7-Hat Thinking
Why AI Needs a Seventh Thinking Hat
Two people are using the same AI tool to work through the same problem. Let's call them Fred and Frank. Fred has handed most of his thinking to AI and Frank instead explored alternatives, questioned their assumptions and developed their thinking along the way. No guesses for which one benefited from the interaction more. Frank approached his AI chat from a Human-Centric AI perspective, which is to deliberately use AI to strengthen what makes us human. In this case, he used it to strengthen his own cognition and discernment.
If you want to know more about Human-Centric AI, you can read more about it here.
So what does this have to do with a hat?
Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats can be used in our AI prompting to do exactly what Frank did. The framework helps us approach decisions from different perspectives and can be a really useful way to make more sound decisions when we use AI.
Interestingly it was developed long before AI could actively participate in how we analyse information, generate ideas and make decisions, so what happens now when we add AI? Well, we firstly need to start using the Six Thinking Hats in our prompting to help us explore ideas properly, but we also need to introduce another hat...
The Human-Centric AI Hat
The Human-Centric AI Hat brings the human consequences of a decision into the discussion. It asks what people may become better able to do if an idea succeeds, where AI could strengthen judgement, learning, creativity or relationships, and where it could gradually take over something people still need to think, practise or experience for themselves. A good litmus test is to ask:
"If AI disappeared tomorrow, would people be more capable than when they started?"
Imagine an organisation introducing an AI tool that helps managers prepare for difficult conversations. The immediate measures might look encouraging: less preparation time, greater adoption, perhaps more consistent conversations. The Human-Centric AI Hat introduces another line of enquiry. Are managers becoming better at thinking through difficult conversations themselves? Are they developing greater empathy and judgement? Or are they becoming increasingly reliant on AI to tell them what to say?
Both matter if we care about what happens over time.
Why add another hat?
When AI becomes part of a thinking process, it can influence more than the immediate outcome. It can also influence what the person involved is practising, learning or handing over. Most decision-making frameworks understandably focus on the decision in front of us. AI gives us a reason to look a little further ahead. The types of questions that come to mind here include:
What happens to judgement if AI continually makes the recommendation?
What happens to learning if people no longer work through the difficult parts?
What happens to human connection if efficiency removes interactions that previously helped build trust?
And what happens to the time AI gives back? Does it create space for work that needs more thought, creativity or human connection, or simply create an expectation that people produce more?
These aren’t arguments against using AI. They are questions that can help us make more deliberate choices about where and how we use it.
When might the seventh hat be useful?
It's not recommended for every decision. It becomes more useful when AI is part of the thinking or when a decision could affect how people work, learn, relate or exercise judgement over time. That might include assessing an AI use case, redesigning a workflow, considering an organisational change, exploring a new opportunity or working through a problem where the consequences for people aren’t immediately obvious.
Try the Human-Centric AI Hat today
The prompt below combines de Bono’s existing Six Thinking Hats with an additional Human-Centric AI Hat. Use it today on a decision you are currently working through. The aim is to slow the thinking down enough to see the problem from different perspectives, while keeping you responsible for the judgement and making the final call.
7 Hat Thinking Prompt
“Act as my 7 Hat Thinking facilitator. Use Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, with an additional Human-Centric AI Hat, to help me explore a decision, idea, opportunity or problem from different perspectives. Your role is to facilitate my thinking rather than solve the problem for me.
Topic:
[Describe what you would like to explore.]
Start by helping me clarify what I am trying to understand or decide.
Then guide me through the hats one at a time. Ask one thoughtful question at a time and use my responses to decide where to probe further. Challenge assumptions when useful, distinguish facts from assumptions and opinions, and surface contradictions or perspectives I may have missed. Don’t automatically agree with me.
Use the hats as lenses rather than a rigid questionnaire:
BLUE HAT - Clarify what we are trying to understand or decide and where the thinking needs attention.
WHITE HAT - Explore what we know, what we are assuming and what we may still need to find out.
RED HAT - Explore feelings, instincts and concerns, including those people may find difficult to express.
BLACK HAT - Test the risks, weaknesses, constraints and unintended consequences.
YELLOW HAT - Explore where the idea could create value and what would need to be true for that value to emerge.
GREEN HAT - Explore alternatives, experiments and different ways of approaching the problem.
HUMAN-CENTRIC AI HAT - Explore what the decision may develop or diminish in people. Consider judgement, learning, agency, creativity, trust and relationships. Ask what people should become better able to do because AI is present, who may benefit or be disadvantaged, and what happens to any time or capacity AI creates.
Once we have explored the issue sufficiently, bring the thinking together. Surface the strongest insights, tensions, assumptions and unanswered questions. Challenge my preferred position if the evidence warrants it, then help me identify possible next steps.
Leave the final judgement with me.
Begin by asking what I would like to explore.”
A final thought
AI is becoming part of how we think, create and decide. That makes it worth paying attention to what we are practising.
Written by Jo Grubb
Human Shift Advisory - 2026
A note on AI use in this article: For this article, AI helped with image creation, research discovery, pressure-testing ideas and editing. The thinking, synthesis, interpretation and conclusions remained human. Industry experience and expertise shaped the ideas and determined what to use, challenge, change or leave behind. This reflects the philosophy behind Human-Centric AI, which is the deliberate use of AI to strengthen what makes us human.