Cortado Group Research

The Artificial Intelligence Atrophy Trap

Leaders are Quietly Crippling Their Teams

Cortado Group · January 2026 · 18 min read
AI StrategyLeadershipCognitive ScienceOrganizational Design
Abstract

Your AI adoption is working. And that success may be everything you're doing wrong. Two independent research programs — MIT Media Lab and the Wharton School — have now measured exactly what is happening inside the brains of people who use AI the way most of your team does. The degradation is real. It is progressive. And it is happening far faster than your organization is able to detect.

Your AI adoption is working. And that success may be everything you're doing wrong. Two independent research programs — MIT Media Lab and the Wharton School — have now measured exactly what is happening inside the brains of people who use AI the way most of your team does. The degradation is real. It is progressive. And it is happening far faster than your organization is able to detect.

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