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How AI Creates a Capability Mirage
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How AI Creates a Capability Mirage

by Melissa Swift, Teryluz Andreu, Dolores Hernandez
September 2026
6 pages
16m
English
MIT Sloan Management Review
Content preview from How AI Creates a Capability Mirage

How AI Creates a Capability Mirage

AI tools make it harder for leaders and teams to judge an individual’s abilities. Are personal and organizational capabilities silently crumbling in your company?

Dry rot. A Potemkin village. The Wizard of Oz.

What do those things have in common? In each case, they may look good on the surface, but it’s only an illusion. Wood afflicted with dry rot looks just fine until the tree it’s in topples down. Grigory Potemkin is said to have tried to impress Catherine the Great by creating a prosperous Crimean village constructed only of building facades, masking the real town’s crippling poverty. The Wizard of Oz looked great and powerful, until ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 53863MIT68201