Are You Using AI, or Is AI Using You?
Artificial Intelligence is here, and it is here to stay. Many sociologists and technologists have compared its rise to some of the most significant technological disruptions in human history, with some even suggesting its impact could be as transformative as the invention of the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet itself. Whether that proves true remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: AI is already changing the way we work, communicate, lead, and make decisions.
The question is not whether AI is impacting your organization. The question is whether you are intentionally directing that impact or passively being shaped by it. In other words: are you using AI, or is AI using you?
Created to Cultivate
To evaluate that question, we need to begin much earlier than ChatGPT. We need to go all the way back to the dawn of time recorded in the book of Genesis.
The opening pages of Scripture reveal something profound about what it means to be human. We are created in the image of God. Out of all creation, humanity alone bears the divine likeness. Immediately, we see that being God's image-bearers gives us a unique responsibility. God commissions Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and exercise dominion over it. This commission is often referred to as the Cultural Mandate. God created a world full of untapped potential and then invited humanity to cultivate it—to build cities, create art, start businesses, establish institutions, solve problems, and develop tools that help creation flourish.
In many ways, technology is a natural expression of the Cultural Mandate. The plow made agriculture possible on an unprecedented scale. The printing press democratized knowledge. Electricity transformed nearly every aspect of modern life. The internet connected the world in ways previous generations could scarcely imagine. Now, artificial intelligence represents the latest chapter in humanity's ongoing effort to develop tools that extend our ability to create, solve problems, and steward God's world.
Christians should not be afraid of innovation, since human creativity reflects the creativity of our Creator. But every new tool raises a question: will this tool help us fulfill our God-given responsibilities, or tempt us to abandon them?
AI Is a Gift—and a Temptation
AI is an extraordinary achievement. It can summarize research in seconds, organize information, help draft communications, identify patterns in data, and save hours of administrative work. These are real benefits to its use, and as leaders, we should celebrate tools that increase our ability to serve others and steward resources effectively.
However, most gifts often bring with them an ensuing temptation. Throughout Scripture, one of humanity's recurring failures is turning good things into ultimate things. We take gifts and place our trust in them. We take tools and begin depending on them. We take blessings and transform them into idols.
The danger we face is not AI itself. Our danger is if we allow AI to become a substitute for the wisdom, discernment, and responsibility that God has uniquely called us to as His image bearers.
The Danger of Drifting
Most organizations have financial policies, governance structures, employee handbooks, and codes of conduct. Yet very few have developed a thoughtful philosophy for how AI should be used. As a result, AI often enters through the side door: an employee uses it to write emails, a manager uses it to create reports, a board member uses it to evaluate options, a marketing team uses it to generate content, a leader uses it to prepare strategic plans.
None of these uses are necessarily wrong. However, without intentional guidance, we can drift, and what we drift towards is not often the best. For example, no one wakes up one morning and decides to surrender critical thinking. However, the convenience of AI can slowly replace reflection, efficiency can slowly replace wisdom, and automation can slowly replace judgment. Before long, people can find themselves relying on AI in ways they never consciously intended.
Leadership always requires intentionality. If you are not intentionally deciding how AI should be used in your organization, then the default settings of convenience and efficiency will decide for you.
The data bear this out. A 2025 EisnerAmper survey of full-time U.S. desk workers found that while most employees report a positive experience using AI on the job, only about a third of their companies had a formal AI policy in place, and fewer than half of employees said they informed a manager or sought permission before using it.1 A separate 2026 PagerDuty survey of office professionals at large enterprises found that two-thirds had used AI tools at work that they believed were not authorized, and roughly a third admitted to feeding confidential company data into public AI models.2 Research from Founder Reports similarly found that nearly half of U.S. workers say their employer has no clear AI policy, or they don't know whether one exists—a gap that widens even further at smaller companies.3 This is drift in action: adoption racing ahead of governance, one unsanctioned use at a time.
Technology Is Never Neutral
History teaches us that technology does more than help us do things. It also shapes how we do them. The smartphone changed communication, social media changed information consumption, and email changed expectations around responsiveness. Likewise, AI is not simply changing productivity. It is changing how people think about thinking.
That means leaders must ask more than "What can AI do?" We must also ask, "What is AI doing to us?" How is it shaping our habits, influencing our culture, affecting our creativity, and changing the way we make decisions? Those are not technology questions. Those are leadership questions.
Emerging research suggests the shaping effect of AI is real and measurable. A 2025 study published in the journal Societies, which surveyed and interviewed 666 participants, found a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool use and critical thinking ability, mediated by what researchers call cognitive offloading—the tendency to hand off mental effort to a tool rather than work through it ourselves. The effect was strongest among younger participants, while higher levels of education offered some protection.4 A related MIT Media Lab study went further, using EEG scans to measure brain activity in people writing essays with ChatGPT, with a search engine, or with no tools at all. The group using generative AI showed the lowest neural engagement of the three and consistently underperformed on linguistic and behavioral measures.5
Left unchecked, this is what "AI doing something to us" looks like at a biological level, not just a cultural one.
Information Is Not Wisdom
One of the reasons AI is so impressive is that it has access to enormous amounts of information. However, Scripture reminds us that wisdom is something altogether different. The book of Proverbs teaches that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Notice what it does not say. It does not say wisdom begins with information, knowledge, or data. Rather, wisdom begins with a right relationship to God.
AI can provide information, summarize perspectives, identify trends, and generate options. But it cannot fear God. It cannot exercise moral discernment. It cannot distinguish between what is possible and what is right, nor can it understand the eternal significance of a decision. AI can tell us what has happened and often predict what may happen, but it cannot tell us what ought to happen. All of these crucial responsibilities remain distinctly human responsibilities.
You Cannot Delegate Responsibility
One of the most important principles for Christian leaders is that you cannot delegate responsibility. The book of Romans reminds us that each person will give an account of themselves before God. Imagine standing before God and saying, "The algorithm recommended it," or "The software suggested it," or "The AI generated it." There is no way those explanations could excuse our choices. Technology may inform our decisions, but it cannot answer for them. God entrusted that calling to human beings. You are accountable for your leadership, your decisions, and the way you steward the people, resources, and mission in your care.
AI can assist your leadership. But it can never stand in your place before God.
Technology Can Multiply Capacity but Not Character
AI provides increased capacity, and capacity matters. Organizations need efficiency, leaders need leverage, and teams need tools that help them accomplish more.
However, there is something crucial that AI cannot give you: character. AI cannot make you humble, courageous, patient, faithful, or loving toward people. Throughout Scripture, God's primary concern is not simply what we accomplish but who we become. The fruit of the Spirit is not productivity—it is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
AI may help us accomplish more, but only God can transform us into the kind of people who accomplish things in ways that honor Him. Technology can multiply capacity, but only God can produce character.
Even secular workplace research is picking up on this distinction. A joint study by BetterUp Labs and Stanford, reported in the Harvard Business Review, found that roughly half of workers view colleagues who submit low-quality, AI-generated work as less capable, and a similar share see them as less trustworthy.6 Capacity went up; credibility went down. No tool can manufacture the trust, integrity, and diligence that make output actually worth something to the people relying on it.
Originate Before You Generate
So what does faithful AI usage look like? I would suggest a simple principle: originate before you generate.
For example, when writing, begin with your own thinking. Spend time in prayer, seek to discern what is wise, form convictions, and write out your own thoughts. Then invite AI into the process—let it help organize what you have written, challenge assumptions, identify blind spots, improve communication, and accelerate execution. But do not allow it to become the source of your thinking.
Too many people are producing content they never truly thought about, sharing ideas they never wrestled with, and presenting conclusions they never arrived at. That is not leadership. That is outsourcing. Faithful leaders do the hard work of thinking first and then use AI to strengthen what they have already begun.
A Better Vision for AI
I am not anti-AI. I use it regularly to research, brainstorm, write, organize information, and save time. Those are tremendous gifts.
However, I want AI to remain a servant, not become a master. I want it to support my work, not define it. I want it to increase my capacity without diminishing my responsibility, to amplify wisdom rather than replace it, and to help me serve people better rather than avoid the work of leading them. That is the tension that every leader today needs to learn as we live in an increasingly AI-mediated world.
Conclusion
The question facing Christian leaders is not whether we will use AI—we almost certainly will. The question is whether we will steward it faithfully. Will we use it as a servant or a substitute? Will it help us fulfill our calling, or will it slowly replace responsibilities God never intended us to surrender?
Scripture begins with God giving humanity a vocation: cultivate creation, steward it wisely, and exercise dominion under His authority. That calling has not changed. AI may be a remarkable tool, but it is still a tool. It possesses no wisdom, bears no responsibility, and reflects no character. It cannot love God or neighbor. Those things belong to people created in the image of God.
So use AI. Learn it. Leverage it. Steward it well. But never forget that God did not call machines to lead His world. He called people. And the responsibility to lead still belongs to us.
Endnotes
1. EisnerAmper, Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace Study (2025). https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/news/survey-of-employees-using-ai-at-work-0825/
2. PagerDuty, Shadow AI Workplace Survey (2026). https://www.pagerduty.com/newsroom/shadow-ai-workplace-survey-2026/
3. Founder Reports, AI in the Workplace Statistics for 2026. https://founderreports.com/ai-in-the-workplace-statistics/
4. Gerlich, M., "AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking," Societies, 15(1), 6 (2025). https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6
5. MIT Media Lab study on brain engagement and generative AI use in essay writing, as summarized in "Is AI Eroding Our Critical Thinking Skills?", ANSI Blog (2026). https://blog.ansi.org/ansi/is-ai-eroding-our-critical-thinking-skills/
6. BetterUp Labs and Stanford study on perceptions of AI-generated work, as reported by Harvard Business Review and summarized in Founder Reports, AI in the Workplace Statistics for 2026. https://founderreports.com/ai-in-the-workplace-statistics/
