The AI Leadership Divide

Every leader I’ve worked with this year falls into one of two groups when it comes to using AI.

Both are smart.

Both are curious.

But only one group is getting exponential results: The Amplifiers

Amplifiers use AI to make themselves and their teams stronger.

They see it as a tool that multiplies their best ideas. It sharpens their thinking, speeds up their teams, and improves the quality of their decisions.

When an Amplifier uses AI, they’re not handing off the thinking. They’re using it to challenge assumptions and see what they couldn’t see before.

Their mindset is simple:

How can AI help me think better. How can it help me decide faster. How can it help me lead smarter.

They still own the work. They just move through it with more clarity and ease.

They stay curious. They experiment. They use AI like a strategic partner in the room, not a digital employee.

These are the leaders who turn a week of planning into a single afternoon. They buy back time to think instead of spending it reacting.

They’re what Geoff Woods calls AI Driven Leaders.

They use AI to raise the quality of their decisions, not just increase the quantity of their output.

It’s about leverage, not laziness.

On the other end of the spectrum are The Replacers

Replacers take the easy road. They use AI to do their work for them instead of making their work better.

They ask how AI can take something off their plate instead of how it can help them grow.

The result is predictable.

More content. Less clarity.

More motion. Less progress.

They delegate the thinking to the person who receives their output and has to do the work to find the meaning and value (aka: work slop).

Replacers chase shortcuts and end up with shallow results. They get busier, but not better.

It’s what Dan Sullivan calls the difference between 2X versus 10X growth.

Amplifiers focus on quality and freedom.

Replacers focus on quantity and convenience.

One transforms. The other just tinkers.

Right now there’s a divide forming between these two groups of leaders. Amplifiers are learning faster, thinking clearer, and creating real leverage with AI. Replacers are just automating the grind.

The difference isn’t in the tools they use. It’s in how they think.

When you use AI, are you amplifying your own genius or outsourcing your growth.

AI will make you more of whatever you already are. If you lead with curiosity, it will expand your impact. If you lead with fear or avoidance, it will multiply your blind spots.

AI doesn’t replace leaders.

It reveals them.