Can AI help us think more deeply, or does it sometimes spare us the thinking through which we learn? In this Knowledge Café, we will explore cognitive offloading, our experiences of thinking with AI, and what it means for conversation and collective thinking.
Knowledge Café
Are we offloading our thinking to AI?
Date: Tuesday, 3rd November 2026
Time: 14:00 to 15:30 GMT (London time)
—it might still work for you if you’re open to an early start or a late night.Host/Speaker: David Gurteen and John Hovell
Location: Online Zoom Event
Price: Free
Introduction
This event is part of a series of online Knowledge Cafés on Conversational Leadership, held on Zoom. Each Café explores a theme drawn from my online blook on Conversational Leadership.
Before each Café, I may invite you to read one or more related posts from the blook to help you prepare for the conversation. If you’re new to the Knowledge Café concept, please note that this is a participatory event, not a webinar.
Theme: Are We Offloading Our Thinking to AI?
In recent Knowledge Cafés, we have explored what happens when AI joins a conversation and how we might think with it. This time, I would like to ask a more uncomfortable question: what happens when we let AI do some of our thinking for us?
Cognitive offloading means using something outside our minds to reduce the effort of remembering or working something out. We have always done this. We write notes, use calculators and ask other people for help. AI gives us another way to offload, but one that can produce an answer, an argument or a polished piece of writing in seconds.
That can be useful. AI may help us get started, see possibilities we had missed or challenge an idea. It can make room for deeper thinking, especially when we remain engaged with its responses and question them.
But there is another possibility. If we turn to AI before struggling with a question ourselves, might we lose something in the process? We may accept an answer without understanding it, mistake a fluent explanation for a sound one, or become less willing to sit with uncertainty. The difficulty is that the thinking we avoid may be the very thinking through which we learn.
The distinction is not always clear. Asking AI to draft an argument might help us examine it more closely. It might also spare us the work of forming one. Much depends on how we use it, what we do with its response and whether we can still explain our own thinking afterwards.
This matters for Conversational Leadership. Thinking together requires more than bringing answers to a conversation. It asks us to listen, question, reconsider and make sense of things with others. Could AI strengthen that process? Could it weaken it if people arrive with ready-made views they have barely examined?
As always, this will be a Knowledge Café rather than a webinar. There will be no lengthy presentations or experts providing answers. We will explore the question together, drawing on our own experiences of thinking with AI, and sometimes letting it think for us.
The question for our conversation will be: Are we offloading our thinking to AI, and when does that help or hinder us?
John and I will discuss the Café’s theme and pose a question to initiate the conversation. We will also ask ChatGPT to say a few words. Then, in Café style, we will divide into small groups for three rounds of discussion, followed by a whole-group conversation.
Upcoming Events
Are We Offloading Our Thinking to AI? Tuesday 3rd November 2026 14:00 to 15:30 GMT (London time) - Can AI help us think more deeply, or does it sometimes spare us the thinking through which we learn? In… 
Event: Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop Tuesday 8 December 2026, 14:00 to 18:00 GMT (UK time) - Organizations rely on meetings and workshops to think together, explore issues, and make sense of complex situations. Many sessions drift… Join one of my upcoming Knowledge Cafés or workshops and explore Conversational Leadership in practice.
Engage in thoughtful conversation, challenge assumptions, and connect with others working in knowledge, leadership, and organisational change.