Is AI Making You Lazy? (Or Just Making You Busy?)

I was at an event recently where a speaker made a comment that made me think and question things.

“AI is where intuition goes to die.”

They weren’t just being dramatic. They were pointing to a very real danger in the age of automation: the loss of the “gut feeling.”

In business, intuition isn’t just a guess; it’s the combination of our experience, our empathy for our clients, and our ability to read between the lines. It’s that internal “ping” that tells you a project isn’t quite right, or that a client needs a different approach than the one they’re asking for.

I think the ‘anti-AI’ argument here is that it causes a loss in critical thinking skills. If the first thing you reach for when faced with a challenge is AI, we’re no longer trusting our own intelligence and intuition.  If we stop using the muscle that helps us think for ourselves, i.e. the brain, that muscle atrophies, making it harder to use in the future.

My Experiences of Using AI

After more than a decade helping business owners learn and implement apps and systems to improve their working processes, I’ve seen plenty of “shiny objects” come and go. But AI feels different. It’s everywhere.

I initially became interested in AI back in 2023, with my blog weighing the pros and cons of using AI as a small business owner. Back then my concerns were around authenticity, AI mistakes and hallucinations (making things up!) and the cost of using AI as a micro-business owner.

Since then, as AI has become increasingly accessible, I’ve taken a couple of deep-dive AI courses and made a conscious effort to integrate it into my business. But I have a confession to make sometimes, I am just wasting time with it.

If I don’t have absolute clarity before I log in, I find myself spiralling into ‘procrastination via prompting’, and I end up creating dozens of documents, plans, and graphics that are completely useless. Or, I realise it has hallucinated information and so I have to go back in to fix things, when I could have been spending that time just creating the content in the first place.

It’s easy to feel productive because the AI is fast, but fast doesn’t always mean good.

The Balanced Approach: Assistant vs. Creator

As we move through 2026, I’ve had to set firm boundaries for my use of AI. For me, AI should be a supportive assistant and not a content creator. I’ve realised that if I rely on a machine to do my thinking, I lose that gut instinct, the intuition, that has built my business over the last 12 years. Here is how I’m striking the balance:

Where AI is Working Well in my business:

• Strategic Planning: I use AI to stress-test my ideas. I’ll share a plan and ask it to compare my thoughts against current industry trends or gaps. It’s a great sounding board.
• Present-Moment Meetings: Having an AI note-taker means I can actually look at the person I’m speaking to. I can focus on the human connection, knowing the AI is capturing the transcript while I just pick up the action points later.
• SEO for Beginners: For those starting with a low budget, AI is a brilliant tool for recommending keywords and helping craft meta titles. It’s a great “basic level” entry point.
• Data Crunching: As long as you ensure your data is anonymised, AI can analyse patterns and spreadsheets in seconds that would have taken me a few hours.
• Tech Support: I use it to help join up different systems or troubleshoot workflows. However, a huge caveat here: be careful with AI chatbots. I’ve found they still ‘hallucinate’ far too often to be left alone with my customer service.

Where AI is strictly banned:

• Writing Blogs: My voice is my brand. I have a fantastic copywriter for this, and no algorithm can replicate that human touch.
• Social Media Posts: I might ask for a “hook” idea or a bit of brainstorming, but the final words will always be mine.
• Web Copy: Again, this needs to be 100% “me.” My clients buy into my personality, and AI-generated web copy feels like a cardboard cutout of the real thing.

Returning to Intuition

I’ll admit, I tried using AI for content creation. The result? It was so far off the mark that it felt like a waste of the electricity and water used to generate it.

I’ve decided to go back to my ‘Pre-AI’ system for creativity. That means putting aside dedicated, quiet time to meditate, journal and generate ideas from the books I’ve read and the conversations I’ve had.

AI can be a powerful tool, but it can make you lazy. Don’t let it replace the quiet moments where your best ideas are actually born. Use it to clear the admin off your plate, and to simplify tasks but in my opinion, you should keep the ‘thinking’ for yourself.