This is the way.

I run interviews at my company. We allow/encourage AI.

The number one failure method is people throwing all of the requirements in upfront. They get one good pass then fail.

I was part of a shop that did the Pivotal Way and we had Inceptions where the PM, engineers, and a tester or two would be sequestered in a conference room for the day to bang out task lists that went into mid-level fidelity. Technical considerations were debated and sometimes in a heated way, but we never got into implementation—just structure and flow to ensure it jives.

…this reeeeaaaallllyyyy feels like that

I'm inclined to agree with this approach because someone not using AI who fails would likely fail for the same reasons. If you can't logically distill a problem into parts you can't obtain a solution.