These carefully curated items framed the experience of working with Neen James . I felt deeply loved and valued as we worked because of her attention to the human experience. She is MY client, but I felt like a queen!

Every other article on LinkedIn these days catalogs the ways AI is going to replace human work. A recent massively viral post by Matt Shumer gave many of us full body chills (not the good kind), as we pondered our human fate in what feels like being in a spaceship hurling towards our obsolescence. Thankfully Princess Leah, aka Ann Handley, made us feel a little better with her reflection on the piece.

It’s a cold hard reality with implications we can’t even fully perceive yet, but I refuse to believe that there will cease to be a need for human connection in business.

I had the good fortune of spending two days in Tampa recently with my client Neen James, building a playbook for her excellent book Exceptional Experiences. In that deep dive into her IP, it became powerfully clear: there are so many touch points in a service business that don’t just benefit from human presence, they soar because of it.

Neen has a framework about activating the five senses in your work. And when you examine those senses one by one, you start to understand what AI simply cannot replicate.

On a recent trip to Paris, I stumbled into a shop that made custom perfumes — all inspired by writers and historic literature.

I spent over two hours listening and smelling, learning about each essence from the shopkeeper’s husband, hearing the story of how his wife built careful connections between literature she loved and the specific scents tied to those feelings and ideas. I spent four times what I would normally spend on perfume. I have worn the same scent, China Rain, since I was 12 years old. It has comfort. But it has no story besides the length of time I’ve been wearing it.

This Parisian shop brought together the evocations of story, the activation of personalization, and the overwhelming power of scent. That experience could not have been delivered through a screen.

One of the reasons I love working in person, and I have done so in over 150 all-day strategy sessions, is the chance to give a big warm hug to a client I’ve only known through a virtual screen.

Touch isn’t only human to human. It’s the feeling of beautiful soft fabrics, cozy chairs, warm blankets, a steaming mug of something delicious when you’re huddled together around a fire at a retreat. As humans, we need that sense of texture and warmth and physical presence. It signals safety, care, and connection in a way that no Zoom call ever will.

I’m writing this from Vibe Café in Denver, watching rain fall softly outside the window. There’s a fireplace in the middle of the space, and Carole King’s “Far Away” is playing, that perfectly calibrated melancholy that matches the gray light and the slow movement of the day. I can tell the music was curated for exactly this moment. It isn’t random. It lands.

Music lends a feeling. It can shift your nervous system, open a memory, or create the conditions for deep focus before you’ve even said a word.

This is something you can give your clients. Neen introduced me to the French pianist Riopy for working in flow. It’s the kind of music that clears away noise and lets ideas surface. When someone needs to shake off a long afternoon and get back in their body, I recommend Olivia Dean’s “The Man I Need,” an irresistible bop that makes it impossible not to move.

A thoughtfully curated playlist sent to a client before a retreat, a workshop, or even a hard week is a small act that says: I was thinking about how you would feel, not just what you would learn. That is a distinctly human gift.

Taste can technically be sent through the mail. But it is so much more meaningful when you’re sharing a delicious meal sitting across from each other in an environment filled with sights and smells.

In Cincinnati this week, I’ll be meeting one of my most beloved clients, Sue Ludwig of the National Association of Neonatal Therapists, in The Mercantile Library a beautiful historic library space. After, we are going to have a delicious meal at one of her favorite restaurants. Sharing food with each other, in deep conversation, processing ideas together — that is one of the great foundational delights of being human.

Instead of mingling at an awkward networking event in a dingy hotel room with fluorescent lights, what if you hosted an intimate dinner with candlelight, good food, and real atmosphere? Bringing delicious food into a service experience is a powerful way to awaken shared joy and inspiration.

We can see and share documents over Zoom. Data can be crunched better by AI than by any human manually. But seeing specific sites together is something else entirely.

Hosting events in physically beautiful locations. Letting participants share an incredible view. Taking a walk or a hike through a stunning landscape together. These experiences activate the mind in a way that AI never could. Most of my greatest ideas have arrived while walking, thinking, smelling, and seeing something that made my brain start making new associations.

My friend Brian Gerstner of White Label IQ told me recently that he’s already booked for 17 events this year. His whole business is helping companies use AI to create great user experiences and workflows, and yet he knows the most effective way to build connections and drive business is still in person. My friend Lucas Petty of AI Daddy, who helps businesses use AI not to replace people but to drive great experiences, always makes time to meet for coffee. Our best conversations happen off screen.

This is not nostalgia. This is strategy.

AI will continue to absorb tasks we once thought were irreplaceable such as writing, analysis, synthesis, scheduling and research. The displacement is real and it is accelerating. But there is an entire category of human experience it cannot learn from, because it was never in the room. It didn’t feel the hug after the hard conversation. It didn’t smell the rain through an open window. It didn’t sit across the table from someone and watch their eyes change when something finally clicked.

That is your territory. Protect it. Invest in it.

Even if you can’t put everyone on a plane or host a retreat somewhere spectacular, you can bring specific elements of sense into your work. Recommend a restaurant in your client’s city they haven’t discovered yet. Send a plant. Build a playlist. Find a beautiful room to meet in instead of a conference call.

The businesses that will thrive through this shift are the ones that double down on what only a human can do, not as a nice touch, but as the core of how they serve. Build the experiences that leave a mark. Those are the ones people remember, refer, and return for.