In my last post, Afraid of Being Replaced by AI? we looked at the physical differences between human brains and AI neural networks. We discovered unique capabilities our brains have over AI. Yet, in the fight with AI for jobs, we can only leverage those unique brain capabilities if we use them.

Use AI for everything, and you could lose your human brain advantage. Working your brain in specific ways, like physical training, is essential to maintain and develop function.

The goal is not to avoid AI. News continues to reveal more tasks being outsourced to AI. In a recent interview, CEO Marc Benioff claims AI can do 30%-50% of work tasks at Salesforce.

The goal is to remain valuable in your job by building up your irreplaceable human skills. Some companies like Bank of New York Mellon are already utilizing digital employees working alongside human counterparts for coding and validating payment instructions.

To build up your human cognitive abilities, don’t approach AI as a replacement for thinking, but as a powerful research assistant, data analyst, and co-thinker. Let AI do the mechanical so you can do the strategic.

It’s tempting to let AI do it all. But your brain will get less fit and you’re basically telling your employer they don’t need you. Instead, use AI in ways to build up your brain in areas that accentuate your value.

Instead of training AI to replace you, use it to help you be irreplaceable. Treat AI as a cognitive sparring partner to strengthen your innate human abilities.

To get started, here are some workouts to train your brain in ways that make your humanity more valuable.

1. Engage with Primary Sources; Use AI as a Research Magnifier

Cognitive Workout: Finding a single “aha!” moment in a sea of raw data, customer reviews, or project reports. This requires synthesis and insight.

AI Trap (AI Replaces): “Summarize these 1,000 customer reviews for me.” You get the conclusion without the context and miss the surprising, outlier details where real opportunity lies.

Human Value (AI Augments): You use AI as a powerful lens to navigate the source material yourself. How? See AI prompt examples below.

• Prompt: “Analyze these 1,000 reviews and cluster them into the top five recurring themes. Then show three verbatim examples of each.”
• Prompt: “Search this entire project file and identify all mentions of ‘risk’ or ‘delay’. Then show the full paragraphs where each mention appears.”
• Prompt: “In this sales data, highlight anomalies that deviate more than 20% from the quarterly average.”

Result: AI does arduous tasks of searching and sorting – low-cognitive-load work. You reserve your brain’s energy for high-value human tasks: looking at the organized raw material and asking, “Why is this happening? What’s the hidden story here?” You’re the detective. AI gave you an organized case file.

2. Strategic Note-Taking: Use AI as a Post-Meeting Debriefer

Cognitive Workout: Actively listening and synthesizing a live conversation into key themes and action items.

AI Trap (AI Replaces): Using an automated AI transcript as a substitute for paying attention in a meeting.

Human Value (AI Augments): You still take strategic, handwritten notes during the meeting forcing you to listen and filter in real time. After, leverage AI for insightful follow-up. How? Here’s some AI prompt examples.

• Prompt: “Here’s the meeting transcript, and here’s my personal notes. Synthesize both into a draft email including key decisions, assigned action items, and owners.”
• Prompt: “Based on this transcript, what were the main points of disagreement? What topic had the most energy behind it?”
• Prompt: “Based on the meeting transcript, my personal notes, main points of disagreement, and most energetic topics, what top three changes should I prioritize in this marketing plan?”

Result: You get the full cognitive benefit of live synthesis, ensuring you understand the meeting’s flow and dynamics. Then, you use AI to save time on the administrative task of writing a perfect summary, freeing you to think about the next strategic move.

3. Driving the Discussion: Use AI as a Private Sparring Partner

Cognitive Workout: Thinking on your feet, articulating a persuasive argument, and navigating complex social dynamics while engaged in a live setting.

AI Trap (AI Replaces): Staying silent and asking the AI for the “right answer” later.

Human Value (AI Augments): You use AI to prepare for and learn from the human interaction. You use it as a private trainer. How? Below are some AI prompt examples.

• Pre-Meeting Prompt: “I’m about to propose _______. Act as a skeptical CFO and give me the three toughest questions you’d ask about my plan.”
• Pre-Meeting Prompt: “Help me rephrase my main point for an audience of engineers versus an audience of marketers.”
• Post-Meeting Prompt: “I felt some resistance when I presented my idea. Based on what I’ve told you, what are some likely underlying concerns I didn’t address?”

Result: AI helps you anticipate challenges, refine thinking, and build empathy for other perspectives. This makes your live in-person contribution more insightful, persuasive, and resilient amplifying human social intelligence.

4. Authoring Your Own Strategy: Use AI as a Creative Sounding Board

Cognitive Workout: The “blank page” struggle of structuring a novel argument, building a logical narrative, and creating a clear vision from scratch. This is where true ownership and deep understanding are born.

AI Trap (AI Replaces): “Write a three-year strategic plan for my division.” You get a generic, soulless document you can’t truly defend because you didn’t build it.

Human Value (AI Augments): You do the hard work of core ideation first. Then you bring in AI as a collaborator to refine and challenge your thinking. How? See these AI prompt examples.

• Prompt (After you’ve outlined): “Here is my core thesis and my three supporting pillars. What is the weakest part of this argument? What have I overlooked?”
• Prompt (After you’ve written a draft): “My goal is to inspire my team. Analyze the tone of this draft and suggest ways to make it more compelling and visionary.”
• Prompt (For creativity): “Give me an analogy from biology or history that could help explain this complex business concept to my client.”

Result: You maintain full ownership of the core strategy and logic. AI acts as a 24/7 editor, critic, and muse to help test and polish your human-generated idea into the best version.

A summary workout reminder on how to be more human in your job to compete in an AI job market. Click on image to download a PDF.

With any AI use, remember that you’re responsible for the final output. Fact-check AI outputs, avoid plagiarism, and maintain your unique voice. This is where human discipline expertise can shine – not taking everything AI confidently says at face value.

Also, know your company and client AI use policies. Be mindful of uploading copyrighted, sensitive, or proprietary material into LLMs.

For more ideas on how AI can be a cognitive sparring partner to improve your ideas, see my post Why AI Flattery Fails. For a look at how AI can help you iterate ideas for faster innovation, see my post on AI Vibe Marketing.

You, the human, must always be the one asking “why” and setting the intent. Use AI for the “what” and “how”—let it search, sort, draft, and critique. This allows you more time and energy to deep, creative, and strategic thinking that machines cannot replace, making you more valuable, less replaceable.

In my next post, I’ll provide a similar cognitive training plan for students. How can you begin using AI in these ways for your job today?

This Was 75% Human Generated Content! 

The initial ideas were my own, and so were the beginning parts of a rough draft. I used Google Gemini 2.5 Pro Thinking for my research. I got better results when I asked the model to respond to my prompt again after running 10 miles. Thanks to Christopher Penn for his “Add a Banana” AI principle. That’s what helped send me in this training your brain direction. I added my own support articles and perspective on examples. I used Gemini 2.0 Flash to generate the graphic.