In March, our CEO, Joshua Herring, was invited to participate in a panel titled “Your Brain on AI: What Changes and What Still Matters” at the Future Proof Citywide conference. Joshua shared the stage together with Matt Halloran (Zocks) and Nyle Bayer (Future Proof). The discussion explored how AI is changing our capacity to remember, focus, and process information, examining what happens when we offload tasks to AI and how these tools can be used to strengthen, rather than weaken, our judgment. Watch the panel discussion below and scroll down for a textual recap.
Healthcare research takes decades and requires significant investment. In the context of healthy longevity, AI plays a crucial role in identifying promising drug targets and advancing them toward FDA approval. It reduces both the time and capital needed to select and advance a drug candidate through the clinical pipeline. Because aging is not classified as a disease by regulators, companies typically select a specific disease focus for each candidate, with the potential to expand into broader longevity applications and repurposing after approval. This approach is exemplified by Insilico Medicine, a company founded and led by our Scientific Advisory Board member, Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov. Beyond this, AI is also shaping clinical practice by helping healthcare professionals synthesize large volumes of data, enabling a greater degree of personalization in medical care.
While the benefits of AI across healthcare and other fields are clear, there are important concerns around how it is changing cognition in our daily lives. There is a fine line between optimizing work and outsourcing our critical thinking, which may be detrimental over time. As more cognitive tasks are outsourced to AI, information retention declines, and emerging data already backs this up. In this respect, the question each of us needs to ask when using AI is whether the goal is to truly learn and absorb knowledge or simply extract an answer. Yet, even when we are only seeking quick answers, a caveat remains: AI’s tendency toward positive reinforcement, low-quality prompts (“garbage in, garbage out”), and the lack of stress-testing AI’s outputs can lead to distorted information.
The fundamental question becomes “what are you retaining and what are you leaving out?” If you need to offload quick tasks and delegate minutiae, AI is tremendously useful. But ideation, information synthesis, and decision-making remain critical to preserve. Rather than relying on AI for answers, it may be more effective to use it to challenge assumptions, provide alternative perspectives, and cite sources. The goal should be to strengthen our judgment, not replace it.
The interaction between AI and social media dynamics raises additional concerns. As Joshua noted during the panel, “your AI is training you.” When information consumption shifts toward summaries, quick answers, and reinforcement of existing views, it can shape behavior over time. There is growing evidence that attention spans and the ability to engage with primary sources are declining, as users increasingly rely on condensed formats.
Leaders in the workplace need to be particularly diligent in how they incorporate AI into their organizations’ workflows. From a longevity perspective, cognitive resilience is closely tied to active engagement and critical thinking. As organizations integrate AI into workflows, it is important to consider its long-term effects. As mentioned before, when used appropriately, AI can reduce cognitive load by handling routine tasks. And if used improperly, it may erode the very capabilities that support the long-term brain health of our colleagues.