Artificial intelligence shortens the path to information, but not the path to a good decision. Miłosz Omastka, entrepreneur, President of the Silesian Business Club and MBA Ambassador at Humanitas University discusses why access to knowledge cannot replace experience, judgment, and learning alongside other leaders

WBJ: Today we have access to increasingly advanced AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, which can process vast amounts of data in seconds. Why is access to information alone still not enough to make good business decisions?

Miłosz Omastka: Access to information and the ability to make a good decision based on it are two different competencies. An algorithm can compile and analyze data, but it does not know the context of a company or understand how a decision will affect a particular organization and the people who work there.

A leader’s value today does not lie in access to data, because almost everyone has that. It lies in evaluating that data and taking responsibility for the choice made. It is judgment, not the volume of data, that determines the quality of a decision.

We should treat AI as a tool that supports analysis, not as a substitute for thinking. The decision ultimately remains ours, on the human side.

Is experience always an advantage, or can it sometimes become a trap, particularly when business realities, technologies, and operating models are changing so quickly?

Experience is an advantage as long as we remain willing to question it. The problem begins when it becomes a ready-made formula that we apply regardless of the situation.

What worked several years ago in one market may lead us astray in another, or simply no longer work today. Experienced managers can actually be particularly vulnerable to this trap because they may trust their intuition more than the signals that things are changing.

Experience is valuable when it is constantly tested against new data and other people’s perspectives.

If data can now be acquired almost instantly, what should leaders actually be learning? How can they develop judgment, business intuition, and the ability to make decisions under uncertainty?

Facts are indeed at our fingertips today, which means that modern leaders need to learn how to weigh them. They need to distinguish between information that represents a genuine signal and information that is a false alarm, distracting attention from the real threat.

Judgment and business intuition do not come from reading alone. They develop through repeatedly making decisions under uncertainty and confronting our own conclusions with the assessments of other leaders.

It’s a good idea not only to make decisions when uncertainty arises, but also to consciously seek out situations involving uncertainty rather than waiting for experience to come to us. That is the fastest way to sharpen judgment.

What is the best way to learn how to manage a company: through your own mistakes, through formal education, or primarily from other leaders and their experiences?

I would not see those three paths as competing with one another. In practice, they complement each other. We learn most powerfully from our own mistakes, but they are also the most expensive lessons.

Formal education organizes knowledge and gives us a language for analysis. Conversations with others allow us to test our conclusions against someone else’s experience before making the same mistake ourselves.

In short, management skills develop fastest when practice, education, and the exchange of ideas with other leaders all work together.

What does the transfer of experience between senior and younger managers look like today? Does mentoring still play an important role, or is it being replaced by other forms of knowledge and experience sharing?

Mentoring has not disappeared, but the direction in which knowledge flows has changed. Today, it moves both ways. Senior managers share their decision-making experience, while younger people bring technological knowledge.

I often see this in companies, where technological expertise is introduced by successors or younger employees who have earned the trust of senior leaders. It can also accelerate their own professional development. I readily admit that I often benefit from similar support from my daughter.

This two-way exchange means that mentoring becomes less about lecturing someone and more about partnership, with both sides gaining something tangible from the relationship.

At senior levels, people often talk about the “loneliness of leadership.” The greater the responsibility, the fewer people there are with whom you can openly discuss your doubts. How important is it for leaders to be able to test their decisions and thinking against other managers?

Leadership loneliness is a real problem, not just a catchy phrase. The higher you move within an organization, the harder it becomes to find someone to talk to who is not also your subordinate, your client, or someone directly affected by your decision.

Without a trusted circle of peers, leaders are left alone with their doubts. That can lead either to excessive caution or to decisions being made without any external challenge.

As President of the Silesian Business Club, I have seen how much managers need a place where they can simply say: “I’m not sure I understand this correctly.” This often happens in smaller, more informal settings or during networking events, when concerns about losing authority no longer inhibit their natural reactions. They are then able to admit that there are things they do not understand, or that the pace of technological, legal, and organizational change is simply too fast for them. Informal support groups often emerge in such circumstances, with members helping one another solve problems.

That is why I value any environment, whether a business club, a mentoring group, or an MBA alumni network, where leaders can openly challenge their decisions without fear of judgment. This is not an optional addition to leadership. It is one of its prerequisites.

What is the value of an MBA today, when some specialist and management competencies are being taken over by automation and the ability to use AI is becoming increasingly valued in the labor market? 

The value of an MBA is shifting away from knowledge itself and toward ways of thinking and the quality of the relationships in which that thinking develops. Automation and AI can take over analytical tasks, but they cannot take responsibility for a decision or explain and defend that decision to a team.

A strong MBA program offers something that neither a course nor an AI tool can provide: the opportunity to work on real problems, receive feedback, and interact consistently with leaders from different industries and markets who approach the same challenges from different perspectives. It is this exchange that creates a genuine managerial advantage.

As an MBA Ambassador at Humanitas University, I see the program as a space in which intuition and experience acquire names and structure, making them easier to understand and pass on to others. When information can be obtained in seconds, that ability becomes one of the most valuable elements of management education.