How AI Creates a Capability Mirage
AI tools make it harder for leaders and teams to judge an individual’s abilities. Are personal and organizational capabilities silently crumbling in your company?
Melissa Swift, Teryluz Andreu, and Dolores HernandezSeptember 14, 2026Reading Time: 12 min
Summary:
Leaders used to judge people’s skills by their work outputs (among other factors). But now, generative AI tools can create fairly polished ...
Dry rot. A Potemkin village. The Wizard of Oz.
What do those things have in common? In each case, they may look good on the surface, but it’s only an illusion. Wood afflicted with dry rot looks just fine until the tree it’s in topples down. Grigory Potemkin is said to have tried to impress Catherine the Great by creating a prosperous Crimean village constructed only of building facades, masking the real town’s crippling poverty. The Wizard of Oz looked great and powerful, until the cowering...
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