Make Your AI Strategy Human-First

An effective AI strategy is a human-centered AI strategy. Here’s how to avoid wasted investment into AI and build the solutions your customers and employees actually want. 

The AI adoption race

Everyone’s talking about AI — from enterprise execs and the White House to small business owners and Pope Leo XIV. 

Opinions are all over the map, but one message keeps getting louder: “Adopt AI now or be left behind.” If you haven’t yet rolled out an AI-backed initiative, some would say you’ve already lost. 

AI implementation is being treated like a footrace instead of a long game, with companies sprinting toward use cases before they’ve even defined the problem the new AI tool is meant to solve. In all the noise, the person who will ultimately use the AI is often forgotten.

The consequences of a poor AI strategy outweigh the benefits of moving fast. Instead of getting engulfed in the gold rush, here’s why we’re telling leaders to pause and ground their AI strategy in human needs.

The risks of rushing AI rollout 

When urgency drives AI implementation, it leads to solutions that create more problems than they solve.

Many companies have invested heavily in AI advancements that now sit unused. We all get emails from software companies promoting their new AI-powered features — how many of us have actually tried them out, let alone adopted them into our workflow?

The product itself might be solid, but if users never wanted it, they won’t be compelled to use it. 

And customer trust is already on shaky ground. In 2025, only 15% of consumers say they have confidence in AI chatbots for customer service — down from 20% just 2 years ago. (Source: CMP Research, presented at Customer Contact Week Vegas).

The wrong-fit AI solution ends up draining company resources, and also risks:

• Adding friction: Unintuitive tools can make things harder for the end user, launching people into never-ending chat loops or frustrating them with a confusing interface.  
• Feeling impersonal: Some interactions genuinely require a human touch. Injecting AI into the wrong part of the customer journey can hamper the experience. Using AI in important customer service touchpoints can come off as distant.
• Eroding customer trust: As some brands have learned the hard way, the wrong AI initiative can decimate years of brand equity. Think of the critical response to Duolingo’s AI-first announcement: Several customers jumped ship, with one saying, “AI first means people last.”

Bad AI interactions are worse than no AI interaction at all. To stay competitive and innovate effectively, build a human-first AI strategy.

Take a human-centered approach

Many teams are asking, "How can we use AI?" We should instead be asking, "Where can AI best serve our customers and employees?"

AI is no longer novel. People are becoming fatigued. They don’t want to learn a new tool or process just because it’s AI-driven. But they might adopt your new solution if it makes something easier or better for them. 

Even in the age of AI, innovation and empathy don’t stand at odds. They can work in sync, each making the other stronger. 

Build a human-centered AI strategy through Jobs-to-be-Done

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a framework for empathy. It helps teams understand consumer emotions, wants, and needs. 

People purchase a product or service to complete a job (or help them make a specific type of progress). You can use JTBD to: 

• Know why people hire your solution — including new solutions, like an AI tool you want to roll out
• Develop and refine your solution to be suited to human needs, so it’s more effective

The goal is to define the job that people will hire your AI solution for, then create the best tool for that use case. This applies to both the customer (e.g., “help me get a reliable answer quickly”) and the employee (e.g., “help me summarize this complex information”).

This frame of mind prevents you from building a solution to a non-problem, or the wrong solution for the right problem.

Here’s what building a human-centered AI strategy might look like. 

1. Find the right opportunities for AI

Not every part of the customer experience should be automated. Find the moments where AI can add efficiency without compromising empathy.

Start by mapping the journey:

• Which touchpoints are working?
• Where are people frustrated or spending too much time? 
• Where do human connections matter most?

Use research, in-depth interviews, and journey mapping to understand the current customer experience and where AI could improve it.

2. Define the job AI is being hired to do

Once you’ve identified the opportunity, get specific about the job your AI tool is being hired for. 

Understand:

• What is the user trying to get done? 
• What kind of progress are they trying to make?
• How can a new AI-driven tool or experience help them make that progress?

3. Co-create the AI solution with the end user

Meaningful solutions are created alongside the people who are meant to use them. Customer and employee insight will be invaluable. 

Don’t just test the solution and gather feedback after you’ve built it — involve the end user in the process of building. This de-risks innovation, ensuring you create something viable, feasible, and just as importantly, desirable to consumers. 

4. Test and refine before rolling out your AI strategy

To prevent your solution from failing after rollout, pressure-test it on a small scale. 

This will help you spot any friction points you may not have anticipated and go back to the drawing board (or even start over) before it’s too late and you’ve invested too much. 

Again, racing to implement AI causes more harm than good. It’s better to release nothing at all than a solution that reduces trust and impacts customer loyalty.

Final thoughts on AI and human-centered design

AI is more than a tool for efficiency. When implemented with a human-first strategy, it opens doors to improve the way people experience your brand. 

Our vision for AI is rooted in creating value, not cutting costs. Instead of replacing human labor, we can use AI to augment our capabilities and let the human element shine through even more. 

The winners of the AI race will be the brands that build a human-centered AI strategy — not those who cross the finish line first. 

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