AI in a Human World: Tools, Trust, and the Talent We Keep

(Part 1 of 3: Why Adopting AI Without Thoughtful Design Is the Real Risk)

I’ve spent the last six months in what I call my AI-all-the-time role. My work has been equal parts learning, teaching, fact-finding, and sometimes fiction busting, helping our organization and our clients figure out what it really means to work in a Human + AI world.

Here’s what I’ve learned: AI isn’t just a fad and it’s not going away any time soon. We have to be thoughtful about how we use it. As much as it concerns me to acknowledge it, the fact is that some companies are using AI to remove jobs at scale. I hope to show some reasons why that might be a brash move in some cases. But before we get there, let’s answer some basic questions about whether companies should adopt AI (specifically GenAI) and whether employees should jump on board too. Spoiler alert: yes to both.

I hear it all the time: AI is a fad, it will blow over. There’s too much hype around it. The bubble is coming and it’s about to burst. Yet, what some people are beginning to see is that AI is part of a group of technologies that we call General Purpose Technologies (this GPT is not the same GPT as in “ChatGPT”. That stands for Generative Pretrained Transformer, but I digress). The thing about General Purpose Technologies is that they are technologies that become so engrained in how we do work that we, as a society who adopts them generally across the whole, cannot separate ourselves from them. Think steam engine, electricity, internet, and mobile phones. These are all General Purpose Technologies. If you’re sick of hearing about AI, get comfy. It’s not going away any time soon and it’s changing. All. The. Time. The GenAI capabilities far surpass those of 6 months ago. I’m not trained in HTML or Python, but I built a mini-CRM in minutes a few weeks ago. Clickable interface, data storage, sharable, retrievable. Mind blowing. In order to keep up with competition, companies need to enable AI in their workflows, and human talent benefits from the use of AI tools, but, and it’s a big but, we need to do this in a thoughtful way.

Companies that want to stay ahead and protect their intellectual property need to start enabling their people with GenAI tools, even while the ROI is still taking shape. Not doing so is the greater risk. Here’s one why: people don’t wait for permission to make their jobs easier. If the tools aren’t available through secure, approved channels, they’ll find them elsewhere. Every time that happens, a little piece of company knowledge leaves with it.

Policies alone don’t prevent behavior. Trust and thoughtful design do. Give people tools that protect the work and respect their intelligence.

And about that ROI everyone is chasing, it’s always hard to prove in the early days. We didn’t wait for a spreadsheet to justify email or for the cloud to look efficient on day one. The real cost isn’t trying too soon; it’s waiting too long to learn what works and what doesn’t.

According to Deloitte, executives say proving GenAI ROI is extremely difficult, yet 85% increased investments in the last 12 months, 91% plan to increase it in the next year, and only 6% reported payback in under a year [1]. Yet, the investment continues because the risk of not transforming is too high.

THE AI ADOPTION PARADOX

• 5% increase in AI investment in the prior year

• 91% plan to increase it in the next year

• Only 6% reported payback in under a year
  (Source: Deloitte (2025). AI ROI: The Paradox of Rising Investment and Elusive Returns.
  https://www.deloitte.com/dk/en/issues/generative-ai/ai-roi-the-paradox-of-rising-investment-and-elusive-returns.html)

The insight for today is that AI is here for a long while yet. We can’t rush to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The ways of working will change because of GenAI, but we need to be thoughtful of how they change, and especially thoughtful of the impact those changes has on society. Work will change, of course, but we still need work. We still need money flowing through the economy. We still need people to drive real innovation and to guide the tools. Because after all, these are only tools in a toolkit. The real magic is in our experiences and our journey. In Part 2, we’ll look at what happens when efficiency goes too far, and the human cost of forgetting the people who built the systems we depend on.