In The Age Of AI, the Human Touch Is An Advantage

This article, written by James Chester, founder and CEO of WVN, was originally published on Inc.com.

As AI, automation, and robotics scale into every part of our lives, we are feeling the familiar buzz—and—subsequent hangover of a brand new “brave new world.” Bold promises abound while valuations climb on the back of dizzying innovation. Our daily toolset has changed. We will (likely) never be without a super-intelligent assistant again, in the same way we are never without the internet or a smartphone. At the same time, something more interesting is happening under the tech wave: human connection is becoming more valuable.

It’s easy to believe the future will be won by whoever builds the smartest model. There will for sure be winners, but in reality, the major models are normalizing, development costs are falling and there is growing talk of a bubble. 

The differentiator to this all will be the things machines can’t replicate: how we build trust, belonging and shared meaning.

The Measurable Cost Of Disconnection

In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness and isolation a public health epidemic. His advisory linked social disconnection to a 29 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 32 percent higher risk of stroke, and mortality effects equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023).

The data is just as clear inside organizations. Gallup has tracked one deceptively simple question for years: “Do you have a best friend at work?” Employees who answer “yes” are more engaged, more loyal and measurably more productive than those who answer “no.”

And yet, many workplaces are becoming less relational. Research from Microsoft, published in Nature Human Behaviour, showed that remote work significantly reduces “weak ties,” i.e. those cross-team relationships that drive innovation and creativity (Yang et al., 2022). The takeaway: collaboration tools can connect us functionally, but physical proximity still fuels serendipity and trust.

The New Golden Era Of Third Spaces

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to describe spaces beyond home and work that anchor community life: cafés, bookstores, barbershops, clubhouses. If you’ve spent time in any up-and-coming neighborhood lately, you’ve likely noticed these spaces making a remarkable comeback.

Independent bookstores have been growing steadily since 2020, with hundreds of new openings across the U.S. (American Booksellers Association, 2024). Pickleball is now America’s fastest-growing sport, with more than 16,000 courts and a 51 percent year-over-year participation increase (Sports & Fitness Industry Association, 2024). Climbing gyms surpassed 800 locations nationwide last year and membership-based clubs like Soho House now exceed 270,000 members globally (Climbing Business Journal, 2024; Soho House Q2 Report, 2025). 

Retail has also entered as a leader in this shift. Many modern brands are adding cafés, lounges and restaurants to their stores, transforming transactional spaces into value-driven, relational “clubhouses.”

Starbucks, the brand that once defined the “third place,” is re-anchoring around that idea after years of letting third-wave coffee shops claim the cultural lead. It’s updating store layouts, retraining staff and re-centering the brand on community and co-presence.

The signal is clear: people are craving context. Spaces that layer human connection with ritual, texture, and story are thriving in an era where everything else is optimized and digitized.

Connection Compounds Performance

Social connection makes us feel better, which also makes us perform better.

A meta-analysis of 308,000 people found that strong social relationships increase survival odds by 50 percent (Holt-Lunstad et al., PLOS Medicine, 2010). On a societal scale, economist Raj Chetty’s landmark study of 21 billion Facebook friendships found that “economic connectedness,” i.e. friendships across income lines, is the single strongest predictor of upward mobility in a region (Chetty et al., Nature, 2022). Communities with more cross-class friendships saw greater opportunity and income growth across generations.

Connection, it turns out, is causal.

A Playbook For Leaders

To turn connection into a strength, you need simple, consistent rituals.

Inside your company:

• Create recurring low-stakes moments for storytelling and learning: show-and-tells, walk-and-talks, “teach a tool” sessions.
• Track bridge metrics: first-time collaborations, new mentorships or cross-functional projects.
• Protect overlap time: hours where people can be together without an agenda.

With your customers:

• Invest in dwell time, not just conversion. The longer people stay, the stronger your relationship becomes. Memorable moments drive loyalty far beyond the transaction.
• Empower your frontline staff as “hosts,” not just service providers. Names, recognition and memory are brand assets that humanize every interaction.
• Create wow-worthy moments. Small, unexpected gestures or sensory details motivate people to share their experiences with others. Whether it’s a handwritten note slipped into a bag, a unique in-store scent, or a local artist pop-up, these are the memories that power organic marketing.

In your community:

• Partner with local third spaces like gyms, run clubs, bookstores or coworking studios. When brands meet people where they already belong, they earn authenticity by association.
• Design your brand to participate in culture, not just advertise within it. Co-host events, sponsor neighborhood rituals or offer your space for community use. For example, Alo Yoga integrates yoga classes into its stores, creating a destination rather than a storefront. Tecovas and Buck Mason have begun hosting live music and local maker nights. These simple rituals turn retail into community space.

To make it count, measure it all. Track repeat visits, average dwell time and bridge creation. Correlate those numbers to retention, revenue or satisfaction. Connection can be quantified and optimized (and monetized).

Design For Connection

The same rules that make a physical space beautiful can make it connective: lower the friction to enter, make the lighting human and give people reasons to return. Consistent, light programming beats grand gestures. Hospitality beats automation and authenticity beats algorithms every time.

The Takeaway

Automation will keep advancing and expanding. It will find its way into many aspects of our daily lives. The rarest resource in the next decade will be humanity.

The companies that thrive will make space for what’s truly irreplaceable: empathy, trust and belonging, because, in the end, connection is still the most advanced technology we have.