Are you the chef or the dish? A practical way to think about AI in your business There’s a simple analogy I often use to explain the difference between traditional software and AI. Traditional software is like a recipe. You follow the steps, and you get a predictable result. AI is more like a chef. It looks at what is available, interprets it, and creates something. Sometimes it turns out well. Sometimes it doesn’t. The process involves judgment, even if that judgment is based on patterns rather than experience. For many business owners, just understanding that difference is helpful. It makes AI feel more manageable. And for a lot of leaders, that’s where the journey begins. Using AI to: ■ draft emails ■ summarize information ■ think through ideas is a practical way to get comfortable. It builds confidence and starts to show what these tools can do. As that comfort grows, we can sense the need to do more, but it is not clear exactly what that more is. When a tool helps you move faster and gives you polished results, it can create a quiet sense of certainty. The wording sounds right. The structure feels complete. The output looks finished. It’s easy to move forward with it. There are moments when that shows up more clearly. I was working on this article early in the morning, in a hotel room, before allday meetings began. I started with the chef concept and used AI to help shape a draft. What came back was strong. It was clear and easy to read. It also felt finished. But as I sat with it, I realized something was missing. The message was there, but it stayed closer to the surface than I wanted. It smoothed over parts that needed more thought. It would have been easy to leave it as it was. I was tired, I had a full day ahead, and the draft looked polished enough. But it just wasn’t where it needed to be. So I pushed myself and yawned my way through another couple of hours that I had hoped to spend sleeping. I kept working on it. I pushed myself because I have learned that a polished result doesn’t mean the thinking behind it is complete. Confident and well-done are not the same. Completeness has nuance. These concepts become more important as AI becomes part of how we run our businesses. As AI becomes part of everyday work For most companies, AI doesn’t begin with a big launch. It happens gradually. One person uses it for drafts. Another uses it to summarize notes. Someone else uses it to think through a problem. Over time, it becomes part of how work happens. It starts to influence: ■ how ideas are shaped ■ how teams communicate ■ how decisions move forward At that point, it helps to pause and take inventory. Where is this showing up in our work? What are we relying on it for? How comfortable are we with how it’s being used? That kind of awareness makes a difference. You don’t need to be technical. It starts with paying attention, and you may need some tools to give you visibility into what is happening. When everything starts to sound the same There’s another pattern that’s worth noticing. Sometimes you can read or hear something and feel that it could have come from almost anywhere. It sounds polished. It uses familiar language. It checks all the right boxes. But it doesn’t feel specific. I recently received an invitation to a session on AI in business. It talked about exploring tools, understanding use cases, and helping leaders make better decisions. That all sounds good, on the surface. What stood out was how interchangeable it felt. There was no clear point of view, no sense of what the speaker had actually seen or worked through, and no reason to expect something different from other sessions on the same topic. It made me stop and wonder how that session would feel different from sitting down with an AI tool and asking the same questions. As more content and communication are shaped in similar ways, the parts that stand out are: ■ experience ■ judgment ■ perspective ■ real examples Those are human contributions. They differentiate and inform. They add value. The role of your network This is one reason relationships continue to matter. AI can help organize information and generate options quickly. Your network brings something different. The people around you offer: ■ context that comes from experience ■ perspectives shaped by different paths ■ thoughtful questions that help refine an idea enterprising Women 27 Pixel-Shot / Shutterstock.com
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