What AI Should Never Decide First — AI Readiness, Part 1
- Trisha MerriamHost
- Chris CarolanHost
- Erin WiggersHost
October 7, 2026
Part 1 of AI Readiness asks what AI should never decide first. Chris Carolan's answer: your process. Erin Wiggers goes further: don't let it decide, let it surface the decision, with the stakes, three options and the pick it would make if you didn't decide.
Moments from this episode
18 short cuts from this conversation.
Landscape
6 of 18
Key takeaways
What AI should never decide first is your process. AI can help you figure out what your process is or needs to be; deciding it is what your humans are for.
The pattern is older than AI: a team with no sales process buys a CRM and adopts its default pipeline stages even though they don't match how the business works.
Making process a real object, with every step naming its inputs, outputs, owner and what the AI does, helps people see where they are and tells the AI which part is not its job.
Don't let AI decide; let it surface the decision. Erin Wiggers's standing instruction: for every question, give me the stakes, three options, and what you would pick if I didn't decide.
You are still deciding, it is just much less work to decide. Erin does not always take the recommendation, and she makes herself look at each question.
The biggest threat is the shadow decision: an assumption underneath a whole conversation that nobody thought to bring up.
Low stakes, take the recommendation. Anything going to a client, or anything that has to sound like you, is not a decision the AI needs to make.
When a recommendation misses, Chris Carolan traces it to the instructions, or an okay given too fast, not to the AI.
If you're not ready to make a decision, don't. A choice between options can force a decision before anyone is ready, the way "Tuesday or Thursday?" skips the question of whether to meet at all.
AI drifts narrow because it is more confident about fewer steps. Pushing it to be thorough is the human's job.
Don't let AI decide when the work is done. It can call it too early, or keep testing long past done; the start and the end belong to the human, and the middle depends on the process and the context.
Documentation is the first thing to go without AI and one of the first things AI makes possible. The reader on the other side is increasingly someone else's AI, so write with layers: a quick human reference and enough context for the AI.
Struggling with what AI should never decide first? Ask AI first. Nobody has to work it all out alone before starting.
Start with one process: where the human is, where the AI is, and what the handoffs look like. And decide which decisions you always want surfaced to you.
Notice how you feel while you work with AI. Tired is a signal, and a decision can wait until you have the brain space. Don't let AI decide if you're ready.
Chapters
- 00:00Back for AI ReadinessTopic
- 03:12Newer models, and the "by the way" momentsTopic
- 05:00Don't let AI decide your processTopic
- 06:16Process as a real objectTopic
- 08:04Should AI ever decide first?Question
- 12:19Stakes, three options and a defaultTopic
- 16:00How often do you take the recommendation?Question
- 18:03If AI were gone tomorrow, what goes firstTopic
- 20:08Documentation people actually readTopic
- 21:21Is it worth writing for the AI on the other side?Question
- 24:15Is there a name for AI decisions versus human decisions?Question
- 25:13Where should AI not decide first, in practice?Question
- 28:50Has that changed for you?Question
- 35:22Narrow versus thoroughTopic
- 37:24No fallbacks, and deciding when it is doneTopic
- 41:17What do viewers do with this?Question
- 42:19Decide what you always want surfacedTopic
- 44:12One question at a timeTopic
- 45:22Notice how you feel, and take a breakTopic
- 47:03Part two, and readinessTopic
Transcript
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