AI makes me a better strategist by being a worse one.

Let me explain.

Every day, I use a variety of AI tools.

They take on tasks I never loved, freeing my team to focus on deeper thinking and real creativity.

But their limitations are revealing.

Recently, an AI confidently explained why a product would appeal to a demographic that doesn’t actually exist.

Another time, it suggested marketing tactics that would have been cutting edge… in 1995.

These moments are important. They highlight the irreplaceable value of human experience, that sometimes seems to be slipping away.

After thirty years in product strategy, I recognize patterns in market behavior that AI can’t see. I feel subtle shifts in consumer psychology that data hasn’t captured yet.

I can tell when innovation is genuine versus merely trendy.

The tools are incredibly useful. But they can’t replace the wisdom accumulated through decades of wins and losses. They can regurgitate and graph data, but don’t understand why some products become cultural phenomena while similar ones fade away. They miss the nuanced, critical interplay between human desire and timing.

They’ve never tasted something delicious or ghastly. They’ll never desire a product, or receive joy through using one. They don’t know the feeling of primal fear that drives loss aversion.

This isn’t a story of AI versus human intelligence. It’s one about combining them thoughtfully and in the best way, to benefit the most people.

AI excels at what computers do best: processing vast amounts of information, identifying correlations, generating options.

But strategy — real strategy — requires something innately human: judgment.

The future belongs to strategists who understand this balance. Who leverage AI’s astonishing capabilities while trusting their own hard-won wisdom to guide actual decisions. The better AI gets, the more valuable it becomes to see the distinctions.

Think of it like cooking. AI can provide endless recipes, but it takes a seasoned chef to devise a brilliant combination and create something memorable. Because AI has no true imagination, it struggles to imagine what hasn’t yet been done, and can’t actually care how the result feels and tastes.

Don’t forget the humans your results are aiming to delight.

Don’t forget that strategy and creativity require forging new ground, not recycling old ideas.

What recipe are you following today?

Laurier