More human, not less

There was excitement about what AI makes possible, but plenty of anxiety too. What will it mean for creative careers? Will it undermine originality? And if we all have access to the same tools, will everything begin to look and sound the same?

After hearing so much about machines, “Get Human” felt like a timely instruction.

The debate around AI is often framed as a contest between people and technology. The machines become more capable; people become less necessary. But I left Berlin wondering whether there might be a more optimistic way of looking at it.

What if AI could help us become more human, rather than less?

I work in the creative industry, predominantly with financial advice and wealth management firms. On the surface, those two worlds can look very different. In reality, they have quite a lot in common.

Both involve large quantities of information, administration and repetitive production. Both are expected to communicate across an increasing number of channels. And both are exploring how AI might make their work faster and more efficient.

Most importantly, however, they are both built around people.

Financial advice is not simply about processing data or producing a suitability report. It means understanding someone’s ambitions, relationships, worries and priorities. It requires trust, empathy, experience and judgment, particularly when clients are facing the moments that matter most in their lives.

Creativity and brand building depend on many of the same qualities. Technology can generate words, images and hundreds of variations, but it cannot fully understand what makes a business distinctive. Nor can it reliably recognise the idea that will make someone stop, feel something and remember it.

I talk a lot about humanising brands and bringing the people behind a business to the forefront. This is especially important in financial advice, where people are not an incidental part of the brand. They are often the reason a client chooses one firm over another.

Your people are one of the few things a competitor cannot replicate. Showing their personalities, values and expertise builds trust, creates a genuine point of difference and gives clients a reason to connect with the business.

AI may help us tell those stories more efficiently, but it should never smooth away the personality that makes them worth telling. As more businesses gain access to the same technology, human difference will become more valuable, not less.

That reflects the scale now expected of marketing teams. Brands must appear across more platforms, formats and personalised communications than ever before. AI makes it possible to adapt and produce material at a speed that would once have been unimaginable.

The opportunity in financial advice is similar, even if the applications are different. AI can help organise information, summarise meetings, identify gaps, prepare initial drafts and reduce time spent on routine administration.

Within a creative agency, it can accelerate research, explore early directions, resize assets and adapt content into different formats.

I do not think that has to diminish the role of people. At its best, it removes some of the friction surrounding the work people do best.

For advisers, that could create more time to listen, ask better questions and understand the family dynamics behind a financial decision.

For creative teams, it could create more room for original thinking, informed judgment and the slightly unpredictable leaps that lead to genuinely distinctive ideas.

Faster does not automatically mean better

AI makes it possible to produce more content, but I am not convinced that more content is what any of us need. Used without care, it could simply fill the world with faster, cheaper and increasingly forgettable communication.

Efficiency only becomes valuable when we reinvest the time it creates wisely.

That is where I see the real opportunity. Not in replacing advisers, designers, writers or marketers, but in allowing them to spend less time servicing processes and more time applying their experience, imagination and humanity.

Clients still want to feel heard and understood. They still want an adviser who can bring clarity to difficult decisions and reassurance to uncertain moments.

Audiences still respond to distinctive ideas and authentic stories. They remember brands that make an emotional connection rather than simply adding to the noise.

Perhaps the most exciting possibility is not that AI will enable businesses to operate with fewer people. It is that it could give people more time to do the parts of their jobs that matter most.

For financial advisers, that means better conversations with clients. For creatives, it means more space for better ideas.

AI may help us work faster. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to use that time to become more human, not less.