AI and the Quiet Decline of Our Cognitive Edge
How the rise of AI productivity tools could be quietly weakening our creative edge
In today’s working world, AI promises to make everything easier - faster emails, smoother processes, sharper input. We’re told we’ll be freed from the mundane and left with time to think, create and lead.
But is that actually what’s happening?
Or are we becoming so comfortable with AI doing the heavy lifting that we forget how to do the thinking part ourselves?
As more women in business start relying on resume generators, email-writing tools and content assistants, it’s worth asking the question:
What are we really gaining - and what might we be losing?
The slow outsourcing of our originality
AI is brilliant at speeding things up. It can help structure your week, polish your pitch and even plan a month of content in minutes. But when we hand over too much - especially too soon - we risk losing the messy, thoughtful parts of the process that make something truly ours.
Because it’s not just output we’re outsourcing. It’s decisions, ideas, creative direction. We’re outsourcing our confidence.
And that matters.
Especially when the value of our work isn’t in how quickly we can complete a task - but in how clearly we can think.
Convenience always comes with a cost
It’s easy to see the upside. AI saves time. It reduces decision fatigue. And it answers fast.
But when we use it to do our write, brainstorm, plan or solve problems before we’ve even tried to do the thinking ourselves, something important happens: we stop engaging. And like any underused muscle, our brain starts to slow down.
That’s not just a hunch - it’s a measurable trend.
A 2025 MIT’s Media Lab study tracked brain activity in adults writing essays using ChatGPT, Google Search, and their own thoughts. The ChatGPT group showed the lowest neural activity across 32 brain regions, including areas associated with creativity, memory and executive function. Over time, their thinking got lazier. By the final writing task, many participants simply copied and pasted what ChatGPT suggested.
“The task was executed, and you could say that it was efficient and convenient,” lead researcher Nataliya Kosmyna says. “But as we show in the paper, you basically didn’t integrate any of it into your memory networks.”
While the study hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, Kosmyna said she felt compelled to publish early due to growing concern about AI’s long-term effects on learning - especially in younger users.
“I’m afraid in 6–8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental.”
These risks extend beyond education.
In a 2025 Guardian feature, psychologist Robert Sternberg warned:
“The greatest worry in these times of generative AI is not that it may compromise human intelligence - but that it already has.”
The article explores how cognitive offloading - the habit of turning to AI before activating our own reasoning - is weakening the neural pathways that support core skills like critical thinking and reflection. It’s the mental equivalent of skipping leg day. Over time, what once came naturally begins to feel out of reach.
Workplace data supports this. A study by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon found that frequent use of AI tools was linked to a decline in independent problem-solving - describing participants’ minds as “atrophied and unprepared.” Over-reliance, the researchers warned, could result in professionals struggling to solve complex problems without machine assistance.
And the impact isn’t just cognitive - it’s emotional.
A Vox feature on “digital atrophy” highlighted another trend: reduced motivation and self-trust in regular AI users. As thinking gets easier, our belief in our own ideas can quietly fade. One participant put it plainly:
“I rely so much on AI that I don’t think I’d know how to solve certain problems without it.”
Even creativity itself may be at risk. In the MIT study, English teachers described the ChatGPT-written essays as “soulless” - eerily similar in tone and structure. If everyone’s drawing from the same dataset, originality suffers. And so does diversity of thought.
It’s not just about productivity. It’s about the subtle, accumulating cost of not thinking for yourself - of defaulting to tools that make everything easier, but leave us with fewer ideas of our own.
Tools can support you - but they can’t replace you
AI isn’t the enemy. It’s a tool - and a useful one at that. But it can’t:
Make meaning from lived experience
Sense what your client isn’t saying
Imagine something that doesn’t yet exist
Lead with heart, intuition or emotional depth
One founder I know created an AI version of himself - fluent in multiple languages, trained to speak like him, able to handle simple customer queries. But when it comes to the real work - vision, strategy, relationships - he still shows up in person. Because that’s where the magic happens.
Your most Irreplaceable asset is being human
As business owners, freelancers and creatives, our edge isn’t in how efficient we are. It’s in how human we are.
AI might be able to help you organise, draft or automate - but it can’t create meaning. It can’t build trust. And it can’t lead with soul.
So if you want to stay relevant, don’t stop thinking. Write your own copy, even if it’s messy at first. Use AI to support you, but don’t let it take the wheel. Ask questions it can’t answer. Pause before you delegate.
Because your creativity, your emotional intelligence and your ability to imagine something new - those are the skills that will always set you apart.
