AI is changing how entrepreneurs think and adapt
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Published
12 February 2026
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Artificial intelligence is changing not only how entrepreneurs run their businesses, but how they think about risk, opportunity and adaptation, according to new research from the University of East London (UEL).
Researchers found that exposure to digital tools and AI was associated with sharper strategic thinking and greater mental flexibility. Entrepreneurs who understand and actively use AI appear better equipped to rethink plans and adjust to shocks.
Rather than framing AI purely as a tool for automation, the research suggests it is reshaping the entrepreneurial mindset itself. Used well, AI broadens how people approach problems, helping them move from reactive decision-making towards more deliberate, forward-looking strategies.
“What we’re seeing is not AI replacing human thinking, but changing how people think,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Jamiu Odugbesan, Lecturer in Sustainable Management, in the Royal Docks School of Business and Law.
Entrepreneurs who work closely with AI start to plan differently. They become more comfortable revising assumptions, weighing more options, and adapting when circumstances shift. In that sense, AI is expanding the scope of entrepreneurial decision-making.”
The research by a team that included Dr Andrew Tafameland, of the University of Benin, Nigeria, and Dr Dennis Akrawah, of the LAPO Institute, Nigeria, highlights that technology alone does not deliver these benefits. The strongest effects appear when entrepreneurs use AI as part of their strategic reasoning, rather than as a background tool.
The team used a cluster of 376 entrepreneurs working in Lagos’ Computer Village as a test sample.
Located in Lagos, Computer Village is one of West Africa’s largest technology marketplaces, home to thousands of traders, developers and entrepreneurs who work daily with digital tools, making it a powerful real-world setting for observing how AI influences entrepreneurial behaviour.
Entrepreneurs there operate under intense pressure, with limited protection against disruption, yet those with higher levels of AI knowledge and digital exposure consistently showed greater flexibility in how they handled unexpected change.
The authors say this has broader implications for how governments, investors and educators think about AI adoption. Training that focuses solely on technical skills or productivity gains may miss a more important benefit in more confident, swifter and expansive decision-making.
“In uncertain environments, success often depends less on having the perfect plan and more on being able to rethink it in the face of disruption,” Dr Odugbesan said.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that AI’s impact on work is not only economic, but cognitive, shaping how people reason, plan and respond and giving them confidence to take swifter, more informed decisions.
AI and the Entrepreneurial Mindset: Mapping Cognitive Adaptability in the Age of Technological Disruption by Jamiu Odugbesan, Andrew Tafameland and Dennis Akrawah is published in the Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Technologies.
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