AI Needs Courage and Context: Why Founders and Regulators Both Get It Wrong

Artificial intelligence is shaping the global economy at an unprecedented pace. But the stories that broke in the last 24 hours show two dangerous extremes:

• Founders relying too heavily on AI to make decisions for them.

• Governments trying too hard to control AI, choking innovation in the process.

From India to China, the message is clear: AI isn’t a replacement for human judgement, and it doesn’t thrive in a cage. Businesses that survive this wave will be those that blend AI with strategy, creativity, and context.

Founders outsourcing judgement: the Indian warning

Anupam Mittal, CEO of People Group, came out swinging against startup founders who lean too heavily on ChatGPT. He called out Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V email pitches, AI-generated communication that lacks originality, and a creeping trend of leaders outsourcing their core judgement to machines.

His words cut to the truth: AI can fake intelligence, but it cannot fake courage.

Courage is knowing when to risk a strategy pivot. Judgement is choosing what matters to your customers. Authenticity is what makes a client read your proposal twice instead of ignoring it. None of these can be handed off to a chatbot.

This is exactly what we see at Intellisite when we work with clients. Businesses that let AI run wild without strategy don’t just stagnate, they lose their edge. AI should never replace leadership thinking. It should amplify it.

China’s AI regulation: the risk of backseat driving

At the same time, Reuters reports that China’s heavy-handed regulation risks strangling its AI sector before it matures. Constant new rules, shifting compliance standards, and a government eager to “steer” innovation from the passenger seat are creating uncertainty for investors and founders.

The result? Companies hesitate. Funding slows. Talent leaks to other ecosystems.

The irony is clear: regulation designed to protect can just as easily suffocate. And if China’s AI sector loses momentum, the global balance of AI innovation shifts overnight.

For businesses everywhere, the lesson is broader. You can’t build AI systems inside rigid, fragile frameworks. AI thrives in agile environments - where agents can be tested, adapted, and trusted with context, not micromanaged into paralysis.

Why this matters for your business

So what do a blunt Indian CEO and China’s regulators have in common? They show us two sides of the same coin.

• Too little human judgement and AI becomes a crutch.

• Too much external control and AI becomes a liability.

The businesses that win are the ones that build AI with balance. That means using agentic AI systems to automate the repetitive, error-prone, time-wasting tasks, while keeping humans firmly in charge of strategy, empathy, and originality.

At Intellisite.co, we’ve seen this play out across industries. Clients who adopt AI without guardrails burn out their teams. Clients who hesitate because of fear or complexity lose ground. But those who design AI workflows with context and trust find that the technology becomes invisible - it just works, and the results compound over time.

What it looks like in practice

Here’s how balanced AI adoption works in the real world:

• A customer support agent gets AI help drafting responses, but signs off before they go out.

• A sales team uses AI to pull context from CRMs and follow up leads, but humans decide tone and timing.

• An ops team automates reporting with AI, but leadership still interprets the insights and sets strategy.

This is agentic AI for business automation in action: AI doing the heavy lifting while humans keep control of the steering wheel.

The bottom line

From India’s startup scene to China’s regulatory halls, the lesson is the same. Don’t outsource your brain. Don’t strangle your system.

Use AI to handle the grunt work, but never give away your courage, creativity, or control. The businesses that treat AI as a partner - not a crutch or a cage - will be the ones that survive and thrive.

At Intellisite, that’s exactly what we build: agentic AI solutions that embed into your workflows, automate the right tasks, and free your team for the work only humans can do.

👉 Visit www.intellisite.co to explore how our AI systems can reshape your business operations with clarity and confidence.