‘Professionals must retain independent thinking amid AI growth’

Artificial Intelligence. Photo: Jobaaj Learnings

Professionals must preserve independent thinking and personal judgement as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used in the workplace, a growth and performance marketing professional, Joel Ozue, has said.

Ozue said the growing accessibility of generative AI tools was making it easier for workers and businesses to produce polished content, reports and presentations, but warned that reliance on similar systems could make professional communication increasingly generic.

The expert argued that the ability to use the technology was becoming less of a competitive advantage as more people gained access to similar tools.

“The challenge begins when efficiency becomes a substitute for thinking,” Ozue told The PUNCH, distinguishing between using AI to develop an idea and relying on it to generate the idea entirely.

The development comes as businesses across industries explore generative AI to automate tasks, improve productivity and reduce the time spent on routine work. However, the technology’s growing use has also raised questions about the quality of AI-generated output, the preservation of human creativity and the role of professional judgement in decision-making.

Ozue said AI could help marketers analyse customer feedback, develop campaign ideas and assess strategic options, while executives could use it to organise reports, prepare proposals and improve presentations. The risk, he argued, was allowing the efficiency gains to displace the thinking required to produce meaningful work.

He noted that professionals working with the same tools could produce similar language, structures and arguments, particularly when they relied on comparable prompts and instructions.

“Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of widespread AI adoption is that we are all beginning to sound the same,” he stated.

The concern extends beyond writing and content creation to the decisions businesses make with AI assistance. According to Ozue, professionals bring experience, market knowledge, and an understanding of context that can influence how they interpret information and evaluate recommendations.

Two marketers working with the same brief, budget and data, for instance, could reach different conclusions because of their knowledge of the target audience or their willingness to challenge assumptions underlying a campaign.

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While AI can help both workers analyse information and complete tasks faster, Ozue said access to the technology did not automatically confer the judgement needed to make sound decisions.

As AI tools become more accessible, he argued, the competitive advantage for individuals and businesses would increasingly depend on their ability to ask better questions, identify weaknesses in plausible answers and apply relevant experience to the problems they are trying to solve.

He also urged organisations to reconsider how they measure productivity, warning that higher volumes of output do not necessarily translate into better work or stronger business performance.

“If the same tools are generating similar reports, presentations, marketing messages and customer communications across an organisation, efficiency may increase while differentiation declines,” Ozue wrote.

For businesses, that distinction could become increasingly important as AI-generated content becomes more common and customers encounter similar messaging across competing brands.

Ozue said the productivity gains from AI should give professionals more time to test assumptions, improve decisions and develop ideas, rather than simply increase the volume of work they produce.

He acknowledged using AI to review the structure of his article, refine its language, test arguments and improve the final draft, while maintaining that its observations and central perspective were his own.

That approach, he argued, illustrates the distinction between using AI as an aid and allowing it to determine the substance of one’s work.

As the technology advances, Ozue said, the ability to produce competent work would become less distinctive, increasing the value of original thinking, contextual understanding, and human judgement.