Keep critical thinking at the front

The biggest impact I make when working with creatives is to show them how to keep their critical thinking at the front of content they create. This is challenging because many people want to start with new online tools like jumping straight into using AI.

I think it’s much more important to start with critical thinking and to share your lived experience with readers, viewers, and listeners.

Several times every month, I help small business owners and higher education teams start with handwritten notes. I show them how they can use AI as an OCR tool to make far-reaching content from what they’ve written on paper or on whiteboards. During workshop sessions, we discover clever ways to improve the work they already need to do: clearer workflows, better decisions, stronger communication, and less time lost to avoidable friction.

And along the way we learn that AI can help draft, sort, summarise, compare, and spot patterns. But AI can’t replace critical thinking.

It shouldn’t flatten expertise. And it won’t fix a broken workflow by being added on top of it.

This matters a lot now because the same systems that make work faster can also make poor information travel faster. As a frequent contributor to Tipp Today on local radio, I watch how Fran Curry and Leeann Donegan distill information for listeners. In their realm as broadcasters, misinformation and disinformation are not abstract risks. They affect what community activists believe, what leaders decide, what students trust, and what customers act on.

The training I do with third level educators and with business owners sits in that space: helping people build confidence by refining their workflows with AI without degrading the role of critical thinking.

Sometimes if means asking better questions. Always checking sources. Auditing workflow before adding another tool. Keeping notes about the way AI is being used so you can tweak the reach you give it.

I’m finishing 2026 while teaching three cohorts of professionals how to rethinking how they handle information. The most sophisticated teaching session happens throughout 12 hours of AI for Personal Productivity that Larry Maguire and I have taught for Ireland’s Innovation Skillnet since January 2023. You could learn how to best use your AI subscription as a complement to your critical thinking by joining us in November during our IRDGAI Zoom workshops.

See more details in the description of the IRDG AI Personal Productivity short course.