The winners of the AI age won’t be the fastest to automate, but the fastest to humanize.

AI is shifting business at a breakneck pace. But it won’t just replace workers, it will replace whole companies. Successful companies won’t use AI to replace people, but to deepen their connection to them.

Artificial Intelligence is changing HOW we do business

The long-term influence of AI isn’t replacing people, but replacing businesses. We’re quickly approaching a world where a small team of a handful of entrepreneurs will be able to run circles around companies with 10, even 100, times the employees.

At the same time, the Western world is gripped with a huge trust deficit. We no longer trust our political leaders, the companies we buy from or work for, the charities we support or even each other.

Having your business lay off people so you can replace them with AI is just worsening the problem. AI is a great tool, but without significant human oversight, it favours generic, bland and safe outputs.

In a world with dwindling trust and companies whose public interactions are becoming increasingly robotic, businesses are losing their connection with people. The demand for connection can’t be automated away, leaving an enormous opportunity for disruption.

Why “people first” is the best business strategy

Even with trust being at a historic low, the demand for community has never been higher. People want to trust and connect with others, but they’re struggling to do so.

Social media was touted as the next social revolution. A marketplace for connection and community, the public square of the future. That Pollyannaish outcome was never realized. Social media has indeed become a marketplace, but one peddling political radicalization, endless consumption and mental illness. None of which help the problem.

At the same time, our traditional social institutions are in decline. Organized religion is the most obvious one, but also social organizations, clubs, societies, and all the other stuff nostalgic boomers remind us of.

This demand for community is largely unmet. And it presents a massive business opportunity. The businesses that have started to meet this demand—like Patagonia and LEGO—are enjoying the benefits. But substantial demand remains unclaimed.

Large companies may be able to pivot, but given their focus on efficiency and automation, it seems unlikely. It will be the nimble teams using AI to unleash their creativity who will fill the void and unseat some of their larger, slower competitors.

The 4 Cs of People First Business

Tapping into human connection and building strong communities of loyal followers starts with four key ideas: Core Values, Co-Creation, Communication and Community Building. Let’s explore each.

Start with Core Values

An organization is only as strong as its principles. If these falter, the organization is likely to follow. When building core values that put people first, you must focus on these.

Design around real human needs

Does your business provide a product or service that meets one of the necessities of a happy and healthy life? Or does it act as an impediment?

Build empathy into everything

In all things that you do, you must consider how others will feel and respond to your actions. Scandals do little to build community with your business.

Treat stakeholders as full humans

At all times, your business should engage with suppliers, customers, employees, and communities as full humans with agency. Respect them implicitly and value the relationships you build with them.

Authenticity is the starting point for all communication

In a world without trust, real authenticity (it pains me to have to insert the word ‘real’) is a beacon of light. It’s not about pretending to be authentic, it’s about living it.

Community requires dialogue

Most businesses talk to their stakeholders, not with them. Open dialogues build strong communities.

These core values need to be at the heart of your business. There are too many examples of companies that say one thing and do another. Don’t adopt them if you can’t live them, but if you can, here’s how.

Co-Creation: business development for people

The first time I heard about co-creation, I immediately got images of that car Homer Simpson designed for his brother. The one that ended up destroying the company.

But don’t let that sour the idea of co-creation. That was caused by too little input. Not consulting your community about your business runs the same risk.

Co-creation also isn’t limited to your business’ offerings. It applies to the internal workings of the company equally. That’s why getting a clear picture of everyone involved is so important.

Know people to serve people

Companies have long used ‘market research’ to ‘talk’ to their customers, but stakeholder mapping is much less common. And the idea of mapping stakeholders as living, breathing humans is even more rare.

But if you want to build a people-first business, you have to put people first. And that means learning who those people are and what matters to them. And recognizing that people are not data points and they aren’t static either. Which makes ongoing mapping also necessary.

Trust them and they’ll trust you

Once you have a clear understanding of your stakeholders, you need to begin treating them as a key component of your business development process. That means asking for employee feedback on policy decisions and using community feedback to inform product or service development. LEGO has a website where fans can submit their ideas for new LEGO kits. Kits released through the program include numerous pop culture references and STEM themes. Netflix is known for including staff from all levels when it comes to developing company policies. This stance is credited for why Netflix has one of the most forward-thinking Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policies in its industry.

Empathy is more than a buzzword

It has become popular to pay lip service to empathy. Tragically, much of the talk around Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores and EDI seem more about performing empathy than practicing it.

An empathy-aware company needs to build in metrics to measure it in stakeholder relationships. Incorporating this into performance evaluations, one-on-ones, and even 360 reviews offers a concrete way to measure empathy throughout the company.

Authenticity is the key to communication

I stated earlier that I find it unsettling that I have to preface the word authenticity with another word for authenticity to get my point across. That shows how much the word is thrown around without being used.

Authenticity starts with telling real stories. Stories that highlight failures and mistakes are just as important, if not more, than the ones about success. Showing growth from a mistake can win more people over than any success story can. One of the most common story tropes in literature is the hero’s journey, which includes a moment where the hero falters and then comes back stronger. There’s a reason this trope has survived for thousands of years.

Whatever you do, don’t gaslight. Outside of Machiavelli and Robert Greene, nobody recommends gaslighting as a viable long-term strategy for any enterprise.

Instead, develop KPIs that track authenticity. Measure stakeholder confidence and participation. Assign transparency scores to communications and develop repair resolution timeframes when blunders occur.

Finally, embrace criticism. Too many companies (and people) ignore or attack their critics, even when valid points are being made. In 2009, Domino’s Pizza held focus groups for its critics and used the feedback to make significant changes to every aspect of its recipes. This resulted in a 14.3% increase in sales the following year.

Dialogue lives at the centre of community

Communities are just groups of people with shared interests. You can’t dictate to a community. They require dialogue to share and discover those common interests. The same goes for your business’ community.

The crucial difference between communication and dialogue is listening. Building a community requires developing systems that listen. This can include market research and open-door policies, as well as highlighting community contributions. Your business should also show when your community has influenced your decisions and activities. Knowing they have a say will help them feel connected to the outcomes. Patagonia donates 1% of sales to environmental causes, empowers employees to take paid time off for activism, and openly campaigns against overconsumption, even if it means fewer sales. This alignment between values and action is why customers treat it more like a cause than a company.

This may all seem like a lot, but it has never been easier, and as AI continues to develop, it will become even easier.

The role of Artificial Intelligence in people-first business

It might seem counterintuitive that machine infrastructure would have a key role to play in a human-centric business model. Current trends at large corporations make it an even harder sell.

But this radical transformation is made all the more possible with AI. When you can offload repetitive tasks and streamline background processes, you can spend more time building communities.

Businesses come with drudgery. Managing finances, analyzing data, generating summaries, filling forms and organizing databases. All this work keeps us from engaging in the community-building activities that, let’s be real, take a lot of time and so don’t get prioritized. Imagine AI automatically summarizing every customer service chat so your team can spend their time calling customers directly to solve issues, not sifting through transcripts.

Large businesses are going about AI the wrong way. They see AI as a solution to the ‘people problem.’ Expect many of your interactions with those companies to feel as hollow as their policies. The winners in the age of AI will be those who use artificial intelligence to free themselves up for creative community-building work.

What are you waiting for?

You can’t treat humanizing your business like a PR campaign. It requires a systems redesign that puts real human needs at the center of your decisions, metrics, and day-to-day operations.

Start small. Iterate quickly. Turn goodwill into repeatable practice. Will you publish a memo explaining a decision and invite feedback? Ask customers to co-design your next product? Or join a community of people-first leaders by clicking subscribe?

And, if you’re ready to take the next step, book a call with me, and we’ll talk about it… as people.