In an age of teenage prodigies emerging almost on a monthly basis from India, Gukesh’s upbringing in the sport was slightly different than that of most others. He was deliberately kept off chess engines till he had crossed a rating of 2500 in his career
https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/chess/gukesh-wins-candidates-17-year-old-raised-without-chess-engines-ding-liren-world-chess-championships-9283580/
The above confirms an interesting fact about Gukesh. Engine use was not important as a tool to Gukesh during his developing years. For the now challenger to the world championship, this is pretty amazing. Of course one cannot get away with not using engines at all, as Gukesh will have to rely heavily on chess engines, his coach and seconds and any other tool he can have access to for his preparation against DIng.
Probably it’s an old fashioned way of chess development heralding back to the time of Anand became World Champion in 2000 where engine use was not significant then too.
The takeaway from this is any new (or old!) developing talents can make tremendous improvement to their chess without the use of chess engines. Not dismissing chess engines altogether of course but perhaps moderate the use and utilise them only when one needs to check an analysis to confirm.
In a way, Gukesh is a chess cowboy! 🙂