"Borrowed IQ": Why Every Leader Needs a Personal AI Council
Real “AI Fluency” starts when a senior leader learns to amplify their intelligence by “borrowing” additional IQ points from frontier models safely, directly, and personally.
What’s it worth for you to be able to add 20 or 30 extra IQ points to your natural intelligence, as you need it? What difference would it make if you were 200% more creative, and 300% more productive?
That is the real promise of personal AI Council for leaders.
The first serious opportunity in artificial intelligence is not an enterprise chatbot, a use case portfolio, or a vendor roadmap. It is the chance for a senior leader to learn how to “borrow” intelligence from frontier models and apply it to real work, safely and productively.
I call this “Amplified IQ”.
When a leader uses a frontier model properly, safely, and repeatedly, the effect can feel like adding meaningful intelligence capacity to the day. More angles. More speed. More creative range. More disciplined thinking. More ability to pressure-test ideas before they reach a meeting, a client, a board, or a team.
“Amplified IQ” changes the leader first
Most senior leaders are already stretched. They carry too many decisions, too many documents, too many meetings, too many half-formed ideas, and too many open loops.
A properly configured AI Council can change that experience.
It can help a leader prepare for a hard conversation. It can draft the first version of a message. It can explain an unfamiliar topic. It can compare options. It can challenge weak logic. It can turn scattered notes into a clear point of view. It can help the leader see possibilities that were previously invisible.
This is where the 20 to 30 IQ point idea matters. I am not claiming a measured change in human IQ. I am describing a practical leadership effect: extra thinking power on demand.
Used well, frontier AI can make a leader more creative, more productive, more prepared, and more aware of risk. It can also reveal the limits of current systems: hallucinations, shallow answers, misplaced confidence, privacy concerns, and the need for human verification.
That direct exposure is how real AI Fluency begins.
Why leaders need direct experience
A briefing about AI is useful. A demo is useful. A conference keynote can be useful. But, none of them replace personal use, and moments of AWE and WONDER as you uncover how smart and powerful these models are, and the sense of FRUSTRATION as you learn how dumb and confidently wrong they can be.
You only understand the power of these models when you use them on your own work. You feel the speed. You see the quality jump. You notice when the answer is brilliant. You also notice when it sounds confident – you learn the limits and set clear expectation.
That lived experience changes how a leader thinks about organizational AI.
It becomes easier to separate hype from real value. It becomes easier to ask better questions about data, risk, governance, quality, and accountability. It becomes easier to judge whether an Intelligent Automation idea is ready, risky, premature, or worth scaling.
A leader who has never borrowed intelligence from a frontier model is trying to govern a medium they have not personally experienced.
The Personal AI Council
The safest and most useful starting point is a Personal AI Council.
A strong leader rarely relies on one advisor. The same logic applies to AI. One frontier model may be better at reasoning. Another may be stronger at writing. Another may be useful for current research. Another may work best inside a productivity suite.
The Council gives a leader a small group of AI advisors, each used for the right kind of thinking. One model may act as a Personal Chief of Staff. Another may serve as a Business Advisor. Another may help with research. Another may pressure-test ideas. The leader stays in command.
The configuration matters. The prompts matter. The privacy rules matter. The information boundaries matter. The habit matters.
This is where many leaders get stuck. They know AI matters, but they do not know where to start. They are unsure which tools to use, what information is safe, how to structure the conversation, or how to turn AI from a novelty into a daily leadership practice.
That hesitation is understandable. It is also expensive.
The gateway into AI Fluency
Borrowed IQ is the gateway into AI Fluency for business owners and senior executives.
Once a leader experiences the intelligence boost personally, the organizational conversation changes. Intelligent Automation becomes easier to understand. AI Value Initiatives (actual deployment projects in your organization) become easier to sponsor. The difference between optimization and growth becomes clearer.
Optimization-focused automation removes friction, saves time, reduces errors, and improves service. Growth-focused automation uses intelligence to create new offerings, reach new customers, improve sales, and unlock new value.
Both matter. Both require leadership judgment. That judgment improves when the leader has direct experience with frontier AI.
Where can I help you?
My professional mission is to help business owners and senior leader cross this chasm, and successfully navigate themselves and their organizations through the Age of AI & Intelligent Automation.
This is peer-level, executive Thought-Partnership, not training, coaching, of courseware. This is personal, deep and insightful, focused on you, your ambitions, hopes, beliefs, values and circumstance.
The future will not wait for leaders to feel ready. The better move is to start borrowing intelligence now, safely, seriously, and with the right Ally beside you.
Contact me if you want to explore this further: dalibor@TheSummitLA.com