AI As A Challenge Partner, Not A Decision-Maker

One of the most useful applications of AI for leaders may not be automation.

It may be challenge.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla recently described how he uses AI when facing difficult decisions. He gives AI the context: the dilemma, the doubts, the stakes. Then he asks it to push back.

Not to make the decision for him.

To test the thinking behind it.

That distinction matters.

In a leadership workshop I ran recently, we explored this in practical terms.

Before a major decision, a team can ask AI to examine a proposal through different lenses:

• What would the CFO challenge?
• What would the regulator worry about?
• What would the customer experience?
• What would a post-incident review say we missed?

That is not outsourcing judgement.

It is using AI to strengthen judgement.

Used well, AI becomes a structured thinking partner. It helps expose blind spots, pressure-test assumptions, and reduce the risk of groupthink before decisions harden into action.

The same logic applies to how leaders model AI use.

When ChatGPT launched, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet put her top 50 leaders through structured immersion in the technology. Not to turn them into technical experts overnight, but to help them understand what the technology could and could not do.

That is leadership.

Because organisations rarely move faster than the behaviour they see at the top.

If the CEO uses AI openly, responsibly, and critically, it gives permission for others to engage with it in the same way.

Most AI risk conversations focus, rightly, on misuse, bias, harm, and control.

But responsible AI leadership is not only defensive.

It is also proactive and essential.

It is about using AI deliberately to improve decision quality, governance, and organisational learning.

The goal is not to rely on AI.

The goal is to use it to ask better questions before important choices are made.

That may be one of the most important leadership disciplines of the next few years.

You can find the interview referenced in this post at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXOBzHX22s