Should AI Get a Seat at the Table?

By James M. Sims, Founder and Consultant
April 17, 2025

As AI becomes more than just a tool, it’s time to ask: who—or what—is influencing our decisions? In creative meetings, product strategy sessions, and even policy discussions, AI is no longer sitting quietly in the background. It’s brainstorming, problem-solving, and sometimes even leading the conversation. What was once a digital assistant is now acting like a collaborator. But if we’re letting AI help shape our thinking, we need to confront a deeper question: how much say should it really have?

TL;DR – Key Takeaways from Should AI Get a Seat at the Table?

AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming a contributor. In meetings, strategy sessions, and brainstorming, AI is generating ideas, surfacing risks, and proposing decisions.
What was once an assistant is now acting like an advisor. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are being used to shape—not just support—human decision-making.
This shift brings both opportunity and risk. AI offers speed, knowledge, and pattern recognition, but it also carries hidden assumptions and training biases.
AI doesn’t care about outcomes—but it can still shape them. The way it frames ideas or omits alternatives can strongly influence human decisions.
The danger isn’t sentience—it’s unacknowledged influence. Without transparency, AI can crowd out creativity, suppress dissent, or reinforce narrow thinking.
Treating AI like a collaborator requires new norms. Just like with human teammates, we need visibility into how it contributes and how much weight we give its input.
Key practices include documenting AI input, auditing its influence, and maintaining clear lines of accountability.
Human agency must stay at the center. AI should augment—not replace—human judgment, context, and ethical reasoning.
Speed must not override substance. Relying on AI too quickly can lead to decisions optimized for efficiency rather than depth or foresight.
We need to ask better questions about how we use AI. Are we expanding our thinking—or outsourcing it?
AI can be a valuable partner—if we stay intentional. The issue isn’t whether AI should contribute, but how we define its role in collaborative processes.
The table is already set. The real question now is: Who speaks first—and who gets the final word?

Just a Tool?

As AI becomes more than just a tool, it’s time to ask: who—or what—is influencing our decisions?

In countless offices and conference rooms across the world, a new participant is quietly joining meetings. It doesn’t take up a chair or sip coffee. It doesn’t interrupt or nod in agreement. But it’s contributing—offering suggestions, summarizing discussions, generating alternatives, and occasionally proposing the boldest ideas in the room. That participant is AI.

Until recently, artificial intelligence was viewed largely as a back-office function: a helpful assistant that transcribed notes, crunched numbers, or automated repetitive tasks. But with the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, the line between assistant and advisor is starting to blur. More and more, AI is showing up not just to execute decisions—but to shape them.

So, we must ask: Should AI get a seat at the table?

From Assistant to Advisor

Creative teams are using AI to brainstorm product names, campaign ideas, and narrative arcs. Engineering departments prompt AI for architectural suggestions and performance trade-offs. Even policy think tanks and government bodies are experimenting with AI-generated policy briefs and risk assessments. In some cases, AI is even tasked with simulating stakeholder reactions or surfacing counterarguments in debate prep.

This isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening now.

When AI tools are asked to contribute ideas, weigh pros and cons, or simulate scenarios, they’re being treated less like software and more like collaborators. This trend isn’t just about convenience—it’s about influence. The more we let AI shape how we think, the more it becomes part of how we decide.

The Perils of Unacknowledged Influence

Let’s be clear: AI is not sentient, and it doesn’t care what decisions we make. But it can dramatically shape outcomes by framing the choices we see.

Consider this: if your AI co-strategist suggests three options—and all of them favor efficiency over ethics—how likely are you to challenge the premise? When AI becomes part of the ideation process, its biases, limitations, and framing choices become part of our decision-making fabric. And unlike human collaborators, AI doesn’t disclose its influences, assumptions, or blind spots—unless we explicitly ask.

This raises urgent questions: Who’s accountable for an AI-generated suggestion that leads to a costly misstep? What happens when an AI “brainstorm” crowds out human creativity, dissent, or nuance? Are we comfortable allowing tools trained on the past to shape our future?

A New Kind of Collaboration Requires New Ground Rules

None of this is to suggest we should shut the AI out of the room. On the contrary, AI can bring immense value to the table. It offers speed, breadth of knowledge, and the ability to cross-reference vast amounts of data in seconds. But we need to be honest about the new dynamic we’re creating.

If we are going to treat AI like a team member, we need to treat it like any team member whose influence must be understood, contextualized, and challenged.

That means:

Documenting its input: When AI contributes to a strategy, report, or proposal, that role should be transparent.
Auditing its influence: Regularly review whether AI-generated insights are reinforcing bias or narrowing the field of options.
Reinforcing human agency: Decision-makers must remain actively engaged, using AI as a partner—not a crutch.

The Real Question Isn’t Can AI Join the Table—It’s Should It Speak First?

AI has arrived in the boardroom, the brainstorming session, and the policy lab. The question now is not whether it will contribute—but how we will define the terms of that contribution. If we aren’t intentional, we risk building decision-making cultures where efficiency is privileged over understanding, and speed over judgment.

AI can be a powerful collaborator. But we must be the ones setting the agenda.

The next time you invite AI into a meeting, ask yourself:
Are we using this tool to expand our thinking—or to outsource it?

Ready to Take the Next Step with AI?

At Cognition Consulting, we help small and medium-sized enterprises cut through the noise and take practical, high-impact steps toward adopting AI. Whether you’re just starting with basic generative AI tools or looking to scale up with intelligent workflows and system integrations, we meet you where you are.

Our approach begins with an honest assessment of your current capabilities and a clear vision of where you want to go. From building internal AI literacy and identifying “quick win” use cases, to developing custom GPTs for specialized tasks or orchestrating intelligent agents across platforms and data silos—we help make AI both actionable and sustainable for your business.

Let’s explore what’s possible—together.