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AI Makes Indecision Visible

Practical guidance on ai makes indecision visible and what to do about it.

25 Jan 20261 min read

The point

AI Makes Indecision Visible is not a technology statement. It is a decision quality statement.

The decision lens for this topic

Ask: "What would a good decision look like without AI?" Then ask: "What does AI change - speed, coverage, consistency, or risk?" If you cannot answer, you are not ready to automate this decision.

Why this matters

Leaders are being asked to "adopt AI" as if it is a software upgrade. It is not. AI adoption changes decision flow: who proposes options, who validates them, and who owns the outcome.

What goes wrong in the real world

  • Strategy becomes a collection of generated plans with no clear tradeoffs
  • Teams confuse activity (outputs) with progress (outcomes)
  • Responsibility drifts because the tool feels authoritative
Leadership rule

If a decision can hurt customers, finances, or reputation, a named human must be able to explain: the goal, the assumptions, and the downside.

How to apply this this week

  1. Identify your top 5 recurring decisions (pricing, hiring, credit, procurement, roadmap)
  2. For each decision, define: owner, required evidence, and sign-off
  3. Use AI to generate options - but require humans to justify the final choice
Takeaway

AI can speed up decision preparation. It cannot replace leadership accountability.