.

A colleague can disagree with you.

And sometimes disagreement is not friction in the decision-making system.

It is part of the intelligence of the system.

The Human Consultation Gap™

I call the emerging problem The Human Consultation Gap™.

It is:

The distance between our increasing access to instant machine intelligence and our decreasing need—or perceived need—to encounter other human perspectives before making consequential decisions.

AI gives leaders extraordinary access to synthesized intelligence.

But synthesized intelligence is not identical to relational intelligence.

And that distinction matters.

Suppose a CEO is considering restructuring a division.

AI can model scenarios.

Analyze costs.

Summarize employee data.

Compare organizational structures.

Draft communications.

Identify risks.

Create implementation plans.

All valuable.

But AI cannot fully substitute for sitting opposite the manager who has led those people for twelve years.

It cannot inhabit the trust history of the team.

It does not bear the consequences of the decision.

It cannot fully know what people have not written down.

It cannot replace the moral responsibility of leadership.

The machine can expand the field of information.

Humans still inhabit the field of consequence.

AI can increase individual intelligence while decreasing collective intelligence

This is the paradox I want leaders to understand.

Imagine an organization where every executive becomes 30% more productive with AI.

Wonderful.

But imagine that, simultaneously, those executives consult one another 30% less.

What happens to:

shared understanding?

cross-functional awareness?

organizational trust?

productive disagreement?

mentorship?

informal knowledge transfer?

psychological safety?

collective judgment?

Nobody should assume the answer is automatically positive.

Research presented in the 2026 Academy of Management Proceedings offers a useful conceptual distinction: AI can contribute to cognitive offloading, scaffolding, or deeper transformation, rather than producing one uniform effect on human thinking.

That distinction should become part of leadership strategy.

The question isn't:

“Are our people using AI?”

It is:

“What kind of human beings and what kind of organization is our AI use producing?”

The relational function of intelligence

This brings us to one of the Seven Inner Intelligences™:

Relational Intelligence™

Relational Intelligence is the capacity to understand ourselves in relation to other people and to create the conditions for trust, perspective-taking, communication, collaboration and productive difference.

In my Human Inner Transformation™ framework, intelligence does not exist only inside the individual.

Human beings think through relationships.

A mature leader therefore doesn't merely ask:

What do I think?

Or:

What does AI think?

The mature leader asks:

What can become visible only when different intelligences meet?

That is a different leadership orientation.

Introducing the HUMAN–AI–HUMAN LOOP™

I propose a simple discipline for consequential AI-assisted decisions:

HUMAN → AI → HUMAN → DECISION

Not:

HUMAN → AI → DECISION.

That missing second human interaction may become increasingly important.

Here is the practice.

H — Human Frame

Before prompting AI, define the problem yourself.

Ask:

What am I actually trying to understand?

Do not allow the machine to frame every problem for you.

A — AI Expansion

Now use AI aggressively.

Ask it to:

challenge assumptions,

generate alternatives,

surface risks,

model scenarios,

find contradictions,

and identify missing information.

Let artificial intelligence expand your thinking.

H — Human Encounter

Before an important decision, bring the expanded thinking back into human relationship.

Ask someone:

What am I missing?

Where do you disagree?

What does this look like from where you stand?

Who experiences consequences I cannot see?

What does your lived experience tell you that the data doesn't?

This is where Relational Intelligence enters.

D — Decision Ownership

Now decide.

Not:

“AI recommended this.”

Not:

“The data made the decision.”

Not:

“The algorithm said so.”

Instead:

I have considered the intelligence available to me, and I take responsibility for this decision.

That is leadership.

The efficiency trap

One of AI's greatest benefits can also become one of its greatest temptations:

friction removal.

But not all friction is waste.

Some friction develops intelligence.

The difficult colleague may expose your blind spot.

The uncomfortable conversation may reveal the real problem.

The junior employee's question may expose an assumption the executive team has normalized.

The disagreement that delays the decision by thirty minutes may prevent six months of organizational damage.

Efficiency asks:

How quickly can we decide?

Wisdom asks:

What deserves consideration before we decide?

The two questions are not enemies.

But they are not identical.

Human intelligence is becoming more—not less—important

This is why I do not see the AI revolution simply as a technological transformation.

I see it as a pressure test for human development.

The more intelligence machines provide, the more humans must develop the capacities required to govern intelligence.

Consciousness.

Emotional regulation.

Identity.

Perception.

Decision-making.

Relationships.

Adaptability.

These are not decorative “soft skills” surrounding the real work.

Increasingly, they are the human infrastructure through which technological capability becomes valuable rather than destructive.

Even within AI-intensive professional domains, senior leaders are emphasizing this distinction. Google's General Counsel said this month that AI can substantially assist legal professionals but cannot replace human judgment.

The deeper principle extends beyond law.

Machines can participate in thinking.

But humans remain responsible for leadership.

The question every executive team should ask

At your next leadership meeting, do not ask only:

How much AI are we using?

Ask:

What human capabilities are increasing because of our AI use—and which ones might quietly be decreasing?

That question changes everything.

Because the objective should never be maximum AI usage.

The objective should be:

maximum human and technological intelligence working together toward worthy outcomes.

That is Human Intelligence Transformation™.

That is why Human Inner Transformation™ matters.

And that is why the coming age will require something beyond technologically capable humans.

It will require consciously capable humans.

AI is getting smarter.

Humans must become wiser.

Upgrade the human behind the technology.

— Mukadam Olaitan Ajetunmobi
Human Intelligence Transformation Architect™