I think this is the real answer. When we developed flight, the measure wasn't "can we fly like birds?" We still haven't achieved that even today, but we fly in otherwise unimagined, but equally powerful ways.

We seem to be looking at intelligence in humans and thinking we need to develop that, without first defining what intelligence actually is. We don't exist in isolation, and it's likely that the components of intelligence exist to varying degrees in other organisms. In the same way that birds, bats, gliders and insects all have wings that generate lift, what are the things that we have in common with other animals?