Being a Human-Centric Business in the Age of AI

I was recently in a meeting where one of the participants complained about a loss of jobs because of AI.

This person’s business is teaching young people, primarily teenagers and college students, about investing and the way Wall Street works.

Their complaint was that AI is taking all of the entry-level jobs at investment companies, so their students who are interested in finance have no way to find a job straight out of college and move up within a company structure.

In my opinion, AI is a great tool, but it cannot and should never replace humans, especially in roles where humans are dealing with other humans. In other words, we need to run human-centric businesses, not businesses dominated by robots. I will admit that I am a copywriter, not a business analyst of any sort, but this statement is borne out by research.

The question we, as business owners and entrepreneurs need to ask ourselves is: Are we using AI in ways that make our target audiences choose to work with us, or are we driving our potential customers away because of our use of AI?

The Human Cost of AI – What the Data Tells Us

My friend’s comment about AI taking away entry level jobs is spot on.

The tasks these roles fulfill are the easiest for AI to take over, so they’re the ones that are being automated first. Which means there is no good way for someone to come into a company of any size and work their way up. Ladders are ineffective without lower rungs to start from.

According to Anthropic’s own Economic Index research paper (Anthropic is the creator of Claude) there is a 14-16% slowdown in hiring for young workers in fields where AI is taking over.

Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei has warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs, which would spike unemployment by up to 20% within the next 5 years.

He’s even proposed the idea of a “token tax” of a percentage from AI company revenues to be redistributed to workers who are affected by AI’s adoption.

If one of the leading figures in AI is talking about this, it is a real possibility.

One of the groups most affected by this problem is older women doing jobs AI can “easily replace” like administrative assistants, secretaries, and ironically, copywriters.

Case in point, my main client has decided to end our contract due to budget constraints and their increasing use of AI.

This is a wonderful company and I wish them all the success in the world. However, I am concerned about their increasing reliance on AI because they risk losing the very connection with their audience that they depend on to fulfill their chosen mission.

Which brings me to the flip side of this particular coin: Human connection.

We, as human beings want to connect with other human beings, not robots. We want our questions answered by a person who has a vested interest in helping ups solve our problem.

When was the last time you were in a never-ending phone tree or trapped in a chatbot loop where you kept repeating “agent”, “representative,” or “human” over and over until you finally got a real person?

Were you frustrated and exhausted by the time you got to the actual human being who could help you? That’s if you even managed to get a real human.

I usually am. It’s exasperating. And it makes that human’s job harder. They have to deal with the now angry person on the other end of this conversation, and help them solve their problem. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

AI cannot replace human beings when it comes to forging genuine human connection. In fact, many businesses that use AI in what should be human-centric roles end up losing their customers.

For example, according to the OxJournal, when the Commonwealth Bank of Australia replaced their call center workers with AI, the customer backlash forced them to reverse this decision.

We, as business owners, need the automation AI offers, but we need to be very careful about how we use it and what roles it fills within our companies.

Filling the Empathy Gap – Something AI Cannot Do

Even as many companies, large and small, are thinking that AI is the magical solution to all of their problems, they are missing a major piece of this picture.

Their customers.

According to the Verizon 2025 CX Annual Insights Report, “88% of consumers are satisfied with interactions handled mostly or fully by human agents, while only 60% feel the same about interactions driven by AI. This preference highlights a fundamental truth: AI’s efficiency cannot replace the empathy and trust that a human provides.”

That 28% gap is where companies that choose to stay human-centric will thrive.

Most customers will choose a company that makes them feel genuinely cared about and appreciated over one that may have equally an equally good product or service, but relies on AI automation and therefore lacks empathy.

The sad truth is, the empathy gap is growing, not shrinking. The desire to cut costs and be “more efficient” means companies push their employees to work harder and take less time to interact with customers and each other. Or to remove some of these employees altogether. This is terrible for team morale and destructive when it comes to customer satisfaction.

The more human-centric your business can stay, the happier your customers and team members will be. Which is better for growth, longevity, and your bottom line.

AI Has a Place In Business, Just Not The Place Humans Occupy

AI is a fantastic tool for small and medium-sized businesses. For businesses of all sizes, honestly.

The question is, where are the strategic places you can use AI and not lose your humanity in doing so?

In my opinion, AI is great for:

• Repetitive tasks that are easy to model and automate like:
  • Sending invoice reminders
  • Scheduling and calendar management
  • Data collection, analysis and reporting
• Research and summarization
• Messy first drafts (that are then fully reviewed and revised by a human) of some content types like:
  • Social media posts (based on original content)
  • Reports
  • Emails (yes, I said it!)
  • Blog posts

I’m sure you can find plenty of uses like this in your business.

The point is, that AI should do the routine, transactional stuff, so you’re free to do everything that needs your human input and human touch (including and especially your emails).

Another case in point: I used AI to write this week’s Email Marketing Ecosystem newsletter.

I asked AI to pull together and summarize (with citations) a bunch of research and information around the question: “What is the cost of AI to society and to businesses, small to medium-sized businesses in particular.”

I reviewed the summary, checked some of the citations, added my own input, and wrote this entire newsletter myself, (minus a couple quotes) in my own words.

I used AI as a tool, for the parts that either take forever, or that I’m not necessarily good at, like finding the perfect articles and information for this subject. Then I did the work I am good at, the actual writing. My human touch is all over this newsletter, even though AI did part of the work.

The real question for you, the business owner and entrepreneur becomes…

How Do You Incorporate AI While Staying Human-Centric In Your Business?

Here are some simple questions to ask yourself:

What are the things I do regularly that AI can do faster, but still deliver the same quality end result to the task?

My research example above is a classic AI use. I could have spent hours pulling all of this research together. Today, I asked Claude, to do the research for me, based on my topic, with specifications, and give me a summary with citations to back it up.

That let me write my newsletter faster and more efficiently, while still giving you my insights and my human touch, as well as the information from the research Claude delivered.

You probably have similar tasks in your business that AI can do, freeing you up to do the part that needs your humanity, as well as being something you actually enjoy.

Where are the places in my business that I or a team member are absolutely necessary?

There are a lot of things humans will always do better that robots. Interacting with other humans is one of those places. So are strategic thinking, planning, and decision making.

I will admit that I am biased, but I believe communications of all sorts are another place that humans should always handle. We’re better at anticipating and responding to human reactions and objections than AI is, and all communications need to be approached with empathy and compassion, regardless of the subject.

What will I do with this free time?

How lovely for you that you suddenly have an extra half-hour in your day. Will you use it to do a bunch of other tasks that AI may be able to handle for you? Or will you use it to do the things that only you, the human in your business (or your position) can do?

In my opinion, the point would be to do the human things, like talking with clients, reaching out to potential new customers, or writing your weekly nurture email. (Yes, I’m showing my personal bias again.)

How Do You Keep the Humanity In Your Business When It Comes to AI?

I’m going to do something a bit odd here, I’m going to quote Claude’s research summary regarding the question “what does AI cost society”:

“The tools are real, the productivity gains are documented, and the competitive pressure to adopt is growing. But so is the evidence that customers want to feel heard by a human being — and that the businesses which use AI to amplify their humanity, rather than replace it, will be the ones that earn lasting loyalty.”

Even the robots believe that humans come first in business.

Personally, I feel that humans should always come first, especially in business. We are all in business to serve our customers. Without them, we have no business.

Unless the robots suddenly become consumers, which would be weird.

As I have mentioned numerous times in this newsletter, and in previous issues, AI is a wonderful tool. But our customers want answers from a real human being. And they come to each of us specifically because they believe we can help them solve their particular problem.

Giving them anything less than 100% of our humanity does all of us a great disservice.

How do you use AI in your business right now? And does it affect how you interact with and serve your customers? Are you running a human-centric business or are you giving everything over to the robots?

I am genuinely curious and would love to hear from you. Please comment below or send me an email to let me know. I read all responses and I’ll write back.

Finally, all of this week’s pictures are deliberately of humans, specifically me, my sister, and my friends.

And, as previously mentioned, I suddenly have more time in my client roster, so if you’ve been thinking of contacting me about an upcoming project, now would be a very good time to schedule a consultation with me.

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