I miss traveling to a new city and feeling completely lost. Before GPS was always in our pockets, I liked to buy a clunky, foldable map and stash it just in case. I’d try to navigate a foreign destination the analog way, following street signs and stopping people to ask for directions. Soon enough, I’d develop a basic sense of the city. Nowadays, however, you can follow Google Maps around all day. You never get lost, sure, but you also never learn your way around.

AI use is having a similar effect on our critical thinking skills. Tools like ChatGPT help us figure things out. But we lose the opportunity to develop our judgment and reasoning. As one Reddit user recently noted , “When we invent for convenience, we lose skills that are no longer necessary. I don’t cook as much because I can eat frozen food warmed in the microwave. I can’t ride a horse because I have a car. Why call when you can text?”

What ChatGPT provides in convenience, it can take away in creativity and critical thinking, according to recent research . Experts refer to this as “cognitive debt”—the loss of cognitive processing and decision-making skills caused by delegating tasks to AI.

For business owners, widespread cognitive debt can be catastrophic for your people and your company’s future. Here are some strategies to help your employees leverage AI without falling into that trap.

Start With Your Own Thinking

MIT’s Media Lab wanted to explore the impact of our all-too-common tendency to default to ChatGPT . The researchers divided people into three groups, and asked them to write essays using either ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, or their own brains. They found that ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” What’s more, over the next few months, the ChatGPT users got lazier with each essay, ultimately resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study. The group that relied exclusively on their own brains showed the highest neural connectivity, especially in alpha, theta, and delta bands—associated with creativity ideation, memory load, and semantic processing. They were more engaged and felt greater ownership of their essays.

For business leaders, the implications are pretty clear. If you want to protect employees’ critical thinking skills, their engagement, and their sense of ownership, then create policies that guide their AI use. When employees are creating something, ChatGPT is best used as a tool for editing and refining rather than as a starting point. Drafting ideas, forming hypotheses, and developing an initial point of view should begin with them. Once they’ve done that foundational thinking, AI can help test ideas, strengthen arguments, and polish final versions. But they’ll be more engaged and feel more ownership if they lay the groundwork themselves.

I truly believe that thoughtful AI use can help further develop critical thinking and reasoning skills, rather than replace them. That’s why I encourage our 800-plus employees to take advantage of AI tools—but within defined parameters.

Using ChatGPT, on its own, doesn’t necessarily erode critical thinking. What matters is how it’s used. Factors like actively verifying information, developing independent judgment, and reflecting on when and how to rely on AI are what preserve, and can even strengthen, thinking skills, according to research . In fact, more frequent AI users often show higher levels of critical engagement. That finding is consistent with research recently published in Harvard Business Review , which found that experienced users reported fewer negative cognitive effects—less psychological “debt”—in part because they were more deliberate in how they used these tools.

The bottom line: more use isn’t inherently bad. With intention, it can even build resilience to the cognitive strain of AI. But leaders should be explicit about ChatGPT outputs: never accept them at face value. Instead, question what’s missing. Get in the habit of analyzing outputs, reflecting on larger implications, spotting assumptions, and verifying facts and sources. That’s how thinking and judgment skills continue to develop.

Turn ChatGPT Into A Socratic Sparring Partner

There’s a reason higher education settings like law school still rely on the Socratic method. It’s a Q&A-style dialogue that pushes you to question your assumptions and consider alternative perspectives. The process often leads to deeper understanding and more thoughtful, fully reasoned opinions. It sharpens your critical thinking.

When I’m wrestling with a complex issue or a question without a clear answer, I treat ChatGPT as a Socratic conversation partner. I ask it to probe for gaps in my reasoning, missing information, or perspectives I may have overlooked. I prompt it to question me until I’ve reached a more complete understanding.

“I’d like you to act as a Socratic coach. Ask me a series of questions to identify assumptions and gaps in my thinking, and help me to consider alternative perspectives on this topic: [insert topic and any relevant context].”

Even in situations with many shades of gray, this approach helps me reach conclusions with confidence.

At Jotform, we’ve long since recognized that LLMs are here to stay. Just as people once defaulted to Google for trivial questions, many now turn to ChatGPT as a reflex. That’s part of the reason why we introduced our own Jotform GPT . But when it comes to tasks requiring critical thinking, ChatGPT shouldn’t be the first resort. Instead, it should be a guide stashed in your pocket, used when you truly need it.