PQ™ — Primal Intelligence Quotient

Train what AI
cannot
replace.

Every time you use AI at the start of a complex task, your brain becomes a passenger. The MIT Media Lab proved it in 2025. The erosion is measurable, progressive, and already happening to your team.

Arcaico measures what remains when AI is removed — then builds it back.

Take the PQ™ Assessment → Explore the framework

20^min

Total assessment time,
including writing task

Distinct intelligence
dimensions scored

Metric no other
assessment produces

Peer-reviewed studies
behind the framework

Alex Meier — Technology

PQ Practitioner

PQ Index

AI-Gap Score™

Performance lost without AI

The Problem

AI doesn't just help
you think. It thinks
instead of you.

When professionals use AI at the beginning of complex cognitive tasks, brain regions associated with deep thinking, memory consolidation, and critical reasoning show significantly reduced activity.

This is not a metaphor. It is measurable neuroscience. MIT researchers called it cognitive debt — and your team is accumulating it every day.

The problem is not AI. The problem is sequence. When AI is the first move, your intelligence becomes the passenger. Arcaico is built to reverse that pattern.

MIT Media Lab · 2025

"AI use significantly reduced neural engagement in regions associated with working memory, executive function, and active problem-solving."

Kosmyna et al. (2025) — Your Brain on ChatGPT. MIT Media Lab.

83%

of knowledge workers now use AI tools daily, according to McKinsey Global Survey (2024). The majority begin tasks with AI before attempting independent thinking.

40pt

Average AI-Gap Score we observe in professionals with high daily AI usage — meaning their analytical output drops 40 points when AI tools are removed from the equation.

3yr

The estimated horizon for regulatory, client, and audit requirements to demand demonstrated human judgment independent of AI outputs — making PQ a future compliance category, not just a development priority.

The PQ Framework

Five dimensions.
One number.
No BS.

The PQ™ framework is built on 21 peer-reviewed studies in cognitive science, expert performance research, and decision-making theory. It is not a personality inventory. It is not a soft skills survey. It is a precision measurement of your accumulated human intelligence — the kind that compounds over a career and cannot be generated by a prompt.

ED · Experiential Depth

The richness of what you have lived through professionally.

Consequence-bearing decision history, pattern exposure across diverse situations, reflective integration of past experiences. Grounded in Ericsson et al.'s deliberate practice framework and Klein's naturalistic decision-making research. Not just years of experience — the quality of what those years contained.

Klein (1993) · Ericsson et al. (1993)

IA · Intuitive Accuracy

How well-calibrated your professional instincts actually are.

Expert pattern recognition, metacognitive calibration, the ability to distinguish genuine intuition from bias or habit. Grounded in Klein's Recognition-Primed Decision model. High IA means your gut is right more often than chance — and you know when to trust it versus question it.

Klein (1998) · Kahneman & Klein (2009)

CI · Cognitive Independence

How much of your thinking you actually do yourself.

The dimension most directly eroded by AI overuse. Measures your unassisted cognitive performance — working through problems before reaching for any external tool. Includes the timed, AI-free writing task that provides objective performance data. This is also the dimension that generates your AI-Gap Score™.

Kosmyna et al. (2025) · Risko & Gilbert (2016)

EK · Embodied Knowledge

Knowledge that lives in you, not in your tools.

The degree to which your professional knowledge is truly internalized versus externally dependent. Under stress, under time pressure, without digital access — how much do you genuinely own? Grounded in Sloman & Fernbach's knowledge illusion research. Most professionals dramatically overestimate this score.

Sloman & Fernbach (2017) · Lakoff & Johnson (1999)

AJ · Adaptive Judgment

The apex dimension — applying accumulated wisdom to genuinely novel situations.

The rarest and most valuable of the five PQ dimensions. Measures your capacity to take experience from known territory and apply it creatively when you encounter situations outside your direct expertise. Cross-domain transfer, mental simulation, first-principles reasoning. What most people call wisdom, made measurable. Grounded in Ericsson's expert adaptability research.

Ericsson et al. (1993) · Klein (1998) · Hatano & Inagaki (1986)

How It Works

Three steps.
One complete picture.

STEP 01

🧠

The Assessment

20 questions across all five PQ dimensions — a mix of 7-point Likert scales and scenario-based judgment calls. No right or wrong answers on the surface. The scoring engine runs beneath. Followed by the unassisted writing task — the most important 8 minutes of the assessment.

20 minutes total

STEP 02

📊

Your PQ Report

An instant, complete profile: your PQ Index, five dimensional scores, your AI-Gap Score™, your archetype, and your 90-day target. A beautifully formatted PDF report is emailed to you. This is the diagnosis — clear, honest, sometimes uncomfortable.

Instant results + PDF by email

STEP 03

⚡

The Practice Hub

Three interactive daily practice tools, precision-targeted to your weakest dimensions. Timed sessions. Daily tracking. A streak counter. A live PQ growth chart. And a 90-day reassessment to prove the growth objectively. This is the work.

Unlock for €149 one-time

AI-Gap Score™

With AI

Without

AI-Gap Score™

The world's first measure of cognitive AI dependency.

The AI-Gap Score™ is unique to the PQ Assessment. It is the numerical difference between your performance with AI assistance and your performance without it — measured through the timed, unassisted writing task.

A gap of 37 means your analytical output drops by 37 points when AI is removed. For a professional whose job requires judgment, this is the most important number in their profile. It is also the most trainable — the 10-Minute Rule practice targets it directly, and most people see measurable improvement within 8 weeks.

The Assessment

Not a personality
test. A performance
measurement.

The PQ Assessment uses scenario-based judgment questions, a calibrated Likert scale across five dimensions, and a timed, AI-free writing task — the only part of any professional assessment where your actual unassisted cognitive performance is measured, not self-reported.

20 questions, 5 dimensions — psychometrically designed, not a wellbeing survey.

The 8-minute unassisted writing task — timed, no AI, no search. Your CI score and AI-Gap Score depend on this.

Experience and AI frequency inputs — your baseline scores are adjusted for your professional context.

Instant report + PDF by email — results on screen immediately, full PDF follow-up.

Begin the Assessment — Free →

20 minutes · The assessment itself is free · Practice Hub unlocks at €149

CI · Cognitive Independence

Question 9 of 20

"When facing a complex professional problem, I typically work through it myself before consulting any external resource — including AI, colleagues, or search engines."

1 — Never, I reach for help immediately

7 — Always, I exhaust my own thinking first

Upcoming — Unassisted Task

After question 20, you will have 8 minutes to complete a structured analysis — no AI, no search, no notes. This is where your AI-Gap Score is measured.

Pricing

Simple. Honest. Worth it.

The assessment is free. You pay to build — not to know.

Start here

PQ™ Assessment

Free

No credit card required

Full 20-question assessment

Timed unassisted writing task

PQ Index + 5 dimensional scores

AI-Gap Score™

Instant on-screen results

PDF report by email

Take the Free Assessment

21 studies.
Rigorous foundations.

The PQ framework is not proprietary intuition. Every dimension maps to peer-reviewed research from leading institutions in cognitive science, expertise theory, and decision-making.

MIT Media Lab · 2025

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing

Kosmyna, N., et al. (2025)

The direct scientific basis for the AI-Gap Score™ and the Cognitive Independence dimension. Demonstrates measurable neural engagement reduction when AI is introduced at the start of cognitive tasks.

Florida State University · 1993

The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance

Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T. & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993)

Foundation for Experiential Depth and Adaptive Judgment dimensions. Defines the conditions under which experience translates into expertise — and when it doesn't.

Klein Associates · 1993

Recognition-Primed Decision Making: A Theoretical Analysis and Implementation

Klein, G. (1993, 1998)

Core framework for Intuitive Accuracy and Experiential Depth. Explains how experts make high-stakes decisions rapidly — and how that capacity erodes without deliberate practice.

Yale · 2017

The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone

Sloman, S. & Fernbach, P. (2017)

Direct basis for Embodied Knowledge scoring. Documents the systematic human tendency to overestimate the depth of personal knowledge — and the conditions under which the illusion is exposed.

University of California · 2016

Cognitive Offloading: How the Internet Is Used to Solve Complex Problems

Risko, E.F. & Gilbert, S.J. (2016)

Supports the Cognitive Independence dimension and the 10-Minute Rule practice. Shows that deliberate withholding of external tools measurably rebuilds independent processing capacity.

University of Chicago · 2001

Educating Intuition

Hogarth, R. (2001)

Foundation for the Intuition Log practice. Demonstrates that intuitive accuracy is trainable through structured feedback loops — the core mechanism the Intuition Log exploits.

Full bibliography of 21 studies available in the PQ Framework white paper.

Request the white paper →

For Organizations

Your team is developing
AI dependency.
You can measure it.

The Arcaico Organizational PQ Diagnostic gives CHROs, CLOs, and L&D leaders what no other tool provides: a rigorous, defensible measure of cognitive AI dependency across their workforce — and a structured development path to reverse it.

50+

Minimum cohort sizeSmall enough to run as a pilot. Large enough to produce statistically valid PQ benchmarks across your organization.

8k€

Starting priceFull diagnostic for 20–50 participants, including group results, dimensional benchmarks by department, and a development recommendations report.

90d

From diagnostic to proofWith the Practice Hub deployed across a cohort, measurable PQ score improvement is observable within 90 days. We will design the measurement together.

What the organizational diagnostic delivers

📊

Organization-wide PQ baselineEvery participant scored across all five dimensions. Department-level aggregates. Leadership versus team benchmarks.

⚡

AI-Gap Score by role and functionWhich teams are most cognitively dependent? Which roles are most at risk? Where is the dependency already impacting decision quality?

🎯

Targeted development roadmapSpecific Practice Hub deployment recommendations based on your PQ profile distribution — not generic L&D programming.

📋

Board-ready results summaryA defensible, research-grounded report that makes the case for PQ development as a business priority, not a wellbeing initiative.

🔄

90-day reassessment includedMeasure actual growth. Document it. The evidence you need to expand the program and prove ROI to leadership.

Talk to us about your organization →

Train what AIcannotreplace.

AI doesn't just helpyou think. It thinksinstead of you.

Five dimensions.One number.No BS.

Three steps.One complete picture.

Not a personalitytest. A performancemeasurement.

Simple. Honest. Worth it.

21 studies.Rigorous foundations.

Your team is developingAI dependency.You can measure it.

The results thatsurprised people most.

Know your number.Build what remains.

Train what AI
cannot
replace.

AI doesn't just help
you think. It thinks
instead of you.

Five dimensions.
One number.
No BS.

Three steps.
One complete picture.

Not a personality
test. A performance
measurement.

21 studies.
Rigorous foundations.

Your team is developing
AI dependency.
You can measure it.

The results that
surprised people most.

Know your number.
Build what remains.