No, People Don’t Want More AI In Their Life

 Many companies assume everyone craves new AI features. But the reality is that most people don’t want more AI — at least not in the way most AI leaders envision it. 

Many companies silently assume that everybody wants more AI in their lives. That people are craving new AI features, new AI products, new AI workflows — that would all magically replace all existing outdated practices and broken ways of working.

But in reality, it seems like people don’t want more AI at all — at least not in the way most AI leaders envision it. Unsurprisingly, many AI features have low adoption and retention — at a very high cost of delivery, and a high risk of reputation damage.

The AI People Don’t Need

It’s remarkably difficult to make a strong argument with senior leadership, but AI is not a value proposition. New AI features don’t magically make for happy or excited customers. Because AI features are often bolt-ons and separate tools for employees to use, they typically take people out of their regular way of working.

AI is pretty good at amplifying shortcuts and shortcomings in organizations — from data quality to decision making. It can’t magically fix years of accumulated quick patches, technical debt, broken culture and internal politics. If anything, they become more visible with AI as inconsistencies or conflicting priorities and get handed directly to users, who are then left to make sense of the mess themselves.

Because in most organizations, work typically requires hopping on and off between plenty of disconnected and fragmented systems, with a new AI tool, they now have yet another system that they also need to hop on and off. Often it produces more work, and typically it’s not particularly rewarding work either.

On top of that, people are very much aware of the cost of finding and fixing AI hallucinations. Asking AI to generate a response might feel easier than writing from scratch, but it has a cost:

• Skim through the entire AI output,
• Spot key points to focus attention on,
• Review/verify key points, one-by-one,
• Check rationale for what follows next,
• Articulate corrections + regenerate,
• Review the response (a number of times).

AI goes in Key Activities and Key Resources — not in Value Propositions. Image by David Bland.

For many people, AI isn’t something they can proactively choose and explore on their own — it arrives uninvited, at someone else’s pace. On top of that, plenty of messages amplify fears and worries about AI replacing work — so it’s hardly surprising that the perception of AI isn’t excitement. It’s resistance to change and deep anxiety about one’s place in a world that seems to be changing without them.

AI Productivity Study / US: AI doesn’t reduce work — it intensifies it. Via Mike Rosenberg, NBC News, HBR, WSJ, Activtrak.

At best, AI features might be silently accepted or nodded away. At worst, AI raises concerns, doubts, caution — and calls for a healthy dose of skepticism. And sometimes it’s perceived as a threat or liability — because unlike other features, AI is neither predictable nor reliable.

People don’t dream of AI art museums or AI fridges or AI hotel reception or AI-narrated children’s books. They don’t want their children to have romantic AI partners. Most people don’t want to actively manage (and clean up after) a swarm of AI agents roaming in their bank accounts and acting on their behalf in the real world. And most notably, people don’t really want a magical box to speak to or type into all the time.

The AI People Actually Need

I’m always puzzled by the comparison of AI features with how unreliable humans are. But people don’t compare software with other people. They compare features with features — and if one feature in one product is unreliable, while a similar feature works flawlessly in another, they choose the latter. It’s not about AI or not AI, but rather what works consistently and reliably, and what doesn’t.

Many conversations about AI are conversations about the speed of delivery. But to many people, there is little value in increasing the speed of delivery. They want to do things well, with enough time to think and make good decisions. They also want to enjoy the time they spend working on things, rather than just ship faster. There is an enormous feeling of reward and achievement that slowly disappears, one vibe-coded change at a time.

People don’t change much. And after all these years, they (still) want features that are fast, accessible, reliable, predictable and useful — every single time. And ideally not the ones that replace their entire workflow, but that augment their way of working — and that take over the most mundane, annoying, and boring tasks that they find no pleasure in.

Jobs least and most vulnerable to AI. Sources: GovAI and Brookings Institution, via The Washington Post.

Many jobs are exposed to AI automation, but in many of them there is a rewarding, unique, creative part that requires taste, point of view, and perhaps even human intuition. And if AI automates boring parts of it, that’s an advantage for everyone. That’s also what enhances productivity and brings more joy in daily life.

When AI automates tedious and mentally exhausting tasks, its value is much easier to grasp. But for that, AI shouldn’t feel like a bolt-on. It should be deeply integrated into people’s existing workflows. It must also match existing mental models that they have developed and fine-tuned for years or decades. AI should adapt to how people think and make decisions, not the other way around.

And it doesn’t really matter if these features are branded as “AI”, “smart” or “automation”. However, they must work well for people using them. And that means that people must be aware of use cases where it actually helps them, and be inspired to find more use cases on their own.

Ironically, tools that work well there aren’t “AI-first” — they are “AI-second”. Subtle, humble, calm, ambient, taking a supportive role in the background for work that otherwise is remarkably dull and unnecessary.

I don’t want to read books written by AI. I don’t want to gaze upon paintings by AI. I don’t want AI to teach my children. I don’t want to have an AI therapist. I don’t want AI making my medical decisions. I want AI to do all the physical and mental labor that taxes me so I can read books written by humans and go to art galleries to engage with art made by humans. I want AI that makes my life easier rather than forces me to change myself.

— Bo Young Lee

Wrapping Up

Perhaps I’m missing a bigger picture, and perhaps I’m just old school — but I really do like people. Their stories, their thinking, their emotions, their enthusiasm, their laughing. AI can be remarkably helpful in many situations, but so are people. And between the two, I would favor spending time with a human — however imperfect they are — every single time.

No, people don’t need more AI in their lives — they need AI to automate all the boring stuff they have to deal with every day, so they have more time and headspace to do things that they actually love and enjoy doing. That doesn’t mean spending more time with AI — but spending more time with people they love.

Useful Resources

• AI Adoption Gap: IBM 2026 Study, by MindStudio
• Powered by AI Is Not a Value Proposition, by Nielsen Norman Group
• AI Chatbots Discourage Error Checking, by Nielsen Norman Group
• The Jobs Most Exposed to AI Automation, by The Washington Post
• On AI and What We Actually Want From It, by Bo Young Lee

 

 

The real reason you think of the perfect thing to say an hour too late

 

You know the feeling. You're in a meeting, someone says something, and the perfect reply, the clever line, the joke that would had everyone laughing and crying, arrives in your head at exactly the wrong time. About an hour after everyone's gone home.

For the longest time I assumed people were just born quick. Quick-witted, quick on their feet, funny in the moment without appearing to try. The rest of us, I figured, were stuck arriving late to our own best thoughts.

I was wrong about that, and I want to show you why, because being quick in the moment is a skill you can build, not a personality you're either issued at birth or you're not.

It starts somewhere that sounds completely unrelated: mastery over the foundations.

Think about a good driver. When the car in front does something sudden and stupid, the good driver dodges without thinking. They don't consult a mental checklist for where the brake is or how the steering works. All of that became automatic a long time ago, which frees up their full attention to react to whatever's happening in front of them. The nervous learner driver, still thinking about their hands and their mirrors and their feet, has no attention left over. When something unexpected happens, they freeze.

Communication works the same way. Your foundations are your voice (your pace, your volume, your melody, your pauses) and your body (your gestures, posture, eye contact, expressions). If you're standing in a meeting silently managing all of that, wondering what your hands should be doing and whether your voice sounds odd, you've got no spare attention left to actually be present. And presence is the whole game. You cannot catch the funny observation, the sharp point, the perfect moment to lighten the room, if every scrap of your focus is turned inward.

As you've likely already worked out, for most people who speak - they're not present at all. They're trapped in their own heads running a loop of worry. "I hope they like this idea. I hope I'm saying this right. I hope nobody asks me something I can't answer." When you're that deep in your own headspace, you have zero chance of picking up on what someone just said and throwing something clever back. None. Your attention is already spoken for.

Master the foundations, though, and something changes. The mechanics go quiet because they've become second nature, and suddenly you feel calm, comfortable, and clear-headed. You're finally present in the room instead of narrating your own performance from inside your skull. That presence is where quickness actually comes from.

Then there's the second part, and it's important to note, it's what almost nobody practises. The art of reviewing and reflecting.

Let's go back to school for a moment. When some kids failed a test, they'd shove it in their bag, never look at it again, and move straight on to the next topic. Other kids went back through every wrong answer to work out exactly what went wrong, so they'd never make those same mistakes again. I was very much in the first group and kept failing, and I quietly concluded I was just dumb. I wasn't dumb. I'd simply never been taught to look back and learn from what just happened. Nobody seems to teach that. Or at least, none of the teaching staff from 'back in my day' (it finally happened, I've become old) - instead, they handed me the test and said "right, on to the next thing."

So here's your one thing to try this week, and it's the habit that changes everything.

After your next meeting or important conversation, block out five or ten minutes immediately afterward, not three days later while it's stale, but right then while it's fresh. Sit down and ask yourself one question: what could I have done better in there? What did I want to say and miss? What was the joke or the point that showed up too late?

At first this will sting a little, because the great idea will still be arriving about an hour after the meeting ended, and you'll think "damn it, why didn't that come to me in the room?" Stay with it anyway. Here's what happens as the habit compounds. That gap starts to close. The idea that used to land an hour late starts landing five minutes late. Then, one day, it starts arriving while you're still in the conversation, right when you actually need it. The reflection you used to do afterward quietly moves forward in time until it's happening live. That's the whole secret. What looks like natural quick wit is almost always a well-practised habit of reflection that has crept earlier and earlier until it became 'instant'.

I walk through all of this, including the timeline of how that gap closes

And if you'd like to build those foundations properly, I run a free 2-hour masterclass where I teach the top three communication frameworks I use most, so you can speak with more clarity and stop rambling under pressure. It won't cost you a cent

Here's what I want you to leave with: You were never too slow, too awkward, or too far behind. You just hadn't been shown how this actually works. Now you have. Build your foundations until they run themselves, reflect for five honest minutes after the moments that matter, and watch what happens as those late ideas creep earlier and earlier until they land right when you need them. This is one of the most freeing truths I know: the communicator you wish you were is not someone else. It's you, a little further down a path you can start walking today. So go and take the first step. The next conversation is as good a place as any.

See you again soon!