🧠 Brain Damage: The Hidden Cost of AI No One's Talking About

Most weeks, we keep things practical. New ad formats. Paid strategy tweaks. A better campaign structure. Tools to test.

But this edition of DTC Times is different.

AI isn’t just another tool in the stack. It’s reshaping the entire foundation of how we think, how we work, and how we build teams.

The stakes are high:

• Macro: Stanford researchers are measuring the effects of AI on our brains. It’s, uh, not good.

• Trends: A nationwide audit reveals what U.S. workers actually want from AI (and what they don’t).

• Tactics: How do you balance AI adoption so you’re augmenting you business, not undermining it?

This week, we step back. We look at the macro shifts, worker preferences, and long-term implications of AI-first workflows.

And most importantly, we ask:

Let’s get into it.

🧠 Macro

The Rise of Cognitive Offloading

What happens to our minds when we start to outsource them?

That’s the question Stanford researchers explored by asking participants to solve product strategy problems. Some with access to GPT-4, and some without.

The findings should give heavy AI users pause:

• People using AI agents scored higher on average answers

• But they performed worse on recall and originality

• Those without AI access wrote more creative, higher-scoring strategies and remembered more of what they read

This phenomenon is called cognitive offloading: outsourcing thinking to external tools.

We’ve seen it before. GPS made us worse at navigation. Calculators weakened our mental math. Now, generative AI may be dulling strategic muscles inside companies.

And it’s not a leap to apply this to ecommerce:

• Constant reliance on AI for copy and concepts can weaken your brand's creative edge

• Overuse in research and analysis can dampen strategic instincts and fundamental understanding of concepts

• It can be fast but it can make you worse at your job over time

The risk isn’t just intellectual laziness. It’s building a team that forgets how to think from first principles.

🗉 Takeaway

Use AI as a teammate, not a substitute. You or your team might get faster with AI. But if you also get dumber, you won’t notice the cost until it’s too late.

🔗 Learn more: Get the Stanford study PDF here.

📊 Trends

Workers Want AI. But On Their Terms.

AI is coming for the workplace. But not every task, and not on every worker's terms.

In a sweeping audit of 844 tasks across 104 occupations, Stanford researchers asked workers what they actually want AI agents to automate or augment.

The results:

• 46.1% of tasks were welcomed for automation

• But workers generally want control: Most preferred "equal partnership" rather than being replaced entirely

• Mismatched priorities: 41% of Y Combinator-backed AI startups are building automation in tasks workers don’t want automated (such as tasks requiring empathy, creative judgment, or nuanced decision-making). Meanwhile, workers are far more open to AI help with repetitive admin work, data entry, and documentation-heavy processes.

tl/dr…Workers want to eliminate drudgery, not be sidelined. The most popular reasons for AI use were:

• Freeing up time for high-value work (69.4%)

• Repetitiveness (46.6%)

• Stress reduction (25.5%)

• Quality improvement (46.6%)

But here's the rub: while technologists race ahead with automation, many of the tasks workers want help with are still underserved by AI tools. Meanwhile, the work they don’t want touched is seeing rapid investment.

What this means

You may be using AI to speed up workflows, cut costs, or boost output. All valid. But if you deploy AI without your team’s buy-in, or in ways that reduce their agency, expect resistance, erosion of trust, and eventually, lower quality work.

It also impacts recruiting. If every brand and agency automates away junior roles, we may face a talent drought down the road. No junior team = no future seniors.

Remember, the skills that will matter most going forward aren’t just data processing, they’re interpersonal and strategic.

The brands that win won’t just automate faster. They’ll augment smarter.

🜩 Takeaway

Productivity isn’t the same as alignment.

Ask yourself: Are you designing your AI systems with your team in mind? Are you amplifying their strengths, or undermining them?

True AI leverage comes from listening to what your people actually need and building workflows that serve both business and human goals.

🛠 Tactics

Designing a Human-Centric AI Workflow

AI doesn’t just reshape how we work. It reshapes who does the work and how teams evolve.

That means founders and leaders can’t afford to treat AI adoption like a plug-and-play shortcut. It’s not just about speed or cost. It’s about ensuring that your team doesn’t lose strategic depth, creative originality, or long-term talent.

Here’s how to build an AI workflow that elevates your people, instead of replacing them:

🤖 Use AI for leverage, not replacement

• First drafts, not final outputs: Let AI get you started, but don’t ship its work untouched

• Brainstorming, not decision-making: Treat it as a collaborator, not a replacement strategist

• Editing and refining, not full outsourcing: Human review should shape the end result

🔁 Design your team’s role in the loop intentionally

• Assign ownership: Always identify a final human "brain" behind the task

• Rotate responsibilities: Let junior and senior team members periodically take full manual control to stay sharp

• Inject friction: Use checklists, audits, or debriefs to force reflection and active thinking

🎓 Protect your talent pipeline

• Don’t wipe out junior roles: They’re not just cost centers, they’re how you grow future leaders

• Use AI to accelerate learning, not eliminate it: Let junior staff shadow AI workflows and then challenge them to improve on the output

• Design mentorship around augmentation: Pair junior staff with both AI and human mentors for faster skill acquisition

🔵 Takeaway

Am I using AI as an amplifier or a crutch?

The most valuable AI setups don’t remove humans from the loop, they make the loop smarter, faster, and more collaborative. That’s how you compound both productivity and people.

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