The AI at work needs humans behind the wheel
How much can we evolve AI?
And how many people can we replace when we do it?
This is the conversation that takes place in too many conference rooms today.
But it’s bad.
For many leaders, logic is simple: if we can automate more, we can become thinner. If intelligent tools can do the work of five, why hire five? And we see it on the market – congratulating each other, graphics of lean organs. With a leaf view, this is perfectly logical.
But if we follow this logic at its conclusion – if the objective is simply to do the same work with fewer people – we risk understanding not only what AI is capable, but on which our organizations are really constructed.
Because here is the truth: in a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools, technology itself does not give you an advantage. The question is not only what AI can do.
The question is: What do you do with you?
AI at work alone is not a strategy
AI quickly becomes a commodity. The same models, APIs and tools are available for your competitors, your partners – and in some cases, your customers. If all you do is use AI to reproduce what you already do, you will find yourself in a race down.
Productivity gains are important, but they are not your moat. What differentiates your organization is not how your tools work, but how your employees think, create, decide and respond in a way that no machine can. Culture, adaptability, insight – these are not gentle elements. They are your power. They are the last lasting advantage in a world where technology moves faster than commercial models.
Even innovation itself does not come from the tools. This comes from people – often from the friction of experience, contradiction, emotion and collaboration. Automatize too much in search of speed or scale, and you may suffocate innovation even that you are trying to unlock.
There is also the question of risk. While AI infiltrates more decisions – from hiring to customer service to strategic planning – leaders will have to take into account not only what is effective, but of what is responsible. The algorithms will not capture ethical red flags, reputation risks or cultural misconduct. It falls to people. And to companies that allow them to intervene, to question the hypotheses and to correct the courses if necessary.
And although AI can improve convenience, customers are more and more sensitive to the way a business works – not just what it offers. In an economy of trust, the leadership centered on man becomes a brand asset – the one who appears in the product, the service, the tone and the values behind the two.
Why driving humans are a commercial imperative
This is why we need a different framing –
Not “how do we use fewer people”, “
But “How to rethink what the work with people looks like?”
What are they here to do?
How should they lead?
And how do we help them evolve as technology accelerates around them?
“I am starting not to love the term” humans in the loop, “said Kelly JonesDirector of people in Cisco, in a recent conversation for The future of less work podcast. “I think they are” humans behind the wheel “. It is not only a question of working with the machines.
This change in the state of mind – of man in the loop to humans behind the wheel – is more than semantics. It’s strategic. Human in the loop involves surveillance – a control point for a system that takes place. Human driving involves the agency. Direction. Intention. The ability not only to approve what the technology produces, but also to shape what it is used in the first place.
And this counts at the highest level. Not as a message of well-being on engagement, but as a basic commercial strategy.
Bring people through the green hole
Of course, none of this occurs by decree. You can’t just tell people to think more strategically while replacing the work they have done with an algorithm. You must guide them through the transition – not only operational, but emotionally.
“How to take our humans through this worm hole?” Asks Jones. “Work is a very existential thing … So in a world where the tasks you perform, you are used to getting great personal value, are no longer the tasks we need for you – how do we get this change … into a higher workpiece that we really need?”
This is not a training problem. It is a redefinition problem. And it will not be resolved by work descriptions, dashboards or descending messaging.
This will require leadership that sees people not as a cost, but as the differentiation factor in a world where everything else is reproducible. You have to invest in redefinition, not just reskilling. Help people understand how they contribute now – and why it still matters.
Because when people no longer feel essential to the result, they disengage. But when they see that they are always the engine of decisions, strategy and goal, they get up.
This is where the conversation must go. Not “how many jobs can we replace?” But “how do we move on what work means?”
Companies that thrive in the AI era will not be those that have the most automation. They will be the ones who have the most alignment – between what technology can do and what people are unique to create.
The future of AI at work is not to replace humans. It is a question of achieving how more the work should be.
