If I created a word cloud of all the lessons that my Dad has taught me in 39 years, it would have just one large cloud overflowing from the edges of the paper with two words: 'Be intelligent.' His voice, which I later surmised had its source in my grandfather, has been the loudest voice in my inner monologue.
I will not lie, it has been an extremely useful lesson in surviving, competing and even thriving over nearly four decades. Until six months ago, I needed critical thinking skills to ask the right questions, look for patterns, and make decisions as a journalist and the head of a business vertical.
But I have been forced to go deeper inside my subconscious since the new normal of infinite AI-generated content, vast amounts of compute and resources became available to me, and execution started keeping pace with my imagination.
How could I, as a professional knowledge worker, exist when knowledge is curated, personalised and available en masse?
Stop listening to my inner dad and don't fall apart, I told myself.
Unlike my peers, whose internal emotional experience was documented in a study that investigated the psychological impact of AI-driven job displacement among Indian IT professionals.
The results confirmed that they are suffering from emotional shock, eroding professional identity, chronic anxiety, social withdrawal, and even organisational betrayal. A feeling of loss that includes not just employment but also identity, control, and social belonging. The paper captured the underlying bond between identity, pride, intelligence and success among Indians:
In India, job identity is closely tied to personal and familial pride, particularly in the IT sector, and is often associated with economic success and upward mobility. Job loss in this context may therefore trigger not only individual stress, but also interpersonal strain, social withdrawal, and internalised shame.
In December, I decided that I was going to actively decouple my identity and my emotional health with the internal monologue guiding me to choose the path towards intelligent (or proud, compulsive and low risk) decisions.
Slowly, my inner monologue shifted. Now I could listen to my inner Mom showing me how to adapt, adjust and be flexible through every rite of passage. And in February, I have been remembering the advice of my Grandmom, whom I used to call Mammaji until she died twenty years ago. Her wisdom was wrapped inside stories of saints, kings, queens, ascetics, princes and princesses, and revolutionaries that she used to share before bedtime.
It was challenging, but as I decided to consciously practice being messy, humane, and creative last month, I received three signs that even though I could not see the path, I was walking in the right direction.
First was a letter titled 'Something Big is Happening,' which an AI investor and founder wrote to his friends and family to unburden himself from the lies he had been telling them. Written in an emotional, experiential, almost visceral register, it went viral, with nearly 80 million views compared to roughly 11.8 million subscribers of the 175-year-old New York Times, and was widely debated.
The second was a dystopian story (with 24 million views in a day) set at the end of 2028 that paints a picture of events that led to the collapse of the economy, published by an equity research firm.
These are not peer-reviewed papers. They could just be hype. But for a moment, ignore the content to focus on the style. They are both about the impact of AI on our work and lives individually and collectively, but they are written by human beings with strong experiential reactions to the advances in technology. They showcase the pace of change, study history to make predictions of the future, and visualise a future as if they are narrating a horror story around a campfire to their closest friends.
The conclusion to draw from their popularity is that stories told by human beings with creativity and flair that evoke emotions resonate with millions of human beings if they are timed well.
They are both humane and creative. Two traits the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting predicted will become increasingly important during forward-looking discussions in January.
It stated that 87% of chief marketing officers (CMOs) worldwide believed modern strategies required deeper creativity and human qualities.
As AI advances, people will crave "human-ness" even more. Brands must embody this through a strong purpose, characters with lovable imperfections, unexpected stories and a unique cultural identity. The trust and love thus cultivated by brands will lead consumers to active participation and advocacy.
It goes on to highlight the importance of surprise and emotional impact using unpredictably human elements, especially quirks, which will become the ultimate differentiators in the AI era.
As AI perfects communication, humans need to constantly disrupt that perfection.
The third sign came from Gautam Mukunda, who has researched and taught leadership at Harvard College, Harvard Business School, and several other premium universities and advised as an investor and a consultant. Last month, in an opinion piece in Bloomberg — The Key to Regaining Trust in the AI Era Is Authenticity — he wrote about the value of credibility:
Your grandmother trusted her doctor. Your mother trusted Consumer Reports. You trust the 4.7-star rating from 2,300 strangers.
Mukunda argued that the human being who has built trust over years and decades is the "new vinyl". While the masses go for the cheap CDs or iTunes subscriptions, vinyl will become an expensive collector’s item. Trust, recognition, and authenticity are now highly valuable.
Institutions that underinvest in credibility will be making a strategic mistake, as it compounds slowly.
So grab a cup of coffee or chai or matcha or iced tea as I dissect the events of February that show what the new normal is for human beings as AI use becomes more prevalent across sectors. Platforms like YouTube and Netflix made some decisive moves to prioritise insightful human storytelling. Brands like Mc Donalds and Heineken chose opposing strategies regarding using AI. Customers loved one and hated the other. Consulting firms Ernst & Young and McKinsey agree. Every professional needs more human skills and to be better at applying them. FranklinCovey found that most leaders are struggling.
There is a path forward to succeeding in this new world. But if your identity is forcing you to make decisions that are just more intelligent, you are preparing to just survive the change in the near future, when you could be thriving in the long run.
AI is a strong competitor but an unreliable teammate
The International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs and the World Economic Forum have predicted that somewhere between 23% to 40% of the global workforce will be significantly impacted by the use of AI. In India, The NITI Aayog's October 2025 report suggests that over 60% of formal jobs are "susceptible to automation" by 2030.
The media sector is already losing its audience at a catastrophic pace.
As of December 2025, AI Overviews significantly reduced the organic click-through rate that drove readers via search engines to publications by up to 90%, as reported by Daily Mail. The summaries are siphoning away readers, even from top-ranking pages in search. News publishers now predict that search traffic could fall by 40% in the next three years, reported the Reuters Institute of the Study of Journalism (RISJ).
However, just like Mukunda noted earlier, as masses go for AI overviews, the value of credible knowledge told as a story by a human being with a humane touch is the future. The glimpses of this future are visible in the strategy suggested by RISJ:
Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate and author of the report, said: "Publishers face new competition from AI answer engines and next-generation browsers that are able to summarise and remix content in a way that provides great utility for audiences. But tech platforms do not hold all the cards. Reliable news, expert analysis, and points of view remain important both to individuals and to society, particularly in uncertain times. Great storytelling - and a human touch - is going to be hard for AI to replicate."
Every company today is a media company; thus, every company will have to behave more like creators. They can neither be faceless press release pushers for their brands, nor be templated on social media.
But it is not that simple.
Creators cannot rely on AI for anything beyond technical production and research after YouTube decided to crack down on channels that relied heavily on AI-generated content over the last two months. In fact, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has said that cutting down on low-quality AI content is one of the platform's priorities for 2026.
The video platform recently shut down just over a dozen popular accounts that had been churning out AI content — featuring characters like cats and Jesus — according to an analysis from Kapwing, a video editing platform. Some of the channels were picking up millions of views before going dark. In November, Kapwing published a report that estimated 21% YouTube's feed was AI-generated videos.
The platform that has approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users or over 30% of the world's total population, has decided that it is not a race to the bottom. The fastest and the smartest, who are using the newly available tools to capture the attention economy without reflection, originality and human insight, cannot survive even if they get millions of views and subscribers.
And platforms like YouTube do not want AI slop on their platform, giving empty calories to their users because the audiences actually detest it. It is a lesson Coca Cola and Mc Donalds learned after experimenting with AI-generated advertisements.
Everyone needs to use AI but not for everything. There is a right way of combining taste, authenticity, and wisdom with the tools available.
The letter Something Big Is Happening recommends that every white-collar professional start using AI seriously, acknowledge that 2026 is the most important year of your career, and dissolve any ego attached to your own intelligence and skill. But at the same time, lean into what's hardest to replace, realise that our dreams of building something without hiring people and buying technology are now closer than ever before, and finally consistently adapt to the new normal.
Outsource tasks but think, feel and act like an inspired human being who cares about providing an enriching experience to other human beings.
The ideal response, thus, to watching your identity and the world that you once knew fossilise rapidly is not fear and anxiety. It is acceptance, as my mother would tell you. Change is hard. It asks you to die to the past to allow for the future to unfold as you put one foot in front of another, breathe through the day, and open to new possibilities.
Being human is now the most valuable skill
There is power in using AI but there is more power in prioritising the grand old tradition of sharing stories, making friends and creating art. Brands are beginning to prove it.
Heineken joined New Yorkers' disdain for AI wearable Friend with a billboard campaign declaring "The best way to make a friend is over a beer." Aerie's promise not to use AI in its ads was the brand's most popular Instagram post in the past year. In India, the candy brand Cadbury 5 Star ran a campaign entitled "Make AI Mediocre Again," a fictional movement to flood the internet with nonsensical websites to trick content-scrapers.
In fact a consumer study has predicted that two out of three customers are willing to pay more for products from brands they trust. This trust won't be based on personalised targeted data-based marketing but rather on product quality and value, brand reputation that is earned with their humanity, and customer experience.
Artificial Intelligence-based tools can optimise, execute, and speed up innovation, but they cannot earn trust, build a reputation and guarantee great product quality and experience.
Netflix endorsed this approach in October last year after experimenting with several AI tools. It is using AI to accelerate production but not at all for creativity. Its CEO Ted Sarandos told investors: "It takes a great artist to make something great... AI can give creatives better tools to enhance their overall TV/movie experience for our members, but it doesn't automatically make you a great storyteller if you're not."
Just like customers, colleagues too need colleagues and leaders with human skills like the ability to step into the shoes of another, a sense of fairness and nurturing relationships.
Ernst & Young argues that as leaders transform organisations they must measure the success of their organisations not by how much AI can do but by how much more human people can become because AI can do the cognitive tasks. This harmony will be transformative as it will engage teams around purpose without fear and drive innovation through collaboration rather than compliance.
By 2030, half of all employee interactions will involve an AI agent. The most successful organisations will be those where technology sets the rhythm, and humanity provides harmony.
According to McKinsey, human skills will matter more than ever in the age of AI, as 12% of the skills that organisations are looking for are entirely human. And they will endure and grow as AI sifts information, organises data and drafts basic content.
However, leaders everywhere are struggling, with only 7% demonstrating both high performance and high care, the combination needed to drive sustained excellence and engagement.
The speed of change is separating the wheat from the chaff as 87% of leaders see disruption as something to survive, only 13% consider it an opportunity to innovate and grow. To make matters worse, 2 out of 3 employees have low confidence in the quality of today's leaders overall, and 7 in 10 employees say AI and technology are advancing faster than their company's culture can adapt.
If you have read this essay until this point, I am sure you agree that the need for current professionals and future professionals to adapt is urgent. The question is how can we as humans be more human when we have been trained to think like machines since we were children and now our ego identity is infused with inflated pride?
The answer is in the knowing plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose or the more things change, the more they stay the same. The epigram was written by French journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr at the height of France's revolution against the monarchy. He witnessed first-hand the similarities between monarchies and governments, highlighting that even in the times of major transitions, some themes stay exactly the same. Technologies, power structures, and leaders change, but the human hunger for power and the need for connection, meaning, and belonging don't.
This is the wisdom that my grandmother shared as well. She learned this as she raised eight children and several grandchildren, witnessed the wars of her times and the joys of a peaceful life, all while enjoying mythology and literature.
Trends have a cyclical nature. Pants with wide bottoms, turmeric lattes, ayurvedic skin care, lifting weights, eating fruits, yoga, meditation, walks, nature. You name it. Wisdom never goes out of fashion for long.
The stories we tell about the truth of our experiences have the ability to travel far and wide, bridge gaps, and form connections. And be etched in hearts and minds forever, generation after generation.
Now more than ever before, it is time to tell stories that are imperfectly human, truthful and authentic. No matter how the world looks, such a narrative will survive. Just like my grandmother's stories have within me.
I am now accepting applications for bespoke workshops and personal coaching in storytelling. If you feel one of your friends or family would benefit from it, please share this application form with them.
Thank you.
Yours,
Ruhi