AI Can’t Do This

There’s been a lot of talk about AI, machine learning and autonomous vehicles.  This technology is met with both intrigue and fear. In my industry, alone, robots will automate essential marketing tasks – including algorithmic writing. I’m sure my clients will sense relief if they can eliminate the time and effort it takes to develop blog posts.

A recent article in TechCrunch suggests that for robots to function as we want, it’s important to study how humans work – what motivates us, our cultural and group norms, and conflict resolution patterns. This is sophisticated stuff.

However, I’m neither intrigued nor fearful – and here’s why.

The web is oversaturated with content and it’s increasing rapidly. Because of this, we advise our clients to discover what makes them unique in this crowded space. This will require them to find their voice and showcase the human element.

While my clients may be relieved that they can automate marketing functions, they can’t automate relationships – the essential know, like, trust factor. It’s for this reason, I will continue to advocate for humanizing your brand.

My most popular blog posts have more to do with sharing a personal story than offering social media advice. My post about surviving a car accident is one of the most read on my site – with over 11,000 hits.  Other top posts include how I worked with to navigate a Getty Images lawsuit and a personal and professional leap of faith.

That’s what makes my brand unique. While others in my industry are writing about the most recent Facebook changes, I’m writing about overcoming small business stress or navigating life changes.

Any good marketer will tell you to that the key to effective marketing is through an emotional connection. Unless robots become self-aware or clone us, I’m certain they will not replace human beings.

While a robot can write a blog post, a robot can’t replace personal life experiences – human experiences. No one has the same set of life experiences from your point of view. No one is YOU.

2026 Update: What AI Can and Can’t Do Now

I wrote this post in 2017, long before most people were using generative AI in their everyday work. Reading it again nearly a decade later is interesting because AI can now do far more than I could have imagined when I wrote it.
It can certainly write a blog post. It can help develop ideas, analyze information, summarize research and handle work that once required considerably more time. I use AI myself, so I no longer see the distinction as simply humans on one side and machines on the other.

But I still recognize what I was trying to say here.

The part I haven’t changed my mind about is the value of lived experience. AI can help me articulate something, challenge my thinking or make connections I might not have made on my own, but it didn’t live through the experience that gave me something to say in the first place.

That distinction feels even more important now because there is so much AI-generated content competing for attention. The technology has become remarkably good at producing content that sounds polished, informed and even personal. That makes it easier to create more of it, but more content was never what I thought we needed.

What interests me now is where the line actually is. How much can technology help us think, communicate and create without gradually replacing the parts of the process that make the result ours?

I don’t have a clean answer to that, and my relationship with AI is much more complicated than it was when I wrote this post. But I still believe the thing I ended with in 2017: no one has the same set of life experiences from your point of view.
AI has changed dramatically. That hasn’t.