Learning to Collaborate with AI Is the Real Skill Now

The biggest shift needed in the AI era isn’t learning to use the technology. It’s learning to change how we think.

That skill will determine who thrives as AI becomes embedded in everything we do. haveLAB’s  Second Brain collaboration approach exists to teach exactly that: how to collaborate with AI to transform your thinking, not just your workflow.

When you use AI as a collaborator on a regular basis, your brain rewires and expands. You see patterns you couldn’t see before. You make better decisions because reflection, synthesis, and execution are co-processed through one continuous loop of thought between you and your AI.

That’s when generative AI becomes Cognitive AI.

It’s not outsourcing. It’s human intelligence extended.

Why Collaboration Matters Now

A recent study from Graphite analyzed 65,000 web articles and found that by November 2024, AI-generated content had surpassed human-written content for the first time. But then, something unexpected happened. The surge stopped. The proportion of AI-written articles leveled off, showing no further growth through May 2025 (the end of the study).

In my experience, the reason the amount of AI-written articles has dropped is that most AI-generated content reads flat. It lacks the curiosity, emotion, and creative tension that draw real human attention – the flair that only humans can provide. Readers tune out what doesn’t feel alive. We see it everywhere. Marketing teams flood channels with AI-generated posts, only to watch engagement collapse. Corporations churn out automated newsletters that no one opens. Even individuals who once felt empowered by generative tools are now describing fatigue with too much output, not enough insight.

That’s what makes collaboration so essential. When humans and AI create together, we can keep the spark of interest and imagination that purely machine-written work can’t replicate, but extend what humans can imagine. Human creativity, amplified by AI, has the power to excite, connect, and move people. That’s the difference between AI in isolation and AI in collaboration.

The Graphite data quantifies what we’ve all begun to sense: style without substance has reached its limit, or as they say in the Great British Baking Show, it looks great, but it still has to taste good! 

The Secret: Generative vs. Cognitive AI

To understand why this matters, it helps to understand that there are different “kinds” of AI.

In my Second Brain programs, I describe four major categories:

1. Physical (Narrow) AI – Machines that act in the real world to do specific tasks (robots, self-driving cars).

2. Productivity AI – Tools that optimize routine work.

3. Generative AI – Systems that can create autonomously without meaningful human involvement.

4. Cognitive AI – AI used in collaboration with human thought to extend our thinking.

The Graphite study is about Generative AI: creation without collaboration. It proves that pure generation, detached from human meaning-making, produces noise, not value. Cognitive AI, by contrast, begins where Generative AI ends.

It’s the evolution from using AI to thinking with it.

The Cognitive AI Shift

Cognitive AI is what happens when you engage AI as part of your thinking process. Instead of asking it to write for you, you ask it to help you think more clearly. Instead of producing content, you co-develop ideas. Instead of consuming information, you build understanding. 

Imagine a leader preparing for a high-stakes strategy meeting. They don’t tell AI, “Write my presentation.” They start with a reflection: “Here’s what I believe our real challenge is, help me test that assumption.” AI surfaces counter-patterns, prompts new angles, even helps visualize alternative futures. The leader leaves the session not with more slides, but with deeper clarity.

That’s Cognitive AI in practice, using technology as a catalyst for metacognition. It mirrors the very processes the human brain relies on for insight. When AI becomes part of your thinking pattern, as a Second Brain, you notice bias in your thinking, challenge logic, and articulate complexity. You begin to experience an expansion of mind.

It’s a tangible feeling where thought feels lighter, vision sharper, and ideas more connected. That’s the foundation of the Second Brain, a system that connects your biological and digital cognition into one adaptive architecture for learning and creation. This is the collaboration the future demands. The Graphite data simply suggests that without it, AI flattens into output without understanding.

Beyond Generation: Toward Co-Creation

If Generative AI was the first act of this story, Cognitive AI is the second. We’re participating (or not!) in the emergence of a new literacy, learning to think with machines. The skill is not technical but relational: how to hold a productive conversation with intelligence that reflects your mind back to you.

The people that understand this difference will lead the next phase of innovation. Not because they produce more, but because they think better. They’ll build cultures where AI isn’t a shortcut but a thinking partner, helping teams question assumptions, generate insight, and model complex systems. The future belongs to Cognitive AI, and to the humans who know how to work with it.

Why the Second Brain Framework Exists

The Second Brain framework isn’t about tools or technology. It’s about building the mental and structural habits that let you think collaboratively with AI as part of your extended cognition. 

If you’re ready to experience that shift, watch the replay of my recent free webinar here.