A statistic stopped me in my tracks this week. Actually…there were two.
According to a recent YouGov survey, 17% of Australians say they’d sometimes rather stay home and talk to an AI chatbot than go out with friends.
Then I read the next one.
Fourteen per cent of Australians could imagine falling in love with an AI chatbot. Among Gen Z, that rises to 28%.
I’ll be honest. My first reaction was simply…
OMG.
Not because I wanted to criticise a generation, but because those statistics sent my mind somewhere completely different.
Everyone seems to be talking about what AI will do to productivity. I think we’re missing a much bigger conversation.
AI is changing the way people expect to communicate…and then they walk into a workplace led by humans…how do we lead them?
That question has been sitting with me all week.
Think about what AI offers. It’s available 24/7. It’s patient. It listens. It responds instantly. It adapts to you.
It never rolls its eyes. It rarely disagrees in a way that feels personal, and it doesn’t have a bad day because it argued with its partner before work or sat in traffic for an hour.
Now compare that to leadership.
Leadership is messy.
Leadership requires difficult conversations.
It requires accountability.
It requires challenge.
Sometimes it requires telling someone something they don’t want to hear because it’s exactly what they need to hear.
And that’s where I think the conversation gets interesting.
For years we’ve talked about emotional intelligence as the leadership capability of the future. I wonder whether we’re entering another shift.
Not because people are changing. Because the way people communicate is changing.
If an increasing number of people are spending hours every week interacting with technology that is infinitely patient, always available and highly personalised, what expectations does that create when they interact with their manager, their colleagues or their leader?
I don’t know the answer. I don’t think any of us do – yet.
But I think it’s a question worth asking. Because this isn’t really a Gen Z conversation. Every generation has changed leadership.
This feels different because the shift isn’t being driven by age. It’s being driven by technology. And that affects all of us.
So where does that leave leaders? Certainly not trying to compete with AI. We can’t. Nor should we.
AI will always be faster. It will always be available. It will always be more consistent.
But leadership has never been about convenience
It’s about people.
Believing in someone before they believe in themselves.
Delivering honest feedback with respect.
Having the conversation others avoid.
Challenging someone to become more than they currently believe they’re capable of.
That’s something no chatbot can do.
It made me reflect on my own leadership career.
Whenever people ask me what transformed culture in my teams, they often expect me to talk about strategy, KPIs or performance systems.
I always come back to something much simpler.
Relationships.
The best investment I ever made as a leader was spending time getting to know my people. Real one-to-ones. Understanding what motivated them. What frustrated them. What success looked like for them. What they were capable of that they couldn’t yet see themselves.
Because when you know your people, everything changes.
Feedback lands differently.
Trust grows faster.
Accountability feels fair instead of threatening.
People don’t just feel managed.
They feel led.
Maybe that’s the real opportunity AI presents. Not to compete with technology. To become better at the things only humans can do.
Build trust.
Hold difficult conversations.
Coach.
Challenge.
Care.
Because those skills just became more valuable, not less.
The question isn’t whether AI will change the workplace.
It already is.
The real question is whether we’re evolving our leadership quickly enough to meet the people we’re leading.
Because for now…humans still lead humans.