📌 Discussion: Many people still see using AI as cheating. What are your thoughts?

​@Ndacorsi0218 ​@stan ​@Maurício Souzá ​@christopher-cozzolino ​@Liam Darmody ​@th11 ​@Abuzar ​@dhdeans ​@fernanda.nascimento ​@tamika.brunetti very curious to hear what you think!

Oh this is a great question. I feel like I wrestle with this internally quite a bit. When genAI first start getting more “mainstream”, I definitely felt this way: using AI was a shortcut and doing the work was more respected.

Reflecting on that perspective now, I don’t fully agree, but it definitely still lingers. Through my own use (however hesitant over the years), I see more how AI can make us more efficient and enable us to do more, deeper, and more stimulating work, leaving it to do the mundane, monotonous, or remedial. In that way, I don’t see it as cheating, I see it as a productivity tool (that could maybe even help with burnout rates and employee satisfaction). 

On the other hand, that perception of “cheating” does come back every once in a while when I come across someone who had broad success with work that was created using AI (especially when the consumers/those affected didn’t know about it). As in, when you could have done the work, but didn’t want to. I know that’s a little at odds with the first point about efficiency, which is why I think this is an interesting topic of discussion around perception, and I’m curious how others are thinking/have thought about how they perceive AI usage overall.

​@Francesca_Community Manager 
I don't see AI as cheating.
I see it as a tool. I use AI every day to help me scale what I do, but it doesn't replace my knowledge, experience, or judgement.

The way I look at it, if you've invested time teaching an AI who you are, what you do, how you help people, your tone of voice, your expertise, and your views, you're effectively creating a digital twin that can support your work.

The real value doesn't come from say AI generating content.
It comes from the human behind it providing the direction, context, expertise, and personality.Anyone can generate words. The difference is whether those words reflect genuine experience and insight.For me, AI isn't cheating.

It's no different to using a calculator, CRM, or spreadsheet. It's a productivity tool that helps me spend more time adding value and less time doing repetitive tasks.

The key isn't whether AI was used. The key is whether the output is useful, authentic, and genuinely helps people.

Very difficult to keep this comment short. To borrow an AI phrase, it’s about how we use AI. Taking advantage of AI’s capabilities to challenge your own thinking, do repetitive, data driven tasks, and find ways to do what you could not do before is not cheating. Having AI do your thinking for you and not checking the results provided by AI are examples of what not to do with these tools.

The real issues are context, transparency, and judgment. We need to decide where AI should work independently, where it should support human thinking, and where human effort matters most. Organizations also need to train people to use AI responsibly, not simply give them tools and hope for the best.

 Thanks for starting this discussion ​@Francesca_Community Manager!

The calculator did not make accountants cheaters. Spellcheck did not make writers frauds. AI is no different.

Here is the reframe I shared on the Live today: using AI is not cheating. Refusing to develop the judgment to use it well is the real risk.

The fear usually shows up loudest in the people who already hold the scarcest skill, judgment. They worry the tool replaces them. It does not. It amplifies them. AI can draft the email, surface the signal, summarize the account. It cannot read the room, build the trust, or decide what actually matters to a buyer. That is still you.

So the question is not “is this cheating?” The question is “am I using this to do lower-quality work faster, or higher-quality work that frees me to be more human?”
Cheating is hiding the tool. Leadership is mastering it in the open

I really love your point about the calculator, ​@Cherilynn Castleman; I may have written that one down ;) I think it puts this conversation in great perspective to think about the evolving landscape of technology and how this happens with almost every new iteration (hesitancy before acceptance and large-scale usage).

I also love your last line about hiding vs. mastering in the open. As AI continues to proliferate throughout our lives (personal and professional), I know at least I reach more and more for the human, so any way we can increase our capacity to provide that I think can be a good thing, if used properly and ethically.

Also, thank you for some great food for thought today. I really enjoyed it!

I don’t see AI as cheating.
I see uncritical dependency on AI as the real risk.

What I’ve noticed in B2B sales is that AI amplifies whatever already exists.
Strong professionals become faster, more strategic, and more informed. Weak processes simply become automated faster.

Tools can summarize accounts, identify signals, suggest messaging, and save hours of operational work. But they still cannot replace commercial judgment, timing, trust-building, or the ability to read the political dynamics inside an account.

That’s why I believe the conversation is shifting.
The competitive advantage is no longer “using AI.” Soon everyone will.

The real differentiator will be who knows how to combine AI efficiency with human context, critical thinking, and relationship intelligence.

In the end, buyers rarely remember the automation.
They remember who truly understood their business.

This made my day. Write it down, steal it, build on it — that is exactly what it is for. ;)

You named the thing I care about most: the more AI proliferates, the more we reach for the human. The tool should buy us back the time to be more human, not less.

Thank you for being in the room today. I hope you walked away with one (or two) tangible takeaways you can use this week.

I’m loving this thread! Huge thanks ​@Kelly_Program Manager, ​@stan, ​@th11, ​@Maurício Souzá, and especially ​@Cherilynn Castleman for bringing up such a relevant topic!

This is what seems to emerge from the conversation:

• The human element will always be the differentiator - whether it's investing time in creating Terry’s digital twin, or Mauricio’s emphasis on judgment and relationship intelligence, or Cherilynn’s point about reading the room: AI can't replace any of those.
   
• Transparency and leadership matter; both Stan and Cherilynn pointed out it’s not about whether we use or not use AI, but how we use it, and whether we own it. 
   
• Lastly, Cherilynn’s analogy to the calculator and spellcheck really drives the point home! As Kelly points out, every new technology brings with it the same doubts. 

However, there’s still something I’m curious about. ​@Kelly_Program Manager, your honesty about that internal conflict is important, and I feel that.

💡 This what I keep wondering: even when someone discloses their AI use, does that actually resolve the tension? We could still ask ourselves: how much did they use it? Did they use it to draft and completely rework, or maybe even just copy-pasted a prompt? The tool is the same, but the intellectual work is totally different.

Maybe the real issue isn't disclosure, but the fact we can't always tell from the outside where the human contribution was - and I'm not sure if that matters, or if it matters a lot.

What do others think? Does knowing someone used AI change how you evaluate their work?

The answer is…..the people understand what is happening and they are able to use it?…..no, they don’t