A September 2026 WSJ Intelligence survey reveals that executives are prioritizing human judgment, ethics and critical thinking in an automated workplace.
On September 10, 2026, Philip Morris International and WSJ Intelligence released The Cognition Index Research Report. The study examines how human cognition is changing as artificial intelligence becomes embedded in workplace workflows. The survey covered more than 2,500 business professionals. These respondents were located in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, South Africa and Brazil. The respondent pool spanned organizational levels from entry-level associates to the C-suite.
Rather than rejecting new technology entirely, these professionals want human capabilities to remain active in high-consequence and ambiguous decisions. The findings show that optimism about automated decision-making exists alongside a clear demand for human oversight. Respondents identified human judgment, ethics, critical thinking and empathy as capabilities that companies should deliberately protect. This survey provides a baseline for understanding how operators view their cognitive roles today.
The study was conducted by WSJ Intelligence with sponsorship from Philip Morris International. The central focus rests on identifying which cognitive skills are vulnerable to atrophy when technology handles daily operations. Carolyn Romano, Director of Research at WSJ Intelligence, said professionals are leaning more heavily into creative judgment and critical thinking. She described automated systems as an exceptional assistant while emphasizing that leaders must nurture human insight. Long-term performance now depends on leaders who balance automated outputs with human expertise.
Moira Gilchrist, PMI’s Chief Global Communications Officer, compared human cognition with a muscle. She noted that cognitive capacity is effectively a function of use and warned against outsourcing thinking to technology. Her recommended principle is to use these tools to think better rather than to think less. For executives, this implies preserving active engagement and curiosity even when software can produce rapid summaries.
A significant concern raised in the report is a growing governance gap. The survey suggests that enthusiasm for adoption is running ahead of formal verification systems. Leaders are increasingly accepting model outputs too readily, which poses risks to original strategic thought. Recent executive commentary notes that executives risk losing the judgment that creates competitive advantage when they over-rely on automated recommendations.
Executives operate in demanding environments where the temptation to outsource complex reasoning is high. ExecuFuel focuses heavily on the realities of executive performance, and cognitive preservation is central to our guidance. We promise clear, research-led guidance that helps you support sustained performance over the long term. The report frames cognitive strength as something that can weaken when people routinely delegate interpretation. Leaders must actively practice their analytical skills to prevent an over-reliance on automated summaries.
Maintaining high-quality judgment requires deliberate energy management and emotional regulation. High-level decision making depends heavily on sustained attention. Leaders should avoid designing workflows that maximize constant automated task switching. Such environments often come at the expense of uninterrupted thinking and recovery.
Founders and operators in lean organizations face unique pressures when managing sustained stress. A single executive may approve strategy, interpret customer data, assess risk and communicate decisions. The survey indicates that efficiency tools should be paired with explicit mechanisms that keep human interpretation in the loop. Protecting cognitive performance and mental clarity requires setting firm boundaries around how automated tools are used.
Professionals must clearly define which decisions require absolute human ownership. Leaders should reserve final authority for choices involving ethics, reputation, relationships and long-term strategic direction. They can then use automated tools for initial data analysis and scenario generation. Requiring decision-makers to state their preliminary judgment before reviewing an automated recommendation helps protect original thought.
The survey provides precise metrics regarding where human intuition remains dominant. In the study, 42% of respondents selected moral judgment and ethics as the human attributes least likely to be replicated. Empathy and trust-building followed closely at 40%. These results position ethical reasoning and relationship management as essential executive capabilities rather than optional soft skills.
When assessing creative work, 62% of respondents preferred human intuition over automated tools. This preference applied to areas such as branding, campaign concepts and product design. Even in data-informed work such as market analysis, 50% of respondents said human judgment should remain the deciding factor.
The data clearly signals that human context remains vital for interpreting complex market signals. Respondents emphasized that intuition should outweigh automated recommendations in many data-informed decisions. This underscores the need for executives who can bridge the gap between algorithmic outputs and real-world business realities. It is a clear mandate for preserving high-level analytical capabilities.
Looking three years ahead, the report makes specific projections about future corporate value. The survey projects that creative empathy will rise by 13 percentage points in corporate value. Adaptability is also projected to increase by 9 percentage points. Organizations are beginning to attach significant financial weight to these human traits.
Recent industry reports highlighted an Ernst & Young initiative where the firm committed $100 million to reward United States employees for future-focused human skills. These rewarded skills included business acumen, judgment, adaptability and technology-enabled innovation. This substantial investment mirrors the priorities identified in the WSJ Intelligence survey.
The broader skills respondents wanted to enhance show a clear focus on leadership. Strategic thinking was identified by 48% of respondents as a priority for enhancement. Leadership followed closely at 42%. Complex problem-solving at 42%, collaboration at 40% and data discernment at 40% were also identified as enhancement priorities. These percentages illustrate a professional workforce focused on strengthening high-level reasoning.
Conversely, the report quantified the attributes that professionals consider to be at risk. The report lists critical thinking at 46% and creative empathy at 44% as vulnerable traits. Creativity at 43%, emotional relationship intelligence at 40% and personal accountability at 37% were also considered at risk. Furthermore, 46% of respondents recognized critical thinking as a capability that must be actively practiced and protected.
A critical operational metric emerged around organizational governance and fact-checking. Only 25% of respondents strongly agreed that their organizations had a clear and effective process for verifying automated outputs. If only one quarter of respondents report strong verification processes, leaders have a measurable reason to examine their own approval rules.
ExecuFuel values intellectual honesty and clearly stating what the evidence does not support. The Cognition Index demonstrates professional perceptions and stated priorities, but it does not prove that human intuition consistently outperforms automated software. The 62% and 50% figures must be understood as statements about respondent preference. They are not empirical performance comparisons between people and software systems.
ExecuFuel maintains that interpreting survey data requires clear visibility into the boundaries of the research. The study is sponsored by PMI and was publicly distributed through a joint release. The public release does not provide detailed sampling methodologies or response rates. It also lacks specific industry breakdowns and country-by-country sample sizes. Relying on this data requires acknowledging these methodological blind spots when forming operational strategies.
The term cognitive atrophy serves as a warning about over-delegating thought, not a clinical diagnosis established by this survey. The report does not establish that technology use has already caused measurable cognitive decline among the respondents. Recent academic research reported that overreliance on generative tools may weaken managers’ moral insight and contextual understanding. While this provides adjacent context, it does not serve as independent confirmation of the WSJ Intelligence percentages.
The projected increases in corporate value for creative empathy and adaptability are forward-looking expectations. They are not observed changes in compensation, productivity or career outcomes. Additionally, the 25% verification figure does not mean that three quarters of organizations never fact-check outputs. It simply means that only 25% strongly agreed they had an effective process in place.
Finally, human judgment is not automatically unbiased, accurate or infallible. A defensible operating model should combine human accountability with evidence, dissent and appropriate technical checks. Romanticizing human intuition without requiring documentation and logical defense introduces its own set of risks.
The discourse around workplace automation is actively shifting toward the preservation of human insight. The World Economic Forum has identified judgment, critical thinking, creativity and curiosity as important skills for the future. Its corporate governance commentary recommends keeping ethical reasoning central to board skills matrices and succession planning. The central question is moving from how quickly tasks can be automated to which decisions must remain human.
Future organizational strategies will likely mandate explicit verification processes to manage this transition. This includes assigning clear responsibility for checking sources, calculations and assumptions before automated work is finalized. Companies will need to ensure these checks happen before information reaches customers, employees, investors or regulators. Relying solely on automated summaries without examining primary evidence will become a recognized operational risk.
Founders will need to require pre-computation reasoning on major strategic decisions. Asking decision-makers to state the problem, assumptions and risks before reviewing an automated recommendation protects original thought. This practice helps prevent a software model’s framing from becoming the team’s default interpretation. It ensures that human context drives the strategic direction rather than mere algorithmic efficiency.
Training empathy as an operating capability will become essential for effective execution and talent retention. Trust-building, active listening and conflict navigation will increasingly affect complex negotiations and leadership outcomes. Leaders must begin measuring judgment quality alongside raw output volume and operational speed. Evaluating whether teams actively identify risks and challenge assumptions will be critical for long-term organizational health.
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