The AI Atrophy Problem: How CIOs Fight It
At the 2026 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, leaders warned that rapid AI adoption is eroding critical‑thinking skills, a phenomenon dubbed “AI atrophy.” Participants shared tactics to keep analytical rigor sharp, emphasizing that AI outputs should be treated as hypotheses to be stress‑tested. Michael Schrage urged users to immediately seek counterarguments, while George Westerman highlighted the need to match tools to tasks. The consensus: AI must accelerate thinking, not replace the human mind.
The Empathy Tax Female Leaders Pay
A new MIT Sloan Management Review study finds that women leaders shoulder a disproportionate share of emotional labor, dubbed the "empathy tax." Over 81% of surveyed female managers spend at least 30% of their workweek on caring tasks such as...
How Nespresso Builds Sustainability Into Its Business Model
Nespresso North America CEO Jean-Christophe Jaunin explained how sustainability is woven into the brand’s core. The company restores soil health through intercropping, which improves bean flavor and biodiversity. Its Sustainable Quality Program supports more than 150,000 farmer families with agronomy...
Our Guide to the Summer 2026 Issue
The Summer 2026 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review spotlights how enterprises are maturing AI, quantum, and data strategies. It introduces the “AI spine” model that links domain experts to a flexible technical core, and advocates adaptive AI governance to embed...
Why AI Isn’t Transforming Finance Yet
Finance leaders have poured money into AI expecting faster forecasts, tighter cycles and continuous scenario planning. Yet CFOs report that most pilots remain in sandboxes, dashboards rarely influence decisions, and AI tools are underused. Research involving 300 senior finance professionals...
Scaling AI With Adaptive Governance
A recent MIT Sloan study of senior AI leaders at firms such as Microsoft, Barclays and Nasdaq reveals that traditional, static AI governance is insufficient for scaling AI. Executives must shift from compliance‑only mindsets to adaptive governance that matches controls...
Create Generative AI Value at Scale
Research across 23 Swiss firms shows that scaling generative AI requires an "AI spine"—a cross‑functional core that blends domain expertise with technologists. The spine enables rapid rollout, continuous improvement, and swift retirement of low‑value use cases, as demonstrated by a...
A Three-Minute Protocol to Reduce AI Manipulation Risk
A new three‑minute protocol called “Think First, Verify Always” (TFVA) aims to curb AI‑enabled deception by instilling a simple critical‑thinking habit. In a randomized trial of 151 participants, the TFVA micro‑lesson lifted decision quality scores from 57.4% to 65.3%, delivering...
When Employees Are Drowning in Change
CareRx’s rapid expansion—tripling its business in 20 months through acquisitions—left employees overwhelmed by constant change, driving turnover and customer complaints. Research from The Grossman Group shows 83% of leaders are planning more change than employees can absorb, with a gap...
Data Transformation Is the CEO’s Business
Caterpillar’s CEO Jim Umpleby launched Cat Digital and tasked it with building the Helios enterprise data platform to break down siloed customer, contact and equipment data. By giving senior leaders ownership of 14 data domains and committing three years of...
What It Takes to Scale Value-Based Industrial Solutions
Industrial equipment manufacturers (IEMs) are turning to value‑based industrial solutions—bundles of products, services, and digital tech that promise both profit and sustainability. MIT Sloan research of 19 firms reveals that while pilots demonstrate feasibility, scaling these solutions often inflates costs,...
Resolve the Conflict Between Efficiency and Resilience
The article argues that operational efficiency and resilience need not be opposing goals. It shows how airlines rely on misleading on‑time performance metrics, leading to schedule padding and fragile networks. By adopting three strategies—customer‑centric metrics, data‑driven buffer allocation, and curated...
How Leaders Can Move Past Personal Obstacles
MIT Sloan experts introduce Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a leadership tool that treats inner conflicts as multiple, well‑intentioned parts guided by a central Self. The article explains how senior executives can access "self‑energy" to harmonize competing drives, using the...
Why Businesses Should Experiment With Quantum Computing Now
Quantum computing should be treated as a general‑purpose enabling technology rather than a ready‑made solution. Leading firms such as Lockheed Martin and IBM have already launched multi‑year pilots and cloud services to learn how quantum methods can solve real problems,...
Calibrate AI Use to the Decision at Hand
The article argues that AI must be matched to the type of decision it supports, separating narrow, data‑driven choices from wide, ambiguous, politically charged ones. Misapplying generative tools to narrow problems or analytical engines to wide decisions leads to weak...