With AI (or more accurately, Large Language Models or LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, becoming ubiquitous, it can be tempting to utilize these tools to CREATE our work for us rather than to SUPPORT us with refining it.
It may seem like a great idea to task AI with creating your organizational strategic plan, as these tools can develop something fast and with ease, while integrating vast amounts of data. Without having to make any active decisions or take significant time out of your workday, you can develop a strategic plan that looks great on paper.
On the other hand, just because you have a strategic plan that looks great on paper, that doesn’t mean you can implement it. There are several potential impacts and risks that can occur when leaders utilize AI to create (rather than support with) their strategic plans. These include:
A recent study from MIT’s Media Lab (2025) highlighted several risks associated with turning to AI first, before executing critical thinking, while developing any type of research project. While focused on academic work, these risks can equally be analyzed within the context of a business environment.
One critical finding revealed that individuals who conducted firsthand research (e.g. articles, books) before turning to AI demonstrated stronger memories around the core concepts and findings as well as direct quotes from their own writing. A second group who primarily utilized search engines to support their research still demonstrated an overall strong ability to recall core concepts. Conversely, the third group: those who immediately utilized AI to complete the research for them were only able to recall minimal information and key research concepts, and faced challenges when trying to recall a direct quote from their own writing, mere minutes after completing the work!
Another impactful finding highlighted that individuals who completed firsthand research demonstrated high levels of ownership and passion for their work, and those who utilized search engines demonstrated only slightly lower ownership. On the other hand, those who utilized AI to do their research for them did not demonstrate accountability, ownership or passion for their research.
Additionally, when using an EEG monitor, researchers found that those who used AI first had the lowest brain engagement when compared with those who completed research without the use of online tools and those who utilized search engines to support their research. As quoted from the original research in Time (2025), “ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.’ Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.”
For those who are interested in learning more about this research but do not wish to read the full study,
Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s StarTalks YouTube channel unpacks this research with their
guest Nataliya Kosmyna, a research scientist from MIT Media Lab.
The reason this study is influential when considering strategic planning is because in order to successfully develop and implement a strategic plan, leaders and their teams need to have clarity, alignment and an understanding of where they want to be 3-5 years into the future. When leaders outsource strategic and critical thinking to AI, they bypass the deep analytical and creative processes needed to develop an innovative and aligned strategy.
Additionally, in order to maintain alignment after developing a strategic plan, leaders and their teams need to be able to remember this work and the WHY behind it in order to successfully implement it. For the work to move forward with cohesion, teams need to have high levels of ownership and accountability for this work and demonstrate commitment to driving it forward. Teams are far less likely to feel ownership of a plan they didn’t co-create. Without personal involvement in the formulation process, accountability and motivation may suffer and result in a strategic plan that gets ‘shelved’.
While emerging research supports the case for alignment first, there are also case studies throughout history that highlight what can go wrong when critical strategic initiatives move forward without full clarity and alignment.
While this case study below occurred before the ubiquity of AI, it serves as a reminder of the importance of leadership team clarity and alignment and the risks and costs associated with moving forward without it:
In 1999, NASA lost the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter, not to a critical launch failure or an unexpected anomaly, but to something avoidable: a lack of team clarity and alignment.
Two engineering teams, one from NASA and one from its contractor, Lockheed Martin, each used different measurement systems to calculate thrust, one in metric units (newtons of force), the other in imperial (pounds of force).
Both teams were technically “right” in their own frameworks, but because they did not align on a shared system and made the assumption that they were working in the same units, the spacecraft gradually drifted off course and entered Mars’ atmosphere at the wrong altitude and was ultimately destroyed. The mission failed: not from a lack of intelligence or effort, but from a lack of clarity and alignment that was discovered too late.
This story offers a powerful lesson for leadership teams developing strategic plans. Just like NASA’s engineers, teams can be brilliant and capable, yet still fail if they’re not operating from a shared vision, mission, priorities, goals, and definitions of success metrics. When organizations turn to AI to create their strategic plan, they risk a similar kind of misalignment. The AI may generate something that looks cohesive, but without deep discussion and agreement among leaders, teams may interpret the plan differently, execute inconsistently, and ultimately miss the mark.
Once a leadership team has done the cognitive and collaborative “heavy lift” of aligning around their strategic plan, AI can then become an incredibly powerful tool to enhance and refine the plan. But without that alignment, even the smartest technology can steer a well-intentioned organization off course.
While the case for alignment first is clear (don’t use AI to create your strategic plan FOR you), there are still several benefits to using AI as a SUPPORTIVE TOOL when developing your strategy.
The same research from MIT’s Media Lab showed that the user groups who completed their own research, including those who utilized search engines to support this, demonstrated that incorporating AI AFTER doing the cognitive heavy lifting actually enhanced brain activity and the ability to remember key concepts and to demonstrate ownership.
Therefore, once leaders and their teams are clear, aligned and bought into their strategic plan, AI can be useful to supplement, examine, refine, and enhance the strategic plan development and execution.
Specific areas in the planning process that AI can SUPPORT with:
When your organization develops a 3 year strategic plan, consider that this 3-year plan will take 1095 days to implement; That’s 156 weeks that all the people responsible for executing the plan need to stay on the same page. If in week 6, people get misaligned and communication silos form (if it happened at NASA…) that’s 150 more weeks with folks working out of alignment, and therefore ineffectively.
At SME Strategy, we specialize in alignment.
We focus on both up-front alignment in the process of creating the strategic plan, as well as the ongoing alignment required to implement it successfully. Getting clarity and alignment as a group is systemic when you have a clear and specific process - reach out today for a consultation.