Will our use of AI impact our ability to relate to each other in person? #
Updated June 29, 2026 [ Reviewed by Kaja Perina
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Key points
- AI can reassure and validate us, but validation is not the same as trust or intimacy.
- Real relationships grow through vulnerability, disagreement and shared imperfection.
- Over-reliance on AI risks weakening the habits that underpin empathy and authentic connection.
- Embracing change and building relationships isn't a choice between AI or HI—it's knowing how to balance both.
AI is changing how we work, write and communicate. But there is another question we are only beginning to ask: what happens when it changes how we relate to other people?
Part of the challenge lies in striking the right balance between AI and HI - Human Interaction. The more we rely on AI bots in apps like Gmail and LinkedIn to write our emails and posts, the less we will strive for genuine and meaningful interaction.
But there may be a deeper issue. Will our interactions with AI impact how we expect conversations to flow in real life?
The more we rely on AI for support, feedback and even companionship, the less tolerant we may become of the vulnerability, friction and imperfections that make real relationships human.
What happens when we begin to prefer responses that feel good over relationships that help us to grow?
1. AI Rewards Us With Validation — But Praise is not Intimacy
AI is trained to agree with us and praise us - to make us feel good about ourselves. That is not how we typically communicate in person. In-person communication can often be more blunt, even brutal. Much depends on the strength and depth of individual relationships and personality styles, but if we become used to the reinforcement AI offers, will our expectations of how we want people to communicate with us change over time?
If we become accustomed to conversations that always reassure us, will we become less comfortable with conversations that challenge us? There are already countless articles about people dating or befriending AI bots because they prefer the conversation, combating loneliness through AI because it says what they want to hear.
That is not how human relationships should evolve. A human relationship forged on trusted, respected connection means you don't have to always say what someone wants to hear. A true friend sometimes tells you what you don't want to hear, but need to hear.
To understand why this matters, it helps to look at trust more precisely. The Trust Equation, developed by David Maister and co-authors in The Trusted Advisor, defines the four key elements of trust as credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation. AI can, over time, demonstrate credibility and reliability. But intimacy? AI only knows what you reveal. It cannot experience your emotions or share your history.
AI also doesn’t think in terms of self- or other-orientation. It doesn't have an agenda, neither caring about itself or you. It will respond to requests based on your input.
Those two factors - intimacy and low self-orientation - are our human superpower in building deeper trust in relationships. And they are precisely the two elements that separate us from AI.
2. Humans Need Vulnerability and "Messiness" for Genuine Connection
Humans don’t build relationships despite their imperfections. Often they are stronger because of them.
These are qualities that make us human. If we move to a world dominated by AI in how we build relationships, engage in conversations or create connection, we lose that humanity.
We need imperfection in our lives. The growing popularity of social media and our need to compare ourselves to others has fed a drive for perfectionism in society that predated such sites. Yet, we need to see people as they are precisely because we are always comparing ourselves to them. If everyone else appears perfect, we become more acutely aware of where we fall short. That carries a huge burden.
There is a practical dimension to this in the workplace. In organisations, much of leadership depends on "reading the room": noticing hesitation, recognising uncertainty, or sensing what hasn't been said. We rely on our human ability to draw on personal experience to uncover unstated concerns. That capacity for empathy is not something AI can replicate.
AI responds to prompts. People respond to people.
3. Over-Reliance on AI Can Reduce Our Tolerance for Human Friction
The greatest risk isn't that AI does our work. It's that it slowly weakens the habits that make us human.
How do we guard against that? The answer is not to reject AI, but to be deliberate about where and how we use it. If you use AI to create more space and time, you need to be mindful about how you use that additional capacity, and use it for human interaction, not just more administration. Deliberately and mindfully use that time to engage with people.
A useful framework here is what I call the AI–HI balance: AI handles the planning, the strategising, the preparing of tactics. But when you engage with people, rely on authentic human connection. No one should feel networked by you. No one should feel that an algorithm has told you that you should be talking to them now. It should feel like a natural connection.
Conclusion
The question is not whether to use AI, that debate is largely settled. The question is whether we are using it in a way that complements what humans can do, or slowly eroding the very capacity for human connection that makes us effective as leaders, colleagues, mentors, and communicators.
Technology can make interaction easier, but only people can build the trust that turns interaction into a meaningful connection.
The future doesn't belong to AI or HI alone. It belongs to people who know when to use artificial intelligence—and when only human interaction will do.
References
Curran, T., Pose, P. M., & Hill, A. P. (2026). Perfectionism is accelerating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analytic review of 35 years of college student data. Psychological Bulletin.
Jeffrey T Hancock, Mor Naaman, Karen Levy (January 2020). AI-Mediated Communication: Definition, Research Agenda, and Ethical Considerations, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 25, Issue 1