Imagine walking onto a massive construction site where a crew is trying to build a skyscraper. You look at their toolbelts and see one thing: a pair of pliers.
They are trying to tighten bolts with them. They are trying to hammer nails with them. They are even trying to dig the foundation with them.
It sounds ridiculous, right? But in 2026, this is exactly what most “GenAI Strategies” look like. Companies are buying the “pliers” (LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) and trying to force them to solve every problem in the enterprise—from inventory optimization to fraud detection.
GenAI is a powerful tool. But it is just one tool in a very large toolbox.
1. The Plier Metaphor: What GenAI Actually Does
In my AI Umbrella framework, I categorize GenAI as a tool for handling Cognitive Load.
Pliers are great for a specific set of tasks: gripping, pulling, and twisting. Similarly, GenAI is world-class at: * Summarizing long documents. * Drafting emails or reports. * Answering basic customer queries. * Generating creative ideas.
But you wouldn’t use pliers to drive a screw (you’d use a screwdriver) or to dig a trench (you’d use an excavator). If you try to use a “Plier” (GenAI) to solve a “Math” problem or a “Relationship” problem, the tool will fail—or worse, it will “hallucinate” a solution that looks right but is dangerously wrong.
2. The Danger of “Plier-Only” Thinking
When a CEO tells me, “We have a GenAI strategy,” I usually hear, “We are trying to hammer every nail with pliers.” This is a primary reason why most AI projects fail.
Here is what happens when you use the wrong tool: * The Hallucination Trap: Using an LLM to “predict” inventory needs. LLMs are built for language probability, not mathematical optimization. * The Thin-Wrapper Problem: Building a “chat interface” on top of bad data. The “plating” looks nice, but the “food” is still terrible (as I discussed in AI Strategic Skills). * The ROI Gap: Spending millions on GPU tokens to do work that a simple linear regression (Traditional ML) could do faster, cheaper, and more accurately.
3. Building a Full Toolbox
To move from “Tier 1” (playing with tools) to “Tier 3” (The Strategist), you need to understand the rest of the toolbox.
As we explored in Decision-First AI, you must start with the Decision first, then pick the tool:
- Need to predict churn? Use Machine Learning (The Torque Wrench).
- Need to find the best delivery route? Use Optimization & Planning (The GPS).
- Need to find fraud patterns in a network? Use Graph Algorithms (The X-Ray).
- Need to summarize a 50-page contract? Now you pull out the GenAI Pliers.
4. The Executive’s Job: Choosing the Tool
Your job as a leader isn’t to know how to build the pliers. It’s to know when to use them.
In my “AI Profit OS” framework, we teach leaders to move past the hype and look at the “Umbrella.” If your technical team is suggesting a GenAI solution for a problem that requires structural data logic, you need to pull the emergency brake.
Are you building a skyscraper, or just playing with pliers?
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Don’t let your strategy get stuck in “pilot purgatory” because you picked the wrong tool.
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If you need help identifying which tool in the AI Umbrella fits your specific business pain, let’s talk.