You Can Fake a Slide, Not a Boardroom
We need to say the quiet part out loud:
AI can make you look smarter. But it can’t make you smarter.
We’ve all seen it—emails that read a little too clean, interview answers that sound like they were written by a chatbot, presentations that check every box but leave you wondering if the person actually gets it.
AI is powerful. But it doesn’t give you presence. It doesn’t give you pattern recognition. It doesn’t replace lived experience. And it sure as hell doesn’t make you a better leader just because you pasted in a prompt.
There’s a growing myth in the workplace—that if you learn to use AI, you instantly leap up a level in credibility. That a few tools and shortcuts can make you look senior, feel senior, be senior.
But here’s the truth: you can fake a slide, not a boardroom.
Let’s be clear—AI is a powerful augmentor.
It can help you:
But there’s a ceiling. A point where it stops carrying you and starts revealing you.
We’ve seen it in hiring. Candidates using AI to answer live interview questions. You can tell. The answers are generic. The eyes dart left. The pacing is off. The content is technically right but totally devoid of insight.
The same thing is happening in meetings, pitches, investor calls. AI fills gaps in language—but not in logic. It gives you tools, not tactics. And when push comes to shove, it’s clear who has the goods and who’s just playing the part.
There’s no substitute for:
AI can’t simulate that. It can pull examples. It can suggest frameworks. But it can’t recreate judgment under real conditions.
That’s where seniority lives.
So what’s the play here?
If you’re already a senior, AI makes you better. It reduces friction, accelerates prep, and gives you signals faster. It helps you spend more time in your zone of genius.
But if you’re not there yet, don’t let AI trick you into thinking you are. Because eventually, you’ll be exposed. And when that moment hits—an exec review, a board Q&A, a crisis situation—the tools won’t help.
That’s when experience speaks louder than syntax.
This is especially important for rising professionals.
The temptation is real. AI makes you faster. But faster isn’t better if you’re skipping the reps.
The process of struggling through strategy, debating positions, learning to write clearly under pressure—that’s how you become senior. That’s how you build muscle.
AI can help you get there, but it can’t carry you.
The reps still matter.
AI is like a calculator. It makes the math faster—but it doesn’t teach you how to think. If you never learned the fundamentals, you’ll eventually hit a wall.
So don’t let AI inflate your confidence beyond your experience.
Use it. Leverage it. Get better with it.
But remember:
You can fake a slide. Not a boardroom.
Sources:
Gartner: Generative AI in the Workplace Study (2024)
