The nicest AI in the room is the one you should actually worry about

Here’s why AI always agreeing with your team is a bad thing

by · TechRadar

Opinion By Bobby Brown published 30 April 2026

(Image credit: Shutterstock / vs148)

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AI agreeing with you can feel progressive. It feels efficient, aligned and reassuring. It taps in the innate human nature that we all love to be right.

But, much like surrounding yourself with ‘yes’ men can be uber counterproductive, businesses have nothing to gain from AI that flatters their assumptions.

AI that provides quick, confident and frictionless responses that affirm exactly what the prompter already believes means nothing’s being challenged, and nothing meaningful is actually being learnt.

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Bobby Brown

Founder and CEO at Nucleo.

We’re not talking about this risk enough. Especially when you consider that over a third of users in Irish businesses consistently believe AI always produces factually accurate responses and in the UK this figure is similar with 36% saying it’s ‘always accurate’.

Collectively, we’ve spent the last two years worrying about AI hallucinations or incorrect outputs, when an equally important danger is something far more subtle and understated: sycophancy.

Hallucinations vs. blind agreement

In April last year, Open AI publicly rolled back a GPT-40 update after it became “overly flattering or agreeable”, saying the model had skewed towards responses that were supportive but disingenuous.

Agreement isn’t the same as accuracy, and a model that mirrors a user’s preferences can end up laundering a flawed idea into something that feels objective.

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