AI is going to be big as it gets. It is already huge.
Let’s start there. It’s not a question of if, it’s already transforming how we write, design, invest, code, sell, and even flirt. It’s not the enemy; it’s oxygen for the next economy.
As Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently put it, “AI makes America the best country in the world, we have the right chips, the right risk appetite, the right people.”
He’s right. We want to be on the side of that future.
But here’s the paradox:
As AI scales everything, what’s becoming truly scarce, and therefore valuable, is what can’t scale.
The human moment.
The companies that will continue to stay competitive aren’t the ones that automate everything. They’re the ones doubling down on eye contact, personalization, and authenticity.
Billions Are Digitally Stuck
According to the United Nations, over 5.5 billion people are online every day. More than 60 percent of all human interactions now happen digitally.
We text instead of talk. We “like” instead of listen. We’ve optimized for convenience and lost intimacy. That’s why the next wave of AI business growth won’t come from more efficiency alone, it will come from re-humanization.
Starbucks, Taco Bell, and Reddit: Learning the Hard Way
Even the biggest brands are discovering that automation has limits.
Starbucks has invested millions to retrain baristas and r staff to focus on small, non-scalable rituals, eye contact, remembering names, personalizing the coffee, and making the coffee experience feel human again. In a market obsessed with speed, Starbucks is betting on “being remembered” as its distinguishing factor.
Taco Bell’s experiment with AI voice ordering is a perfect case of where automation meets its edge. The company rolled out automated drive-throughs at 500 locations, hoping to boost speed and accuracy. Instead, it ran into viral chaos technical hiccups, customer frustration, and trolling on social media.
In one video, viewed over 21 million times, a customer crashed the system by ordering “18,000 cups of water.” Taco Bell’s Chief Digital Officer, Dane Mathews, told The Wall Street Journal, “We’re learning a lot… sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me.”
Now Taco Bell is slowing down its AI rollout, not abandoning it, but rethinking where automation actually improves the experience and where it doesn’t. It’s a perfect metaphor for the new economy: AI is fast, but humans are real.
Reddit, once known for its chaotic, unmoderated culture, is also rediscovering its human roots. As reported by OpenTools.ai, “Reddit explicitly describes its strategy as ‘human-first’, refusing to let its communities be overrun by AI-generated content and bots, and believing that real human interaction is its competitive edge.”
That’s not just moderation. That’s vision.
Kindness Scales, Just Ask Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift has mastered the art of scaling kindness.
She replies to fans, sends gifts, remembers birthdays and even shows up at wedding when invited. It’s not PR, it’s presence.
Swift has proven that kindness can be industrialized without becoming industrial.
That’s the paradox every modern brand is trying to learn.
Leverage Every Human Moment
Gary Vaynerchuk said it best: “The best way to scale is to do the unscalable.”
That’s the new playbook:
The thank-you text.
The spontaneous check-in.
The inconvenient call that builds trust.
Every time you choose the non-scalable path, you’re doing what AI can’t do alone, building loyalty and emotional capital.
Fight for the Friction
We’re entering an era where friction isn’t the obstacle, it’s the differentiator.
When everyone else chases speed and outomation, chase substance.
When everyone else automates connection, personalize it.
AI will make us faster.
Humans, kind, curious, emotionally intelligent humans,will make us better.
So fight for the friction.
Build for the unscalable.
Because when everything becomes automated, being human becomes your greatest competitive advantage.