Earlier this year I was in Colombia, kind of floating around as a nomad, when I had this conversation that made something click for me. I met with a serial entrepreneur & company owner, extremely sharp guy, who was just starting to really dig into AI with Claude code being his focus. We were going back and forth about how these models keep getting smarter, more capable, more predictive. And he asked me what I've heard before but have not really put too much thought into a TRUE solution.

"I can get all this information," he said, "but it's causing analysis paralysis ya know? How do I actually make decisions I can move on?"

That's the thing, right? AI can surface more data, more options, more angles than any human could gather alone. But more information doesn't automatically mean more progress. It often means the opposite. More choices, more second-guessing, more waiting for the "right" answer to just... appear.

That conversation forced me to think back across every company I've advised, every founder I've worked with, every leader I've studied. And I landed on something I now believe is kind of the defining insight for this next wave:

Data-driven decisions are smart decisions sure, but opinionated decisions drive progression.

The Waiting Trap

There's a pattern I'm seeing everywhere right now. Entrepreneurs hesitating to commit to AI workflows because the technology is moving so fast. Professionals sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the "right moment" when AI is smart enough to make things feel easier, clearer, more obvious.

The logic seems reasonable. Why invest in learning today's tools when tomorrow's will be better? Why form a strategy now when everything keeps shifting?

But this logic is a trap.

According to research from PwC and enterprise analysts, the gap between AI "experimenters" and those who actually operationalize is widening. By 2026, non-adopters face compounding catch-up costs. Building daily AI workflows isn't optional anymore. It's a compounding advantage. Waiting creates a permanent gap.

Stanford faculty have noted that 2026 may mark the shift from "AI evangelism" to "AI evaluation." The moment when we stop asking "what can AI do?" and start asking "what value does it actually create?" Those who've been waiting for clarity will find themselves scrambling to catch up to those who've been building conviction through use.

The irony is sharp. People are waiting for AI to "make sense" before jumping in, when the way it starts making sense is by using it and forming opinions about it.

The Textbook Problem

Here's what I've come to understand about expertise.

Someone who knows a lot can answer questions. They're useful. Appreciated. But knowledge alone doesn't command respect the way that opinions do.

An expert isn't just someone who has data. That's a textbook. An expert is someone who has opinions about how to wield that data. Their opinions lead to actions. Their actions create results that can be studied, challenged, or followed. That movement (whether others push against it or follow in its footsteps) is what creates progress in a field.

Knowledge fills questions. Opinions create movement.

This distinction matters more than ever because AI has effectively commoditized knowledge. Any reasonably capable model can give you the information. What it cannot give you is the interpretation, the judgment call, the "here's what I would do and why."

Research from Harvard Business School confirms this: while AI excels at inference (making predictions based on patterns) it lacks human judgment. And in a world awash with AI-generated insights, human judgment grows not less valuable, but more so.

A recent analysis found that 55% of AI outputs still require human judgment to be actionable. That's not a limitation of AI. It's a signal about where human value concentrates.

The Progression Paradox

This is the counterintuitive truth: the smarter AI gets, the more valuable your opinions become.

AI is allowing us to speed past the tedious parts of projects, software, and work. But that acceleration has exposed a new problem. What's being called "AI slop."

AI slop is content that's generic, surface-level, and interchangeable. It follows predictable patterns. It lacks perspective. It was selected as 2025's Word of the Year by both Merriam-Webster and the American Dialect Society. And according to recent studies, 21% of YouTube recommendations are now fully AI-generated, with YouTube's CEO naming "AI slop" reduction as a top priority for 2026.

The slop happens because people outsource not just the work, but the quality judgment, to the model. They let AI set the standard.

Here's the thing. If you do not set the standard, AI will set it for you. And if you follow that default, you will fall behind.

The way you come out on top is by studying high-quality work, forming frameworks about what "good" looks like for your product and your audience, and encoding those opinions into how you direct AI. Your opinions become the parameters. Your taste becomes the filter. Without that, you just get more options, more data, and no progression.

This is the paradox. AI's increasing capability makes human opinions more scarce, more differentiating, and more valuable. Not less.

The Skill That Matters Now

So what should you actually be doing instead of waiting?

The skill you need in 2026 is learning to translate vision into followable steps.

AI is getting more capable by the month. More hands, more senses, more functionality. But if you can't articulate what you want accomplished and how you want it done, capability means nothing. You need to visualize the steps like you would for an employee. You need to think in SOPs. You need to be specific.

This is, I would say, the only skill you truly gain by working with AI: clarity.

AI helped me improve my speaking to the point where I now speak on stages. Not because AI gave me the words, but because practicing with an extremely literal machine forced me to get clearer about what I actually meant. If you're not precise, it won't go the way you intended. That feedback loop, repeated hundreds of times, compounds into real communication skill.

The World Economic Forum noted that in the age of AI, human skills like judgment, interpretation, and communication are becoming the new competitive advantage. The professionals who remain relevant are those who understand where human judgment still matters and position themselves closer to decision-making and ownership.

How to Start Forming Opinions

I'll be honest. This hasn't been natural for me.

I'm an integrator by instinct. I collect data. I synthesize what I see around me. I don't naturally hold strong opinions, I adapt to context. But from interviewing countless visionaries and founders, I've learned something: the reason they reach the heights they do is because they formed opinions over time. It's not innate. It's practiced.

Two approaches have helped me:

1. Persona-taking. I draw on the frameworks of leaders I've studied. When I face a decision, I can ask myself: "How would [person I respect] think about this?" It's borrowed conviction, but it creates movement. And movement builds your own intuition over time.

2. Practicing "here's what helped me." This phrase is low-stakes. It's not claiming universal truth. It's sharing what worked in your context. But repeated enough, it builds confidence. What helped you becomes what you believe. What you believe becomes your opinion.

Beyond that, it's reps. More opportunities to be asked your opinion. More conversations. More content. More moments where you have to commit to a position and see what happens.

For subjective matters (and most business decisions are subjective) there's no objectively "right" answer waiting to be discovered. If you're sitting around waiting for the data to tell you what to do, you're going to kill your momentum.

Where This Goes

We're in a hyper valuable moment right now. The barriers to building have dropped. AI can handle execution at a speed and scale that was unimaginable five years ago. The billion-dollar solo business isn't a fantasy anymore. It's becoming structurally possible.

But that opportunity doesn't go to the people waiting for AI to get smart enough. It goes to the people forming opinions now. Setting standards now. Building clarity about what they want and how they want it, now.

If you're on the edge, I would say just jump in with both feet. You can always step back if it's not for you. But the compounding advantage of starting today (of building your frameworks, your taste, your opinions) that's not something you can catch up on later.

AI gives you speed. Opinions give you direction.

Without direction, speed just means arriving faster at somewhere you didn't choose.