A working distinction for the research function in the AI era.
AI executes against a well-formed question. It can’t form the question. That one line is what lets AI make research faster and broader while keeping it deep.
This piece maps where AI earns its place in your workflow, where your judgment is the work, and gives you the language to say the difference out loud in the rooms where budgets and decisions get settled.
Where AI genuinely helps: knowledge management, transcript synthesis, draft scaffolding, pattern surfacing
Where the researcher holds the line: question formation, organizational context, plausibility versus precision, advocacy
Four scripts for saying the difference in budget talks and stakeholder reviews
