Hachette CEO Says AI Shortcuts Could Weaken Executive Judgment

David Shelley, CEO of Hachette Book Group and Hachette UK, says leaders who outsource writing and information processing to artificial intelligence risk weakening the judgment and empathy needed to lead.

Shelley, who leads about 3,500 employees across the two publishing businesses, said he writes his own emails because polished communications can create a gap between a leader’s written persona and behavior in person.

“I predict a growing dissonance between how someone appears in their written statements and how they are in real life,” Shelley said.

He said AI tools that summarize documents or draft messages can encourage executives to seek shortcuts instead of processing complex information and forming independent views.

“I think we’re all being trained to just want shortcuts,” Shelley said. “Being able to write a good email yourself as a CEO is incredibly important.”

Shelley also pointed to intellectual curiosity and empathy as core leadership qualities. “One of the key attributes of great leaders is intellectual curiosity and empathy,” he said.

The comments were published Oct. 13, 2026, at 11:45 a.m. ET (3:45 p.m. UTC).

Separate leadership survey data found that 73% of respondents said CEOs have an obligation to build trust and bridge divides, while 44% said CEOs are doing that well.

A study of ChatGPT-assisted essay writing found lower cognitive engagement among participants who used the tool. Those participants were also less able to quote from essays they had written shortly before.

The study was limited to essay-writing tasks and did not establish that the findings apply to other large language models or executive work.