Why the Future Still Depends on People

I’m in a fortunate position. Every week, I speak with CEOs, CHROs, and founders across industries. These are smart, seasoned people trying to make sense of a new reality. And yet, the same story repeats itself: one in three people they know is being laid off, often replaced by no one at all. Teams are shrinking, not being redesigned. Departments are collapsing, not evolving.

Boardrooms are asking for generalists” not specialists. Sustainability is being folded into finance or quality. Marketing is being outsourced to ChatGPT or one of its many wrappers. And behind the upbeat talk of efficiency and transformation, something deeper is happening, a quiet erosion of human work.

The Efficiency Paradox

AI can streamline operations, but it can’t sustain an economy. For every human removed from payroll, there’s a household with less income, less spending, and less confidence. That’s the economic loop too few leaders are acknowledging.

We can build the most efficient organisations in history, but without secure employment, demand withers. You can’t sell to an economy that’s out of work. It’s not sentimentality, it’s arithmetic. Prosperity depends on participation.

Automation can replace process, but it cannot replace purpose. It can write copy, analyse data, even mimic empathy, but it cannot generate belief or belonging. And belief is the multiplier every successful organisation runs on.

The workforce isn’t lazy or resistant. It’s overloaded. Gallup and PwC’s recent surveys show record-low engagement and record-high financial stress. Employees are not numbed by apathy, but by relentless change.

When every new initiative feels like another round of disruption, people retreat into self-preservation. Leaders interpret this as inertia, but it’s survival. If we want creativity and commitment back, we have to earn them again, by rebuilding trust and safety first.

A Call to Leaders

If you sit at the top of an organisation, this is the moment to rehumanise your strategy. Use AI to enhance human capability, not erase it. Measure success not only by productivity, but by the vitality and good will of your people.

Ask yourself: Who’s buying your products if too few are earning a living? Who’s innovating if curiosity has been automated away? Who’s building our future if we’ve outsourced the joy of making it?

AI can make companies more efficient, but only people can make economies thrive. Efficiency without empathy isn’t progress, it’s entropy.

Let’s not score an own goal to our future and the generations to come.