Leading in the AI Revolution: When Intelligence Becomes Cheap, Wisdom Becomes Priceless

SSomething has changed, and I do not think we are going back.

For most of human history, knowledge was expensive. Information had to be found, expertise had to be developed, documents had to be written, calculations had to be performed, and complex work consumed enormous amounts of human time. Even after the internet placed information at our fingertips, someone still had to search through it, interpret it, organize it, and turn it into something useful.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to break that relationship between time and intellectual production. In 2026, a single person can sit at a computer and perform work that once might have required several people. Research can be summarized in seconds. Thousands of lines of information can be analyzed. Software can increasingly be generated by agents. Presentations, reports, policies, marketing campaigns, images, spreadsheets, and business strategies can be produced at a speed that would have sounded ridiculous a decade ago.

Yet the more powerful these systems become, the more convinced I am that the AI revolution is not ultimately going to be a story about machines.

It is going to be a story about human beings deciding what to do with machines.

2026: The Revolution Is Already Here

There is a tendency to speak about artificial intelligence as though we are waiting for something to happen. We are not waiting anymore. Researchers surveying nearly 750 corporate executives in 2026 found that more than half of their firms had already invested in AI, with positive productivity effects that varied considerably across industries. Another nationally representative study published this year described workplace generative-AI use as widespread but still “shallow”: AI is appearing across many occupations and tasks, but adoption remains uneven even among people doing similar work. National Bureau of Economic Research

Software development provides an extraordinary glimpse of where this may be heading. A 2026 JetBrains survey of more than 15,000 professional developers reported that 90% were using AI coding agents at least weekly and 68% were using them daily. This is no longer simply autocomplete helping a programmer finish a sentence of code. We are entering an era in which AI systems can increasingly receive objectives, perform sequences of work, examine their own output, and return completed material to a human supervisor. The JetBrains Blog

Microsoft's 2026 workplace research similarly describes organizations moving toward environments where people direct AI agents that perform increasing amounts of execution. Its research draws on surveys of 20,000 AI-using workers across ten countries alongside large-scale workplace activity data. Microsoft

That should cause every leader to think beyond the question, “Should we use AI?”

The more interesting question is becoming: What happens when almost everyone does?

More Productivity Does Not Automatically Mean Better Work

This is where the story becomes much more complicated.

Artificial intelligence clearly can increase productivity in particular tasks. A 2026 randomized experiment involving 1,174 adults found that generative AI improved performance on a workplace-style business problem-solving task across educational groups and substantially narrowed the initial performance gap between participants with different levels of education. Importantly, when AI was later removed, the strongest subsequent performance was associated with intensive AI use combined with continued human effort. National Bureau of Economic Research

That distinction fascinates me because it suggests that AI can amplify the person without necessarily replacing the need for the person to develop.

Other research exposes the other side of the equation. A 2026 study in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering found that participants using AI completed substantially more of their programming tasks, but their ability to answer questions demonstrating understanding of the resulting code was lower. They produced more, but understood less of what they produced. IEEE Xplore

That may become one of the great contradictions of the AI era.

We could become extraordinarily productive while slowly becoming less knowledgeable about the things we produce.

A manager could generate a beautiful strategic plan without understanding strategy. A student could produce an excellent paper without mastering the subject. An employee could create an impressive financial analysis without understanding the assumptions underneath it. A pastor could generate an eloquent sermon without wrestling with the Scripture being preached.

The document might improve while the person deteriorates.

That possibility interests me far more than whether AI can write another email.

The Rise of Artificial Busyness

There is another danger that leaders should recognize. AI can create enormous amounts of output, but output and value have never been synonymous.

Imagine an organization where every employee can generate reports instantly. Suddenly there are more reports. AI can create meeting summaries, so every meeting produces one. It can generate ideas, so brainstorming documents contain hundreds of ideas. It can draft emails, so communication increases. It can create presentations, so everyone arrives with twenty slides.

The organization appears incredibly productive.

But did anything improve?

Did the patient receive better care? Did the employee understand the expectation? Did customer satisfaction improve? Did turnover decline? Did the company become financially stronger? Did anyone make a better decision?

Microsoft researchers examining workplace activity in 2026 found AI adoption associated with increases in both productivity-oriented and communication activity among heavy users, including a 21.2% increase in productivity-app actions in the studied setting. The researchers also cautioned that changing patterns of communication could affect interpersonal information exchange and innovation. Microsoft

That distinction matters. AI can help us create more activity without guaranteeing more meaning.

The leaders who succeed in this environment may therefore be the ones disciplined enough to ask a remarkably old-fashioned question: Why are we doing this?

Intelligence May Become Cheap. Wisdom Will Not.

This is where artificial intelligence becomes deeply theological to me.

For thousands of years, Scripture has made a distinction that the technological world is suddenly being forced to rediscover. Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing.

Proverbs 4:7 tells us, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.” James 1:5 tells those who lack wisdom to ask God. James 3:17 describes wisdom from above not by processing speed or intellectual capacity, but through purity, peace, consideration, mercy, sincerity, and good fruit.

That is extraordinary in the context of artificial intelligence.

We may be approaching a world in which information becomes nearly limitless. A machine may eventually retrieve more knowledge than any person could absorb in a thousand lifetimes. It may analyze possibilities faster than an executive team, generate strategies instantly, and identify patterns hidden inside datasets containing billions of observations.

Yet none of that automatically answers the question of what we ought to do.

AI can tell me that eliminating twenty positions will reduce labor expenses. It cannot relieve me of the moral responsibility for deciding what happens to twenty human beings.

AI can analyze a patient's data. It does not make that person less deserving of dignity.

AI can identify the most persuasive way to influence someone. That does not tell me whether influencing that person is right.

Intelligence can tell us what is possible.

Wisdom asks whether it should be done.

Christ Gave Us a Different Model of Leadership

Jesus' model of leadership becomes increasingly relevant to me as technology becomes more powerful.

Christ did not describe leadership as possessing more information than everyone else. He repeatedly connected greatness with service. In Mark 10:43–45, Jesus reverses the ordinary hierarchy of power and teaches that greatness is found in becoming a servant. In Luke 12:48, Scripture connects greater responsibility with greater accountability: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.”

That verse takes on a fascinating meaning in the age of AI.

We are being given more.

More information. More capability. More automation. More analytical power. More ability to influence people. More ability to produce. More ability to make decisions at extraordinary scale.

The Christian response to increased capability should not simply be excitement about what we can accomplish. Greater power should produce a deeper awareness of responsibility.

The AI revolution therefore creates an enormous leadership test. Technology may increase what is possible faster than our moral frameworks mature enough to determine what should be permissible.

The Person Who Knows How to Think May Become More Valuable

There is an irony developing in education and employment.

If everyone has access to an AI system capable of producing competent answers, then producing an answer becomes less impressive.

The valuable person may increasingly become the one capable of recognizing when the answer is wrong.

That requires knowledge.

It requires understanding the subject deeply enough to challenge the machine. It requires knowing which assumptions matter, recognizing missing information, detecting hallucinations, identifying ethical problems, and asking questions the system was never prompted to consider.

Expertise does not disappear in that world.

Expertise becomes the ability to supervise intelligence.

This is one reason I believe abandoning education because “AI can do it” would be an enormous mistake. If anything, AI makes deep education more important because the person directing the system needs enough knowledge to evaluate what comes back.

A person who knows nothing but possesses an extraordinarily intelligent tool can produce impressive-looking mistakes at extraordinary speed.

What Happens to the Beginner?

The labor market is already giving us another reason to think carefully about this transition. Stanford researchers analyzing payroll records covering millions of U.S. workers through June 2026 reported no evidence of widespread economy-wide AI displacement. But they did identify a concerning difference among younger workers: employment among ages 22–25 in highly AI-exposed occupations stood 19% below where it would have been had it kept pace with employment among comparable workers in less-exposed occupations. Experienced workers did not show the same gap. The researchers are careful about causal interpretation, but the pattern deserves attention. Stanford Digital Economy Lab

That raises a leadership problem we may not appreciate yet.

The senior analyst was once a junior analyst. The experienced clinician once needed supervision. The executive once handled smaller decisions. The senior developer once wrote beginner code.

Organizations have always contained work that simultaneously produced value and trained the next generation.

What happens if AI becomes exceptionally good at the beginner work?

We could become so efficient at removing entry-level tasks that we accidentally remove the environments in which people develop the judgment necessary to perform senior-level ones.

The short-term spreadsheet could look wonderful while the long-term organization quietly loses its pipeline of expertise.

Human Beings Are Worth More Than Their Output

There is an even deeper question underneath the productivity conversation.

What happens to our understanding of human worth when machines outperform us?

For centuries, modern economic life has encouraged people to associate identity with occupation and productivity. We ask children what they want to be when we frequently mean what job they want to perform.

Artificial intelligence may force us to confront the weakness in that worldview.

Christianity begins somewhere completely different. Genesis 1:27 declares humanity created in the image of God. Human dignity therefore exists before economic productivity enters the conversation.

A newborn child produces nothing and possesses immeasurable value.

A person living with severe disability possesses immeasurable value.

An elderly person who can no longer work possesses immeasurable value.

A person struggling with mental illness does not become less human because productivity decreases.

If a machine can perform my job faster than I can, it may change the economic value of a particular task. It does not change the value of my life.

That distinction may become desperately important in the coming decades.

The Future Could Be Magnificent

I do not look at this future only with concern. I find it extraordinary.

Imagine AI helping scientists examine combinations of scientific literature no human research team could completely read. Imagine clinicians receiving decision support capable of recognizing patterns hidden across enormous datasets. Imagine personalized educational systems patiently explaining a concept differently until a struggling student finally understands it.

Imagine a person with a small business possessing analytical capabilities previously available only to multinational corporations. Imagine people with disabilities gaining independence through intelligent assistants. Imagine researchers compressing years of repetitive analytical work into months and spending the recovered time asking better questions.

Research in 2026 already points toward genuine productivity effects. Corporate-executive data suggest positive gains that vary substantially by sector, while other research indicates AI investment can contribute to productivity through organizational learning and accumulated firm-specific knowledge rather than merely replacing workers. National Bureau of Economic Research

The future does not have to be humans against machines.

It could be humans doing things that were previously impossible because machines expand what individuals are capable of accomplishing.

Imagine 2036

I sometimes try to imagine explaining today's world to someone living ten years from now.

Perhaps the idea of manually searching through dozens of websites will seem antiquated. Maybe physicians will routinely work beside specialized medical intelligence capable of analyzing literature, imaging, genetics, and patient histories simultaneously. Researchers may collaborate with artificial systems that propose experiments. Businesses may operate with tiny human teams directing enormous networks of digital agents.

Children growing up today may enter professions that do not currently exist.

The workplace itself could change. Instead of managing only people, leaders may manage combinations of humans and artificial agents. An employee may direct several AI systems, each performing work that once belonged to an entire department.

Some companies are already moving in that direction. In 2026, startups are experimenting with unusually small teams supported heavily by AI, while enterprise research increasingly focuses on workers directing AI agents rather than merely using simple assistants. The Wall Street Journal

That future is fascinating.

It is also going to require extraordinary leadership.

The Greatest Risk May Be Forgetting Why We Are Working

Artificial intelligence will probably become faster. Models will improve. Agents will become more autonomous. The cost of intelligence may continue falling.

But none of those developments can answer the oldest questions.

What is worth building?

What is a good life?

What does another human being deserve from me?

When should efficiency yield to compassion?

When should profit yield to principle?

What responsibilities come with power?

What should I refuse to automate even when automation becomes possible?

Those are not obsolete questions.

They become more important as our capabilities increase.

Christ asks in Mark 8:36, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” That question was not written about artificial intelligence, but I struggle to imagine a more appropriate warning for an age obsessed with unlimited technological capability.

We may build machines capable of helping us accomplish things previous generations considered impossible. We may become dramatically more productive. We may create companies with ten people that once required a thousand. We may solve diseases, accelerate scientific discovery, transform education, and place extraordinary intellectual power into the hands of ordinary people.

I want to see that future.

But I do not want humanity to become so fascinated with what artificial intelligence allows us to produce that we forget to ask what kind of people we are becoming while producing it.

The organizations that truly lead the AI revolution will not necessarily be those that automate the most jobs, generate the most content, or deploy the most agents. Leadership will belong to people who understand the technology deeply enough to use it, understand humanity deeply enough to know its limits, and possess enough wisdom to recognize that capability is not the same thing as purpose.

Artificial intelligence may eventually make intelligence abundant.

That could make wisdom one of the most valuable things left.