By Nicole de Fontaines
Research shows that only 5% of companies realise significant AI value, revealing a gap between adoption and readiness. Nicole de Fontaines, Executive Director of CEMS, argues future leaders must pair digital fluency with critical thinking, ethics, creativity, and self-awareness. AI should amplify human potential, not replace judgement – requiring responsibility, continuous learning, and human-centred leadership in the AI era.
A clear speed mismatch exists between technological adoption and organisational readiness. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently published a global study of 1,250 firms, revealing a striking divide:
- Just 5% of companies generate real value from AI at scale, achieving up to five times higher revenue growth and three times greater cost reductions than their peers.
• 60% report little or no impact, despite significant investments.
• Another 35% are seeing some results but admit they are not moving fast enough.
To understand how organisations can develop employees with the skills to generate true value from AI, CEMS conducted in-depth interviews with representatives from corporate partners, business schools, and alumni. These experts anticipate trends and prepare leaders for an AI-driven future.
These conversations – captured in the new report Augmented Leadership – made one thing clear: tomorrow’s leaders will need far more than technical expertise and sound business fundamentals. To seize AI-driven opportunities, they must combine analytical strength with creativity, cultural agility with entrepreneurial drive, and digital fluency with a human-centred approach to decision-making.
The interviews also revealed an optimistic truth: when organisations use AI responsibly, it can amplify human potential, enhance creativity, and unlock new possibilities for leaders, educators, and early-career professionals. Below are some of the key findings.
1. GenAI will redefine work – no question
GenAI will not replace most workers one-to-one, but it will fundamentally reshape how people work. Tasks such as writing, research, and data production are increasingly shifting toward reviewing, curating, and iterating. Technology that began as experimentation has evolved into accessible tools, from ChatGPT to image generators, now embedded in daily professional life.
Every technological revolution sparks fears of displacement, yet each creates new opportunities. AI will be no different, provided organisations use it wisely. The real question is no longer, “Will AI take my job?” but “How can AI make me better at it?”
2. The hidden risk of cognitive offloading
Experts raised concerns about cognitive offloading. People increasingly outsource even small decisions to AI, from drafting emails to planning daily tasks, risking the erosion of the critical thinking that makes them valuable. True leadership talent lies in questioning, interpreting, and applying insight. Critical thinking is like a muscle; without exercise, it weakens. As Professor Evelyne Léonard, Professor at UCLouvain notes, “Don’t let AI be your master. Be AI’s master.”
3. Why thinking must come before prompting
Guillaume Delacour, Head of People Development at ABB, summarises clearly: “Think first, prompt second.” Business leaders must bring their own ideas and perspectives before using AI to refine or expand them.
When leaders adopt this approach, AI becomes a creative partner rather than a crutch. The focus shifts from execution to deeper thinking about purpose, audience, and message, and then guiding AI towards that vision.
4. Operational responsibility: AI is a tool, not a colleague
Interviewees consistently stressed operational responsibility: AI is not a teammate and cannot replace human judgement. The real danger lies in complacency. The risk is not AI dominance but our willingness to surrender control because it feels effortless. Responsible use requires employees to remain firmly in the driver’s seat.
5. Moral responsibility: Ethics must be foundational
AI can produce remarkable insights while also generating significant errors. Ethical literacy therefore becomes essential. Leaders must constantly ask: What is the source? Where are the biases? Is this data appropriate to use?
Ethics is not a digital add-on but the same foundation of integrity that underpins strong leadership and responsible business practice. Leaders must develop instinctive judgement about when to trust AI, challenge it, or stop using it altogether by embedding ethics into daily decision-making.
6. AI should enhance creativity
AI does not inherently suppress creativity or efficiency; when organisations use it effectively, it can amplify both. Dr Kourosh Bahrami, CEO of tesa, describes substantial improvements driven by data insights and classical AI. In sales, for example, a previous organisation he worked for increased win rates by more than 20 percentage points across 1,000 engineers.
AI’s rise should encourage organisations to move beyond rigid models toward original thought and imagination. As automation takes over routine and repeatable tasks, humans must evolve from doers into creators, decision-makers, and problem-solvers.
As Dr Bahrami explains, this involves developing “a deeper understanding of customer strategies, priorities, challenges, and broader strategic objectives.”
7. Human wisdom will matter more than ever
Technology transforms tools, not humanity. Future leaders will interpret data through empathy, context, and experience, applying human wisdom to technological insight.
True self-mastery begins with understanding personal values, biases, and blind spots. Leaders who cultivate self-awareness will be best positioned to harness AI responsibly and ethically.
8. AI enables continuous development
For the first time, business leaders can develop skills instantly and continuously. Tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini enable individuals to fill knowledge gaps, prepare presentations, and learn new concepts on demand. At ABB, Guillaume Delacour describes how thousands of employees use AI for development, including self-coaching, interview preparation, and lifelong learning.
This capability has immense potential to democratise learning, but only when paired with discernment. Those who accept AI outputs without scrutiny risk misinformation and false confidence, while those who challenge them accelerate both personal and professional growth.
9. The expertise gap is widening – with organisational consequences
As AI automates many entry-level tasks, organisations risk depriving early-career professionals of traditional learning experiences that build judgement, intuition, and expertise. This gap could significantly affect succession planning and innovation pipelines.
For business schools, this shift raises a critical responsibility. If AI reduces exposure to foundational tasks, education must deliberately strengthen the capabilities that machines cannot replicate: structured critical thinking, contextual judgement, ethical reasoning, intercultural agility, and the ability to manage complexity and uncertainty.
Strategic responsibility in an AI age
As Utku Barış Pazar, former Chief Strategy and Digital Officer at Beko, states at the end of the report:
“The fundamental question is: what would you do with 1, 100, 1,000 — or even 1,000,000 digital agents at your command? If you don’t have an answer — for yourself, your team, or your company — someone else will. And they will set the pace for the future.”
This is a challenge to all leaders. These interviews show organisations energised by possibility but constrained by readiness. Many still need to build the guardrails, skills, and strategic frameworks required to use AI responsibly, effectively and productively.
The collective mission is clear: keep humans in control, place judgement and ethics at the centre, use AI to creatively amplify your operations and treat AI as a copilot — never the autopilot.
Nicole de Fontaines
