Corporate Management

How generative artificial intelligence redefines corporate decision-making processes

Generative artificial intelligence revolutionises decision making, requiring a balance between automation and human responsibility to maximise creativity and performance

by Luca Brambilla* and Alberto Ferraris**

13 November 2025

AI al lavoro: alleata sì, capo no

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), which represents a radical transformation with a strong impact on decision-making processes and business performance, is undoubtedly at the heart of recent technological evolution in various sectors. Unlike traditional artificial intelligence (AI) systems, GenAI offers flexible capabilities that can be easily customised according to the needs of different organisational contexts.

According to recent studies published in Harvard Business Review (Farri & Rosani 2025; Moreno 2025), such technologies enable users to gain operational effectiveness benefits especially in activities such as idea generation, textual content production, evaluation of trade-offs and improvement of strategic thinking.

The marriage of man and machine

The development of GenAI has thus paved the way for the creation of new forms of decision-making processes, including augmented decision-making (in which AI enhances human judgement), hybrid decision-making (in which humans and AI collaborate dynamically) and autonomous decision-making (in which AI systems operate independently).

However, the mere possession (and use) of GenAI technologies does not provide organisations with a strategic advantage. Indeed, as a study carried out in 2025 by Kosmyna and colleagues shows, the cognitive implications of using GenAI are not trivial. Their neurocognitive study found that passive reliance on ChatGPT significantly reduces, by up to 47%, neural connectivity related to memory and creativity, raising concerns about the erosion of deep processing and reflective thinking in managerial contexts. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that brain activity increases when the introduction of ChatGPT occurs later, i.e. after a person's autonomous search effort. This highlights how competitive differentiation - in the use of such technology - increasingly depends on how GenAI is strategically integrated in harmony with human work.

The leader of the future

GenAI, therefore, once again invites us to rethink the role of the leader in the company, transforming him or her from an undisputed decision-maker to a mediator capable of interpreting and enhancing the insights generated in a continuous and dynamic manner by the interactions between employees and technology. In this way, decision-making boundaries are redefined, reducing the gap between top and middle managers and questioning leadership assumptions hitherto considered untouchable.

According to the Upper Echelons Theory, corporate results and performance reflect the characteristics, experiences and values of their top managers. This perspective is amplified by the strategic leadership literature, which emphasises the cognitive and behavioural role of top managers in shaping the direction of the company. However, in contexts where decisions no longer derive exclusively from human intelligence, even these solid foundations risk crumbling.

Cresce spesa delle imprese italiane in AI ma resta il divario digitale

The four management areas influenced by GenAI

Attempting to summarise, we can state how GenAI is transforming the structure of decision-making processes along four key dimensions: strategic, procedural, interactional and ethical.

In the strategic field, leaders use GenAI to simulate future scenarios, explore innovative business models, perform market (and industry) analysis and evaluate high-risk alternatives quickly. In fact, let us recall how one of the main advantages of this technology is the speed of processing large amounts of data that would otherwise be inaccessible due to lack of time and resources.

The procedural aspect, on the other hand, concerns the translation of strategic visions into concrete actions. It is at this stage that middle managers can extend their influence, not just by carrying out the directives of top executives but by acting as true architects of business processes. Human-machine collaboration thus allows new workflows to be configured by moving from a reactive to a proactive approach.

At an organisational level, GenAI fosters greater interdependence between top and middle managers, reducing asymmetries and hierarchical gaps. Indeed, the company's strategic decisions no longer follow an exclusively top-down approach, being co-designed through comparisons supported by AI-generated outputs. During meetings, for instance, AI can act as a facilitator by aggregating ideas, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and offering an additional point of view to group discussion (too often influenced by information asymmetry and influential managers). In this scenario, the progressive automation of certain technical skills by AI makes the role of relational skills, indispensable to support this new form of collaboration enabled by technology itself, even more central. To name a few, conflict management, negotiation and empathy will be increasingly relevant.

Finally, it is crucial for the leader to define guiding principles for the ethical and responsible development and use of AI. Since generative models are still susceptible to biases and prejudices, maintaining human oversight is imperative to ensure ethical choices, since only human intelligence is currently capable of analysing morally complex scenarios. In this sense, middle managers could act as interpretive agents, bridging the gap between AI output and corporate values.

In conclusion, the pivotal principle for integrating GenAI into decision-making processes is clear: technology must expand the cognitive capacities of human beings without depriving them of responsibility. It can therefore be considered in the same way as a compass in the hands of an explorer who must necessarily be able to master the instrument: it is therefore an aid to orientation, not a tool to which one delegates the choice of route.

*Director Strategic Communication Academy

**Lecturer in Economics and Business Management, University of Turin