AI-powered mediocrity is coming—how to avoid it
AI is supposed to make us smarter, faster, and more innovative.
But it’s also making a lot of people worse.
Instead of sharpening thinking, AI is making lazy people feel productive. Instead of elevating decision-making, AI is enabling overconfident mediocrity.
And businesses that don’t wake up to this reality will be filled with employees who sound smart (to some people) but are actually just hitting ‘generate.’
AI will make good employees great—but it will make mediocre employees worse.
AI amplifies whatever you bring to the table. If you’re smart, strategic, and thoughtful, AI will supercharge your abilities.
But if you’re lazy? Unoriginal? Over-reliant on automation?
AI will gloss over your weaknesses.
Yes there is research (I’m thinking of the BCG-Harvard study from 2023) that shows that AI improves quality and speed of outputs for everyone, especially the bottom quartile. But if everyone has equal access to AI, then those improvements are quickly absorbed into the averages. We might all be better and faster at some tasks than we were in 2022, but if the standard has risen globally, then our current better and faster has lost its edge.
The real challenge is that AI lets some (many) people think they’re contributing when they’re just parroting AI outputs.
AI-generated mediocrity is already everywhere.
We’re already seeing the symptoms of AI over-reliance:
❌ Generic marketing that looks and sounds a lot like the good marketing of 2023. AI makes it easy to create content—but if everyone’s using it the same way, nothing stands out.
❌ Overconfident employees who assume AI is always right. AI sounds authoritative—even when it’s completely wrong. Without fact-checking, businesses will make bad decisions with total confidence. And employees who are out of their depth or have always been happy to pass of someone else’s work as their own now think they have endless loopholes to exploit (they don’t - it’s easy to spot when someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about - just walk over to them and ask them a question about that report they wrote).
❌ AI-powered leaders who don’t actually lead. Great leaders think deeply and creatively about the challenges they are facing - they don’t outsource their thinking. Not-so-great leaders will be grateful for the veneer of protection they seem to think AI offers in the short term - but they will be found out quickly.
AI makes everyone think the same, talk the same, and act the same. Underwhelming is becoming the norm.
Thinkers vs. button-pushers
There are two types of AI users:
💡 Thinkers use AI to sharpen their ideas. They question, refine, and challenge AI outputs. AI makes them faster, but they stay in control.
🤖 Button-pushers let AI do the thinking for them. They copy, paste, and move on. They assume AI knows best. They stop using their own judgment. They send you raw AI output so you have to do the thinking.
🚨 One of these groups will thrive. The other will quietly become irrelevant. Gradually. Then suddenly. And they’ll be cross about.
The most dangerous AI users aren’t the ones who misuse it.
They’re the ones who don’t even realise they’ve lost their edge.
If you aren’t actively questioning AI outputs, you are already falling behind.
How to avoid the AI mediocrity trap
✅ Teach employees to interrogate AI outputs. Just because it’s fast doesn’t mean it’s right. Question everything.
✅ Reward originality over efficiency. AI makes everything easier—but not everything should be AI-generated.
✅ Use AI as a tool, not a replacement. The best AI users don’t just accept the first answer—they refine, improve, and challenge it.
✅ Build a culture of skepticism. AI should never be the final word—it should be a starting point for better thinking.
The moment your team stops challenging AI is the moment your company starts losing relevance.
AI is already making some people dumber. Will your company be next?
AI should be making us better, sharper, and more informed.
Instead, it’s making mediocre people feel competent.
If your company is using AI without critical thinking, you’re not innovating—you’re just outsourcing intelligence.
The companies that encourage independent thought and AI fluency will win.
The ones that let AI become a mindless content factory?
They’ll drown in a sea of generic, low-value noise.
What kind of company do you want to be?
