Artificial intelligence and team building: how to develop the skills that AI cannot replace

What neuroscience says about AI

The delegating of cognitive tasks to artificial intelligence, that is to say, the act by which we entrust our mental processes to external tools, is at the core of a momentous shift taking place across the globe. AI has made many processes easier and faster, and for this very reason, its appeal is more irresistible than ever, as is the temptation to let LLMs do the thinking for us. There is just one problem: LLMs do not think; they simulate thought. In the meantime, however, we are losing the ability to produce our own.

Neuroplasticity, i.e. the brain’s ability to form new neural connections and reorganise itself throughout life, is not a fixed trait, but depends on activity; therefore, neglecting it means condemning it to decline.

A 2026 study by Simone Rossi, Valter Fraccaro, and Riccardo Manzotti Artificial Intelligence, published on Nature, makes this case that passive, uncritical reliance on AI risks triggering long-term depression of synaptic strength, meaning that neural communication actually weakens over time. In contrast, active engagement with AI, including questioning outputs, co-creating, verifying, can sustain or even enhance plasticity. Moreover, a 2025 study by Hao-Ping Lee and colleagues, presented at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, found self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and critical thinking practices among regular AI users. Separately, research by Michael Gerlich published in Societies (2025) revealed a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, with younger participants exhibiting both higher AI dependence and lower critical thinking scores.

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These findings do not suggest that we should abandon artificial intelligence, but rather that we should use it with much greater awareness and, above all, identify activities that can strengthen the skills we need, first and foremost team-building activities.

Here is the paradox that most productivity conversations miss entirely. AI tools in the workplace can increase productivity whilst simultaneously reducing learning ability, critical thinking, and judgement. An employee who relies on generative AI for business to draft analyses, solve problems, and summarise complex documents may consistently hit their targets, while never actually developing the analytical capacity those targets are supposed to require.

When AI generates a draft or recommendation, the user receives the product while bypassing the process, such as the synthesis, the self-monitoring, the metacognitive regulation that constitutes genuine intellectual growth. Researchers describe this as an illusion of competence, where individuals mistake the fluency of AI-generated output for their own depth of understanding.

For organisations, the longer-term risk is significant. If early-career professionals rely on AI tools from the outset, they may never develop the analytical and creative skills needed to perform tasks without technical support — and may not even be able to assess the quality of AI performance itself.

Why team building is part of the solution and how it integrates with artificial intelligence

And this is precisely where our solution comes in: corporate team-building activities, when designed around a cognitive challenge, enable us to rediscover good old human problem-solving skills, without resorting to artificial intelligence. Escape rooms, role-playing games based on complex scenarios such as our murder mystery dinners, and lateral thinking exercises serve, in neurological terms, to create the kind of active engagement that stimulates synaptic strengthening.

Activities geared towards critical thinking are, in fact, specifically designed to improve logical reasoning, decision-making under pressure and a collaborative approach to problems, in short, a set of essential skills that translate directly into the daily challenges of the workplace.

Brain-teasing activities, brainstorming exercises for teams, “What Would You Do?” role-playing scenarios, and structured workshops give the brain a genuine workout, building analytical and reasoning capabilities in ways that passive AI use cannot. The group dynamic matters too: when colleagues must defend positions, challenge assumptions, and navigate ambiguity together — without a chatbot to shortcut the discomfort, the brain is doing precisely what neuroplasticity requires.

Rossi and colleagues propose what they call the “3R Principle” — Results, Responses, Responsibility — as a framework for cognitive hygiene. Its core insight: AI produces results, but only human critical evaluation turns those results into genuine, meaningful responses. Team activities create the conditions for exactly this kind of evaluative, responsible thinking to be practised and reinforced.

Building the cognitively resilient team

The organisations best positioned for the next decade will not be those that use AI most — they will be those that use AI wisely, whilst actively preserving the cognitive capabilities that make human judgement irreplaceable.

That means scheduling regular activities that require unassisted analysis: structured problem-solving sessions with no AI in the room, cross-functional debates on strategic challenges, design-thinking workshops that demand original ideation. It means treating cognitive fitness in the workplace as a workforce metric: our brain, after all, responds to effective training as well as our body.

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Workers with well-developed problem-solving skills can adapt to any situation, using creativity to overcome obstacles — advancing professionally whilst improving overall productivity. The brain, much like the body, responds to consistent training. Give it the right challenges, in the right social conditions, and it will grow into them.

The AI tools are not going anywhere. Neither is the human brain’s need to be challenged. The question for every team leader is simply this: which one are you investing in?