How Leaders Will Use AI as a Strategic Peer in 2026

Severin Sorensen
5 days ago
4 min read

For the past few years, we’ve treated AI like a high-speed encyclopedia or a glorified intern, useful for answering questions, drafting emails, or summarizing long PDFs. We called it "Prompt Engineering," but in reality, it was just a more sophisticated form of Q&A. In 2026, we predict the end of the 'Ask and Receive' era.

Forward-thinking leaders will move beyond AI as a high-speed utility and will instead engage it as a strategic adversary. This shift is a direct response to one of the most persistent challenges in the C-suite: the inherent isolation of high-stakes decision-making. Usually, we look to a small circle of trusted colleagues or mentors to stress-test our ideas, but those resources are finite.

With AI stepping into that inner circle, leaders gain a 24/7 collaborator that does more than just support the drafting process; it serves as a strategic sparring partner, pressure-testing ideas from the moment they’re conceived.

Here are eight ways to use AI as a collaborative partner this year.

Ways to Strategically Collaborate with AI in 2026

The "Red Team" Collaborator

Instead of asking AI what they think of your proposal, ask it to destroy it. Upload your strategic plan and use it as a "Red Team."

The Collaborative Shift: Don't ask, "Is this a good plan?"
The Partner Approach: "Identify three structural weaknesses in this strategy that a competitor could exploit. Then, play the role of a skeptical Board Member and grill me on our resource allocation."

The Cognitive Blind-Spot Mirror

Leaders often fall victim to their own "narrative bias" and see what they want to see. AI can now act as a mirror for thinking patterns.

The Collaborative Shift: Don’t ask the AI to be a note-taker, like "What were the key takeaways from my last strategy session?"
The Partner Approach: "Review my contributions to the last strategy session. Identify the blind spots in my logic and point out where my 'narrative bias' might be glossing over a critical operational risk."

The Multi-Persona Brainstorm

One of the hardest things for a CEO to do is to step out of their own shoes. Use AI to simulate a diverse roundtable of experts for a private "Individual Collaboration" session.

The Collaborative Shift: Don't ask, "Give me ideas for a new product."
The Partner Approach: "I want to brainstorm our next move. Act as a panel consisting of a conservative CFO, a radical UX designer, and a sustainability activist. Debate the pros and cons of this initiative from your three distinct perspectives."

The "Premortem" Specialist

Leaders are often responsible for anticipating failure before it happens. Use AI to run a collaborative "Premortem" on your biggest project.

The Collaborative Shift: Don't ask, "What are the risks of this project?"
The Partner Approach: "It is one year from now, and this project has failed spectacularly. Narrate the most likely sequence of events that led to this disaster, starting from today. Now, let's work together to build a safeguard for the top two risks."

The "Cultural Pulse" Interpreter

Leaders often struggle to get the "unvarnished truth" from their organization as they move higher up. AI can act as a collaborative bridge between raw data and cultural sentiment.

The Collaborative Shift: Don’t ask, "What did the employee engagement survey say?"
The Partner Approach: "Analyze the open-ended feedback from our last three surveys alongside our internal Slack sentiment. Give me a list of the 'unspoken tensions' that my leadership team might be ignoring because they are uncomfortable to address."

The "Deep Synthesis" Researcher

A CEO's job is often to connect dots across disparate industries. Instead of reading 10 whitepapers, you can use AI to find the "connective tissue" between unrelated fields.

The Collaborative Shift: Don’t ask, "Search for news on renewable energy."
The Partner Approach: "I’m looking for non-obvious parallels between the 1990s telecommunications boom and current developments in biotech. Let’s build a framework together for how our logistics company might be disrupted by the same patterns."

The Ethical Compass & "Second Look"

Ethical implications can be overlooked in favor of speed. Leaders can use AI as a dedicated "Ethics Officer" to slow down the decision-making process just enough to be thoughtful.

The Collaborative Shift: Don’t ask, "Is this move legal?"
The Partner Approach: "Review this expansion plan through the lens of our stated corporate values of 'radical transparency' and 'community impact.' Point out where our actions might contradict our words, and suggest how we can realign the two."

The High-Stakes Communication "Sparring Partner"

Before a keynote, a difficult board meeting, or a delicate termination, leaders usually practice in their heads. In 2026, they will use AI to simulate the emotional volatility of the room.

The Collaborative Shift: Don’t ask, "Edit this speech to sound more inspiring."
The Partner Approach: "I’m about to announce a pivot to a frustrated department. Act as a high-performing but burnt-out manager in that room. I’ll give you my opening statement, and I want you to respond with the most difficult, emotionally charged questions I’m likely to face. Let’s role-play the Q&A until I can address the 'heart' of the issue, not just the logic."

The Executive Skill of 2026: "Collaborative Leadership"

In 2026, executives will learn how to lead collaboratively with AI. By moving from Q&A to partnership, leaders will find that AI doesn't replace their role; it clarifies it. As we offload the exhaustive work of bias-checking and scenario-simulating to our digital partner, we are left with the high-ground of leadership: Human Judgment. This is the year leaders will use individual collaboration to become more human and focus their energy on the 'feeling work' of empathy, vision, and trust.