Some of the world’s most successful business leaders are voracious readers. Bill Gates told the New York Times in 2016 that he reads 50 books a year. Warren Buffett is said to spend as much as 80% of his working day reading and thinking. In 2000, when a Columbia Business School student asked him how to prepare for a career in investing, Buffett pointed to a stack of reports and told the class to read 500 pages like that every day, because knowledge “builds up, like compound interest.”

But a new wave of executives are letting AI do the reading for them, using it to summarize reports, draft emails, and, in some cases, speak on their behalf. More than two-thirds (68%) of leaders in the U.S. and U.K. turn to AI to summarize documents, and 58% use it to draft emails, according to a survey by General Assembly and coaching firm Ezra.

Microsoft executive VP Ryan Roslansky uses AI to help write almost every “high-stakes” email he sends. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella relies on AI agents to digest his inbox and prepare him for meetings. Meanwhile, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building an AI clone of himself that is trained on his tone and mannerisms and can answer staff questions.

For time-starved CEOs fielding demands from employees, investors, and the public across multiple channels, AI offers a way to keep up. “CEOs have stuff coming at them from every corner all the time, and some degree of summary is useful,” says David Meadvin, a former Senate speechwriter who now runs executive advisory firm One Strategy Group. Condensing information for the boss is hardly new, he adds: “We’ve had junior people doing news summaries since the beginning of time.” Yet he also calls AI “reliably average” and warns it can “dilute brilliance.”

A C-suite communication crisis

David Shelley, CEO of book publisher Hachette, goes further, warning that leaders who lean too heavily on AI are heading for a communication crisis. “I predict a growing dissonance between how someone appears in their written statements and how they are in real life,” he tells Fortune.

That disconnect could prove costly at a moment when employees are looking to their bosses to bring the workforce together. In Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer, 73% of employees said CEOs have an obligation to build trust and bridge divides, but only 44% said their leaders were doing it well.

“Being able to write a good email yourself as a CEO is incredibly important,” Shelley tells Fortune. While he acknowledges that a communications team or AI could make him more compelling, he is reluctant to lose the human quality in his writing.

Natalie Sutton, a communications consultant and executive coach, says employees are quick to spot messages that do not sound like the boss. “Fluency is becoming cheap. Sincerity is becoming scarce,” she says. “A slightly imperfect message that clearly came from the CEO will outperform a flawless one that could have come from anyone.”

Shelley also worries that outsourcing to AI blunts a leader’s instincts. “Being a leader, you often have to think on your feet,” he says. Relying on AI and other people to communicate, he adds, “dulls the brain.”

Studies have linked heavy reliance on AI with weaker critical thinking, a phenomenon known as “cognitive offloading.” In a 2025 MIT Media Lab study, participants who wrote essays with ChatGPT showed the weakest brain engagement of any group, and most could not quote from essays they had just written.

“If AI does the first draft, leaders skip the part where they work out what they actually think,” Sutton says. “When information arrives predigested, you lose the habit of sitting with something messy long enough to understand it. I worry we’ll have a generation of executives who can approve a message but can’t build one.”

The reading gap

As head of one of the world’s largest publishers, Shelley believes AI is accelerating the decline in reading for pleasure. Reading is the most commonly cited habit among billionaires, according to a JPMorgan report.

Almost half (46%) of U.K. adults said distractions made it hard to focus on reading, and 19% said their ability to concentrate had worsened over the past three years, according to 2025 polling by U.K. charity Reading Agency.

Shelley believes AI is accelerating this decline by changing how people consume and share information. “I think we’re all being trained to just want shortcuts,” he says.

This is putting certain skills, such as the ability to follow a complex argument, weigh competing views, or develop a coherent point of view, at risk. “One of the key attributes of great leaders is intellectual curiosity and empathy,” Shelley says. Losing these qualities will make for a “worse C-suite,” he adds.

That matters for leaders whose job depends on reading the room and understanding different viewpoints. Psychologists David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano of the New School for Social Research have found that reading literary fiction can sharpen people’s ability to read others’ emotions.

Some leaders argue that AI could end up making those human skills more valuable, predicting a renaissance in soft skills as the technology takes over rote work. Daniela Amodei, president and cofounder of Anthropic, has argued that because AI models are already strong at STEM, qualities such as emotional intelligence, communication, and curiosity are now at a premium.

Meadvin uses reading to broaden his perspectives and protect his mental health. “With disruption now constant,” he adds, “staying ahead depends on self-awareness and a commitment to lifelong learning.”

The immediacy of AI can make it an appealing shortcut for busy executives, but an overreliance on these tools could weaken some of the skills that are essential for leadership.