Will AI Erase the Human Touch? Preserving Personality and Purpose in the Age of Automation

Introduction

When I first looked at this topic, I initially believed the answer was straightforward. However, the deeper I went, the more I realised how vital human input is for shaping effective organizational cultures. While artificial intelligence can offer extraordinary tools for efficiency and insight, it often falls short in capturing the nuances of human relationships, emotional intelligence, and personality - qualities integral to creating a culture that resonates deeply with people.

I typically use my own AI driven research engines to help me find the information to write these articles, but in this case, it fell well short on what I needed. Even after I upgraded my research tool to use the latest research models, including OpenAI o3-pro, it still could not grasp what I was asking. Case in point: humans remain essential for interpreting nuance, context, and purpose - areas where even the most advanced AI still falls short.

In my article Leading in Complexity, I discussed the concept that human systems, like control systems, rely on feedback loops. Culture is not static - it's dynamic and reactive, adjusting to signals, incentives, and structures. If AI accelerates those signals, then without cultural alignment, it creates instability. The erosion of the human touch isn’t caused by AI - it’s caused by human systems that don’t adapt in time.

Ultimately, there is no single answer to whether AI will erase the human touch. Instead, the more important question is how your organisation will evolve its systems - particularly its culture - to remain relevant, resilient, and human in an increasingly automated world. The impact of AI on your culture will not be determined by the technology itself, but by how your leaders, people, and systems adapt to the change it brings.

What is culture in an organisation

Culture is all the things that make up how the people in your organisation act and interact with each other, your customers, and suppliers. It’s the thing that underpins the human touch. The human touch can be good for your organisation, but it can also be what makes it fail. When you truly understand your organisational culture, you will know what the impact will be from AI on your organisations “Human Touch”.

Your culture consists of:

Values and Beliefs

• The core principles that guide behaviour (e.g., integrity, innovation, customer focus).

• Often articulated in mission and vision statements.

Norms and Behaviours

• Unwritten rules about how people are expected to behave.

• These influence communication style, decision-making, conflict resolution, and leadership.

Symbols and Language

• Jargon, rituals, dress codes, or office design that reflect the culture.

• For example, a startup may encourage casual dress and informal communication.

Practices and Rituals

• Regular events or ceremonies (e.g., team stand-ups, recognition programs).

• These reinforce desired behaviours and foster community.

Leadership and Management Style

• Leadership sets the tone through behaviour, priorities, and how they manage performance.

• Authoritarian vs. participative leadership leads to very different cultures.

Organisational Structure and Processes

• Hierarchies, reporting lines, and workflows can reinforce or undermine cultural values.

• Agile structures promote flexibility, while rigid structures may support stability.

Don’t confuse a good culture with one that delivers short term gains. A good culture is one that works for the long term, creates value for your organisations. A good organisational culture will ensure your organisation can deliver on its mission, vision, goals, and objectives, and ensure that all feel safe and want to work in your organisation.

In the McKinsey & Company article Organizing for the Future: Nine Keys to Becoming a Future-Ready Company (De Smet, Gagnon, & Mygatt, 2021), the authors state that “future-ready organizations accomplish this in three ways: they get clear on their purpose; they know how they create value and why they’re unique; and they create strong and distinct cultures that help attract and retain the best people.”

This insight is particularly relevant when considering the role of AI in reshaping how organisations operate. It highlights that culture is not a passive backdrop, but an active enabler of value creation and organisational resilience. While the article was written during the late stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, its emphasis on clarity, uniqueness, and cultural strength has only become more critical with the rise of AI. The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) and automation technologies has accelerated the need for cultural systems that can absorb change, rather than resist it.

Building on the systems thinking framework I explored in my article From complexity to clarity: Empowering the boardroom to make confident decisions on AI, cloud, and emerging technologies , we can also view organisational culture as a dynamic system shaped by feedback loops - reacting to signals, incentives, and structural shifts. While that article focused on executive decision-making, the same logic applies here.

Culture is critical to enable your organisation in creating value and ultimately that “human touch” is how your organisation operates and how people perceive your organisation.

Cultural Alignment to Business Value

In our article Return on Innovation: The Case for Structured Creativity, Vriti Magee and I reframed ROI from a finance-first lens to a signal of maturity: return on innovation, not just investment. That shift is equally relevant to culture.

A culture that supports innovation doesn’t just encourage experimentation - it responds to failure constructively, adjusts incentives, and creates space for learning. This is how culture aligns with business value: it forms the response system through which AI adoption creates sustainable differentiation. You don’t need a better model - you need a better system that can evolve with the model.

Culture as the Strategic Foundation for AI Integration

In my article Bridging the AI Gap: What Australian Boards Need from Technology Leaders, I highlighted that boards and technology leaders must stop viewing AI as a bolt-on and start embedding it into strategic decision-making. The same is true for culture.

An adaptive culture makes AI a co-pilot. It invites human judgement to sit beside machine insight. A misaligned culture treats AI either as a threat to be resisted or a tool to be forced in. Both are losing positions. The winning position is when culture prepares people to work with AI - to question its outputs, refine its learning, and guide its purpose.

As McKinsey's research suggests, future-ready organisations are not defined by their technologies but by how clearly, they align culture with purpose and execution. Strong cultural foundations allow organisations to adopt AI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for deeper transformation - where trust, purpose, and human judgment remain central.

Boards must see culture not as a side-effect of leadership style but as an asset class - a value driver that shapes resilience, ethical risk posture, and agility. It must be assessed, adjusted, and governed with the same rigour as financial risk or operational metrics.

Will AI destroy your culture?

In simple terms, if your organisational culture isn’t accepting of changes, then the answer is clear: AI could be destructive to your culture. Resistance to change often breeds stagnation, and in an era defined by rapid technological change, this stagnation can have serious implications for growth and adaptability.

Organisational culture must be flexible and proactive to thrive in the face of innovations like AI. A rigid, change-resistant culture not only hampers the integration of emerging technologies but also risks alienating employees who eventually need to collaborate with these advancements. On the other hand, a culture that embraces adaptability and openness to evolution will find AI to be an asset rather than a threat.

The challenge is in cultivating a mindset that acknowledges change as inevitable and beneficial. This involves fostering an environment where leaders encourage innovation, employees are empowered to learn and adapt, and technological tools are seen as extensions of human capabilities rather than replacements. Without this paradigm shift, organisations risk falling behind in a rapidly evolving landscape where agility and responsiveness are paramount.

Retaining the Human Touch

We’ve discussed the cultural impact and how it relates to the “Human Touch”, but what can you do as a business to ensure you keep it and grow as you adopt AI.

To preserve the human touch, culture must absorb the impact of AI and enable value-enhancing behaviours. Based on my articles Leading AI and LLM Adoption Through Cybersecurityand “Beyond Convergence”, three leadership imperatives emerge:

1. Prepare culture as an adaptive system. Educate leaders to understand that culture is shaped by reinforcement, not slogans. Build mechanisms that reward learning, not just performance. Let AI be the mirror - but not the master—of your culture.

2. Make people central to AI integration. AI isn’t a replacement for people - it’s a stressor on systems. Inclusion in design, training, and decision cycles creates resilience. As you wrote in your SMB guide, “AI adoption succeeds when people become participants, not passengers.”

3. Train and govern as one system. Training without structural alignment creates friction. Governance without cultural buy-in creates shadow systems. AI must be introduced with a governance layer that reinforces the values and behaviours your culture seeks to protect.

If people are an important part of your value chain you need to make them a part of the AI adoption, not the receivers of the AI adoption.

Conclusion: AI Won’t Erase the Human Touch - But Poor Culture Might

Artificial intelligence will not erase the human touch - unless we allow our culture to atrophy in its shadow. The true risk is not in the AI models we deploy, but in whether your cultural systems are prepared to evolve alongside them. When organisations value people, reinforce learning, and embed adaptability, AI becomes a co-pilot - enhancing rather than diminishing the human system.

But when culture is rigid, reactive, or disconnected from the organisation’s purpose, AI will accelerate misalignment, not performance. The answer, then, is not binary. AI will either strengthen or erode your human touch based on whether your culture is ready to lead through change, not just survive it.

To thrive in the age of AI automation, your organisation must treat culture not as a by-product of leadership, but as a strategic system that enables people, empowers judgement, and preserves what makes your business human.

References

1. Price, S. (2025, April 14). From complexity to clarity: Empowering the boardroom to make confident decisions on AI, cloud, and emerging technologies. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-complexity-clarity-empowering-boardroom-make-confident-price-rxnuc/

2. Price, S. (2025, May 14). Leading in complexity: Augmenting executive decision-making with systems thinking and AI. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leading-complexity-augmenting-executive-systems-thinking-price-dzcbc/

3. De Smet, A., Gagnon, C., & Mygatt, E. (2021, January 11). Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/organizing-for-the-future-nine-keys-to-becoming-a-future-ready-company

4. Magee, V. & Price, S. (2025, June 1). Return on innovation: The case for structured creativity. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/return-innovation-case-structured-creativity-vriti-magee-vbkic/

5. Price, S., (2025, March 22). Bridging the AI Gap: What Australian Boards Need from Technology Leaders. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bridging-ai-gap-what-australian-boards-need-from-technology-price-a3qqc/

6. Price, S. (2025, February 23). Leading AI and LLM adoption through cybersecurity. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leading-ai-llm-adoption-through-cybersecurity-shaun-price-qtwyc/

7. Price, S. (2025, May 11). Beyond convergence: Navigating the next frontier of technological integration. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-convergence-navigating-next-frontier-shaun-price-7wk7c/