How To Be Invaluable In A World Of Bots
How To Be Invaluable In A World Of Bots
Published on Forbes, Mar 13, 2025, by Shayne Fitz-Coy.
Lately, I find that ChatGPT is my main counterpart at work. When I write my team, many of the responses I receive are clearly canned, like those suggested by Gmail’s “helpful” bot, or carefully constructed but missing a human element, like those composed by ChatGPT.
I have two immediate reactions when I get these replies. The first is anger. I am not one to write my team a lot of nonsense or garbage. When I write, I write it myself using my own brain and my own hands. It’s frustrating when they bot me back.
The second is exasperation. If they’re just the middleman separating me and their bot, then what do I need them for? I can just talk to the bot myself.
I also worry about my employees and any other modern worker who has discovered the ease of botting through their jobs. Clearly, they have yet to realize that they are undermining their own raison d’etre. I hear that those in college who are studying disciplines like computer science are fearful about their future employment prospects. I think they are right to worry.
The Bot Evolution
I lead service businesses. We have a few coders on board. Email is a type of code, and when they use ChatGPT to do their work, they’re literally training the bots on the code of their jobs - and the bots are leveling up.
Gone are the days of frustrating non-answers from customer service bots on websites. Now you can train a bot to digest and regurgitate an entire compendium of SOPs, and in the tone and voice you choose. If you don’t like it, you can tell it to start over. Bots rework your request immediately, without complaint. You can go as many rounds as you want, and the bot doesn’t slow down or quit.
If I asked my team what makes them better than a bot, I’m sure they’d give me answers like the bot ultimately doesn’t have a brain. It doesn’t have good judgment. Sometimes it makes no sense. But to dig deeper, the bot has no chance of original thought, while the human employee does. What they don’t get is that a human can run a bot better than a bot can run a bot at the moment.
You see, the bots have become very capable. They can do many tasks human employees do, and they can do those things with remarkable consistency and alacrity. But in all the talk about bots, it’s easy to forget that they can only do work that is digital. Work that frankly didn’t exist as human jobs a hundred years ago. Or even 50 years ago. Many things can become digitized, but it will be a long time before a bot can mimic the human touch.
I’m seeing lower-level managers spending their time usefully training bots to act like employees, with the goal of plowing through enormous amounts of work. Their managers are doing the same thing, only one level higher: training a bot to be them, so the manager could have an army of bot captains who could generate incredible efficiencies, all without error or complaint.
The Human Element
Where this all heads may be obvious. The part that is less obvious is what role humans should play. Should they delay the inevitable as much as they can? Should they fight the bot revolution? Maybe. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. The pro-bot forces are strong.
What I would recommend is to find work that bots can’t do - perhaps can’t ever do. And do that. Every company and every job has work like this - work that a bot can’t do easily. Excel at those.
Every employee has the potential to be invaluable even in the world of bots, if only they care to try. But you have to try. If you keep inviting your bot to write your emails for you, at some point, you will probably be asked to stop trying at all.
A Roadmap To Remain Invaluable In The Age Of AI
For those leaders looking to demonstrate value and position their teams for success, consider the following:
- Conduct a “bot-proof audit.”
Map aspects of your job that require uniquely human abilities: creativity, relationship building and fundraising. Deliberately expand your work in those areas. In sales, consider letting AI do the follow-up emails and proposals while you build human connections and understand the client’s needs. Build this time into your schedule to develop that human bond and connection. For instance, you can learn to golf, or you can simply meet for coffee or get pedicures with clients.
- Redefine performance criteria and relocate company metrics around human value.
Leaders need to shift from measuring output to measuring quality. To implement this shift, schedule team-based brainstorms, Kaizen sprints, client presentations and problem-solving workshops. Model the behavior you want by doing. Actively demonstrate and teach your team to delegate routine tasks to AI while personally handling situations requiring judgment and empathy.
- Build “human-AI symbiosis” in your organization.
The companies that will likely win the next decade will develop teams of expert AI wranglers. Train your employees to become skilled AI prompters. Establish clear boundaries around when AI use is appropriate (routine scripted communications and general data analysis) versus when human attention is non-negotiable (sensitive client matters, strategic decisions and novel tasks).
The businesses that thrive aren’t going to be the ones that replace humans with AI; they are going to be the ones that combine human power and AI power to forge something that serves customers better. With foresight, employees and managers can position themselves to be the drivers of AI rather than its roadkill.
Originally published in Forbes.
