§ Cartoon 30 September 2026

AI-Powered Decision Making

Four-panel cartoon titled AI-Powered Decision Making. Panel one: in a meeting room, a team member points at a screen showing Option A and Option B and says we need your decision between Option A or B, and Dhawal Shah, seated with his hand on his chin, replies let me think about it. Panel two: at his desk, he asks his computer which option would you choose; ChatGPT answers I'd lean towards Option A while Claude is still typing, and he says good point, but let's see what Claude thinks. Panel three: he sits at a boardroom table surrounded by robot advisers labelled ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, with Option A and Option B projected on the table, saying interesting, let's run it past them again. Panel four, captioned three weeks later: the same Option A and Option B screen, and his two colleagues slumped on their hands ask so, what did you decide; he shrugs and says nothing yet, but we're making excellent progress.
Fig. 01The strip

AI gives managers access to an almost unlimited number of second opinions. That can improve decisions, or turn ordinary management procrastination into an impressively sophisticated process.

Link copied successfully
AI at workdecision makingmanagementleadershipAI advice
§ TranscriptPanel by panel

Title bar. "AI-POWERED DECISION MAKING", underlined in lime.

Panel 1. A meeting room with a city view. A screen shows two boxes, "OPTION A" in lilac and "OPTION B" in green. A young team member points at it and says "We need your decision between Option A or B." Dhawal, in a grey suit, sits at the head of the table with his hand on his chin and replies "Let me think about it." A second colleague watches from the side.

Panel 2. Dhawal at his desk, typing. He asks his monitor "Which option would you choose?" The screen is split in two. On the left, ChatGPT answers "I'd lean towards Option A." On the right, Claude shows a typing indicator. Dhawal says "Good point... but let's see what Claude thinks."

Panel 3. A boardroom. Dhawal sits at the head of the table, fingers steepled, surrounded by robot advisers wearing the badges of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok. Charts and papers are spread across the table, and "OPTION A" and "OPTION B" glow in its centre. He says "Interesting... Let's run it past them again."

Panel 4 - "THREE WEEKS LATER..." The same meeting room and the same Option A and Option B screen. The two colleagues slump with their heads in their hands. One asks "So... what did you decide?" Dhawal shrugs with open palms and says "Nothing yet. But we're making excellent progress..."

§ 01Behind the strip

The idea behind the cartoon

There used to be a natural limit to how long you could delay a decision by asking for more opinions.

Eventually, you ran out of people to ask.

AI removed that constraint.

Now you can ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok. You can have them critique each other, identify blind spots, build decision matrices, run scenarios and reconsider the problem with every new piece of context.

All of that can genuinely improve decision-making.

But there’s a trap.

More analysis isn’t the same thing as progress.

AI makes it remarkably easy to keep gathering information long after you have enough to make the decision.

And because you’re actively researching, comparing and prompting, it feels productive.

Sometimes the most valuable thing a manager can do after consulting the AI advisory council is still the old-fashioned thing:

Pick A or B.

§ 02Read next

Related reading

§ 03Keep reading

More cartoons

Dhawal Shah
Dhawal Shah

14 years building businesses across Asia. Co-founded 2Stallions (40+ person agency), launched ChutneyAds (AI-powered ad network), and has worked with 30+ startups as advisor and investor. He draws these between building things.

§ The vault Free · twice a month

The prompts, templates and checklists I actually use.

Twice a month I send what I built, what it cost and what broke. Subscribers get the whole vault, free.

  • 01Prompts and agent rules
  • 02Templates and checklists
  • 03Real numbers from my builds

No spam. Unsubscribe in one click.