As businesses embrace artificial intelligence, the bigger question may not be what we can automate, but what we value enough to keep human.
Spend enough time traveling, and you become good at recognizing when something feels genuine and when it has been created primarily for your consumption. What those experiences have in common is that they belong where they are; you couldn't simply pick them up and have the same experience elsewhere. I have been thinking about that as artificial intelligence becomes part of how we work.
I use AI, and I find it valuable. As a travel journalist, it helps me research a destination, verify facts, and catch grammar issues and repetition. But there is a line I don't want to cross.
A few years ago, another travel writer told me how she published so much destination content. She laughed and said she didn't travel there; she researched online and used AI to write the articles. I was genuinely shocked, not because researching online is wrong, but because the articles were presented as travel content without the writer ever experiencing the places. For me, that crosses a line.
If I’m going to tell someone where to travel or what an experience feels like, I need to have lived it. Research can give me facts, but it cannot give me experience. For me, authenticity begins with firsthand experience and knowing where technology should remain a tool, rather than replace what makes the work human.
AI Should Make Our Work Better, Not Become The Work
There is a difference between using AI to improve your work and letting AI become the work.
In travel journalism, research can provide context and facts, but it cannot form an opinion for me or decide what a reader should know before making travel decisions. That judgment comes from firsthand experience. I still need to decide what the story is, what matters, and how to tell it. The voice needs to remain mine.
Businesses need to think about where that line exists. The conversation around AI often focuses on what it can do and how much it can save. Perhaps we should also ask: What don't we want AI to do for us? The answer will be different for every business.
Productivity Is More Than Producing More
One of AI's greatest promises is productivity: taking repetitive work off people's plates and completing tasks efficiently. But what happens to the time we save? If someone uses AI to save three hours and spends them producing even more AI-assisted work, we've increased output. I'm not convinced we've increased value.
This matters especially when creativity is involved. Creativity isn't always efficient; a good idea can come quickly, but it can also develop from an unexpected conversation or someone challenging how a company has always done something.
I worry we could start treating that time as wasted. A better opportunity is to use AI to give that time back so employees have more time to speak with customers, develop ideas, mentor someone, or simply think.
When Everything Starts To Sound The Same
Travel offers a warning about becoming too focused on giving people exactly what we think they want. As a destination becomes popular, businesses respond to visitors: local shops give way to tourist expectations, and a place can become so successful at meeting them that what made it interesting begins to disappear.
I see a similar risk with AI. Businesses use the same tools for emails, website copy, marketing campaigns, and articles. The results are often grammatically correct and polished. But increasingly, they also sound similar.
After reading enough AI-assisted content, you recognize certain phrases, structures, and rhythms as competent, but sometimes I finish it without knowing who the person behind it is.
Good grammar isn't the same thing as having a voice. If you can replace your company's name with a competitor's and the message still works, you may have gained efficiency but lost some identity along the way.
Being Genuine Isn't A Marketing Strategy
I sometimes hesitate to use "authenticity" because it has become so common in marketing that it risks losing its meaning. Being genuine doesn't mean leaving mistakes in an email or forcing a casual tone that isn't your brand's personality. It means knowing who you are.
For a luxury hotel, that might be a strong sense of place and personal service. For a family business, it could be generations of tradition. For a journalist, it is having a recognizable voice and being honest about what was actually experienced.
I see this constantly in travel. The hotels I remember most aren't necessarily the newest. Often I remember them because they couldn't have been anywhere else; the place, people, history, and experience were connected.
Decide What You Want To Keep Human
I don't pretend to know where this is going. AI is developing quickly, and its capabilities a few years from now may make today's conversations seem quaint. That makes these discussions more important now.
Instead of focusing only on what employees are allowed to do with AI, organizations should talk about what they value enough to protect. Where does human judgment matter? Where does creativity matter? AI may support both. That doesn't mean it should replace them.
Teams should question AI-generated work: Does this actually sound like us? Is it accurate? Are we saying something because we believe it, or because a tool produced a convincing version of what businesses like ours usually say? Every business will draw its line differently. What matters is drawing it intentionally, rather than discovering years from now that, chasing efficiency, we handed over something we actually valued.
The Opportunity Is Bigger Than Efficiency
I am excited about what AI can do for my work. Research is faster, fact-checking is more efficient, and I have another set of eyes to catch repetition and unclear areas. All of that gives me more time to concentrate on the part of my work I care about most: the story. I want to spend that time observing, asking better questions, talking with people, and thinking about what I have experienced. Those tools can strengthen the article, but they aren't what gives it its voice. That still needs to come from me.
The biggest opportunity AI offers may not be producing more. It may be what we can do better because technology has given us some of our time back.
Travel has taught me that the experiences I remember longest have something distinctive about them, connected to a particular place, person, or moment, not polished until individuality disappears. Businesses have individuality too, and we should be careful not to automate it away.
AI is going to become part of almost everything we do. I don't think the answer is to resist it. But as we get better at using these tools, we need to recognize what shouldn't be handed over to them.
Perhaps that is the question worth returning to as AI becomes more capable: What do we value enough to keep human? For me, my voice is one of those things. Every business needs to decide what theirs is.