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Four Ways to Think Better With AI (That Have Nothing to Do With Speed)

I came across an episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast recently with guest Hannah Rosenfeld that stopped me mid-scroll. The core provocation: most people are using AI in exactly one way — to go faster. And while speed is real value, it's also the most surface-level thing AI can do for you. What Hannah describes is something richer. A framework for using AI not just to execute, but to think — more broadly, more honestly, and more clearly than you could alone. I found myself applying it well beyond research. To decisions I'm navigating at work. To how I process information. To how I prepare for difficult conversations. Here's what that looks like.

May 5, 2026 4 min read

The 4 Mode Framework:

  • Mode 1 — Widen Your Aperture (See more before you decide):
  • Mode 2 — Notice Nuance (Look for what frequency hide):
  • Mode 3 — Challenge Your Assumptions (Use AI as the honest voice in the room)
  • Mode 4 — Immerse Yourself in Data (Make your thinking land, not just make sense.)
Mode 1 — Widen Your Aperture (See more before you decide):

Most of us operate with a narrow data set. We talk to the same people, read the same sources, notice the patterns we already know to look for. We then make decisions — career moves, business choices, personal pivots — based on that limited slice.

AI can help you zoom out before you act. Feed it the landscape of a problem before you've formed your opinion. Ask it to surface perspectives you wouldn't naturally encounter. Use it to stress-test whether your understanding of a situation is actually broad enough to act on.

The leader who uses AI to scan adjacent industries before a strategic pitch, the professional exploring a career transition who asks AI to map out what they don't yet know — they're not moving faster. They're starting from a better vantage point.

Mode 2 — Notice Nuance (Look for what frequency hide):

When we analyse situations — a difficult team dynamic, a stalling project, a relationship under pressure — we tend to gravitate toward what's most obvious. The loudest complaint. The most common pattern. The thing that shows up most often.

But the real signal is often quieter. The one dissenting voice. The thing nobody says directly. The moment where someone's words and their behaviour don't quite line up.

Hannah makes a sharp observation here: the problem isn't bias. It's unexamined bias. AI can help you surface your own assumptions before they quietly shape your conclusions. Ask it to find the contradictions in a set of feedback you've received. Ask it what a skeptic would notice that you're not seeing. Use it to slow down, not just speed up.

Mode 3 — Challenge Your Assumptions (Use AI as the honest voice in the room)

Most of us, most of the time, unconsciously seek confirmation of what we already believe. We read the article that agrees with us. We share the plan with the colleague most likely to say yes. We frame the business case in a way that makes the conclusion feel inevitable.

This mode is about deliberately breaking that pattern. Before a big decision, ask AI to argue the opposite. Before a difficult conversation, ask it to play the other person's perspective. Before you ship the strategy, ask it to find the holes.

This is the research equivalent of red-teaming your own thinking — and it's one of the most underused applications of AI in professional life. Not because it's hard, but because it requires the willingness to be wrong.

Mode 4 — Immerse Yourself in Data (Make your thinking land, not just make sense.)

You can have the right answer and still lose the room. In professional life, insight that stays in your head — or in a document nobody reads — doesn't create change. Communication is the last mile of any good idea.

This mode is about using AI to translate your thinking into something other people can feel, not just follow. A narrative that makes a business case human. A framing that meets a skeptical audience where they are. A story that turns months of experience into something a new stakeholder can grasp in five minutes.

Speed is not the point here. Clarity is.

The Real Shift

What I take from Hannah's framework isn't about AI at all, really. It's about intentionality.

The question isn't "how do I use AI to do this faster?" It's "what kind of thinking do I need help with right now?"

Sometimes you need breadth. Sometimes you need to slow down and look harder. Sometimes you need someone to push back. And sometimes you need to communicate what you already know in a way that actually moves people.

AI can help with all four — if you're deliberate enough to ask.

This post was inspired by the Creative Confidence Podcast episode "How to Use AI for More Human-Centered Research" featuring Hannah Rosenfeld, Executive Design Researcher at IDEO. Listen on Apple Podcasts