Beyond Efficiency: How AI Helps Us Become More Deeply Human

Author

Charlene Li
December 08, 2025

Here's a radical idea: what if the greatest value of AI isn't how much productivity it can squeeze out of people and systems?

What if its greatest value lies in how it's making us more human?

I know—it sounds counterintuitive. We're investing millions in AI tools, measuring ROI in time saved and tasks automated, and I'm here suggesting the real prize is something else entirely.

But hear me out.

Last year, Klarna made headlines when they laid off 700 customer service agents and went all-in on AI. You probably remember the story—it was everywhere, positioned as the future of business. Except it wasn't. Customer satisfaction plummeted. And in the end, the company ended up hiring many people back. 

They made the classic mistake of treating AI purely as an efficiency play. They optimized for productivity and forgot about humanity.

Here’s what we should be asking: "What will we do with the time and cognitive space AI creates?"

The Superhuman Opportunity

Here's what Katia Walsh and I are exploring in our upcoming book, Winning With AI: a phenomenon that we call "integrated intelligence." 

It's not artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence, which both focus on AI matching or exceeding human capabilities. Integrated intelligence is about something different: combining what's uniquely powerful about AI with what's uniquely powerful about being human.

Think about your typical workday. After 15 back-to-back meetings, do you have the brain power or emotional capacity to be deeply present? To truly connect with nuance? To exercise the kind of judgment that makes you an extraordinary leader?

Most of us are just exhausted. We're running on fumes, making binary decisions because we don't have space for anything more complex.

AI changes that equation. When AI handles repetitive cognitive tasks, it frees up time. More importantly, it creates space for the things that make us uniquely, powerfully human.

What AI Brings to the Table

AI offers two game-changing capabilities:

Probabilistic thinking. Instead of the old "will this work, yes or no?" mindset, AI lets us understand multiple potential outcomes simultaneously. We can see what factors shift the odds of success and focus on those, rather than forcing ourselves into false either/or choices. This opens up entirely new pathways for leadership.

Network intelligence. Your individual productivity now feeds into a larger collective intelligence. When you contribute insights or solve problems, you're not just creating value for your team—you're contributing to a broader knowledge network that makes everyone smarter.

But what really matters is what we do with these capabilities.

Five Uniquely Human Dimensions

In our research, Katia and I identified five areas that remain profoundly, irreplaceably human—no matter how sophisticated AI becomes:

💟 1. Empathy. AI can use empathetic language, but it can't actually care about your well-being. It hasn't experienced feelings or had human experiences. Real empathy requires that shared sense of humanity, and as humans, that’s exclusively ours.

🪞 2. Self-reflection. AI can serve as a mirror, revealing patterns in your behavior and thinking. But only you can look inward, decide what matters, and choose to change. That decision about who you want to become is uniquely human. 

⚡ 3. Intuition. AI can validate your gut feelings by analyzing patterns. But intuition itself is embodied. It comes from having lived through countless moments, not just processing data. 

🧑‍⚖️ 4. Judgment. A friend once told me that early in his career, someone said he lacked good judgment. So he deliberately put himself in situations requiring decision after decision, evaluating each one afterward. That's what judgment is: deciding what's right based on values, context, and responsibility for consequences. AI has no inherent values, no stake in outcomes, no accountability. We do.

💡 5. Wisdom. This one's my favorite. Wisdom isn't just knowledge. It's what you've become over decades of living. It comes from failures, losses, experiences, and learning what truly matters. As the saying goes, wisdom comes only from a life fully lived.

The Leadership Choice

So here's the choice you face as a leader: will you use AI primarily for efficiency, or will you develop superhumans in your organization?

Superhumans, or people who marry AI's capabilities with deeply human qualities, don't just handle efficiency gains. They understand strategy, people, nuance, all the things that matter in leadership. They're leaders intuitively, because of how they work and their deeply human approach.

This requires intentionality. You don't stumble into developing integrated intelligence. You choose it.

And we believe the first companies that figure this out will have a massive competitive advantage. They'll create a form of value that's incredibly difficult to replicate.

What You Can Do Right Now

Start with these tactical steps:

💬 Talk to your AI-fluent people. Focus not on what they're producing, but on what's holding them back. Ask them, "What could you attempt if you had full autonomy over one initiative?" Listen for the gap between potential and reality.

🔎 Identify your disruptors. I have a special place in my heart for disruptors—those intellectually insubordinate people who see change that needs to happen. They can be hard to manage, but give them enough structure and direction, and they'll create tremendous value.

⚒️ Build a movement. Big changes require movements that take on lives of their own. Think about how to create that momentum for integrated intelligence in your organization.

🌟 Model it yourself. You have to go first. Expand your scope of understanding. Show how you use AI to become a better leader. Don't be that leader who says "everyone should use AI" while adding "except me" in subtext.

The Honest Truth

I'll be straight with you: we don't have a prescriptive playbook yet on how to develop superintelligence. We're still figuring out how to write effective prompts in organizations. This is brand new territory.

The leaders who step into this space now, who figure out what it looks like to use AI to amplify empathy, self-reflection, intuition, judgment, and wisdom—they're going to create incredible value.

💬 Your Turn

Imagine 10-15% of your organization developed this integrated intelligence—combining AI’s unique abilities with deeply human qualities. What would change? What would become possible? Is that potential worth investigating?

What I Can’t Stop Talking About

  • Gen Z isn’t lazy—they’re redefining ambition. Transform how you approach your younger team members and you may find that they transform your organization for the better. 

  • AI isn’t just about ROI. Then what is it about? Leaders who learn to focus on unlocking value milestones have the right idea. 

  • Join me tomorrow (Tuesday) for a live conversation unpacking the myth of the “generation gap” in AI adoption and what leaders really need to focus on to build AI-ready organizations.

 My Upcoming Appearances/Travel

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