When the AI boom began, many leaders felt the rush. Tasks that once took hours suddenly took minutes. Hiring pipelines felt manageable again. Content became easier to produce. Naturally, leaders started asking, If AI can do all this, what else can we hand off?

That question is where things began drifting into territory I know well: culture, leadership, communication, coaching and motivation — the very areas I’m hired to speak and write about. And it’s also where some leaders started getting themselves into trouble.

I’m not an AI expert, nor do I pretend to be. But because I give presentations and lead trainings for franchise systems and frontline managers, I’m often pulled into conversations about tools promising to improve culture or performance. As AI hype grew, more tech companies approached me for endorsements of their platforms. Most position themselves as culture boosters or performance enhancers. I don’t take referral fees, so my opinions aren’t for sale — but I am curious. I’m always looking for tools that genuinely help the businesses I serve.

What concerns me isn’t the technology itself — it’s how some companies are applying it to the most human parts of their business.

Related: This Is the Invisible Force That’s Quietly Rewriting the Rules of Success

The AI tools that promise too much

One platform I was shown aggregates data across a franchise system and generates individualized recommendations for each owner and the field coaches who support them. If it detects high turnover and low customer satisfaction, it might suggest: “Improve company culture.”

Sure. And telling a basketball player to “score more points” is also technically good advice. But without how, it’s just noise.

I’ve also seen tools that attempt to gamify culture by awarding badges or prizes for compliments and internal communication. It’s an interesting idea — but culture isn’t something you win. It’s something you build. Culture is the shared beliefs, values, habits and behaviors that develop over time. It’s the social norms that define how people treat one another. A tool can support that dynamic, but it can’t create it or manage it.

Culture is emotional. It’s psychological. It’s human. AI doesn’t feel those things, which means it can’t teach people how to create them.

Where AI hiring misses what humans see instantly

AI has reshaped hiring — sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

My son recently applied for a job where the “interview” consisted of a prompt on a screen and a countdown clock. No conversation. No interaction. One take. He didn’t move on.

A few weeks later, the same company posted a similar role. He applied again — this time knowing what the process felt like. He wasn’t more experienced or more qualified. He was simply more comfortable performing for a two-minute video countdown. That’s what got him through. The system wasn’t measuring talent; it was measuring familiarity with the system.

Some of the best employees I’ve ever seen aren’t polished interviewers. They’re steady, loyal, humble and kind. If you sat across from them, you’d feel it. But a timed video prompt won’t pick that up. Nor will it create the psychological safety that helps candidates overcome nerves and show who they really are.

There’s a difference between collecting information about a person and actually understanding who they are. One requires data. The other requires being human.

Where AI helps — and where it hurts

AI is excellent at improving operations. It can organize schedules, track metrics, analyze trends, document procedures and surface insights that once took days to gather. I use AI myself for research and idea development.

But AI becomes a liability when businesses use it as a substitute for leadership — especially the parts that require emotion, judgment, nuance and humanity.

AI can’t read the look on someone’s face when they’re having a bad day. It can’t spot the quiet employee who’s actually your most reliable performer. It can’t coach someone through frustration or sense when a customer needs reassurance. It can’t build trust.

Leaders sometimes forget that the most important parts of their job are invisible: tone, empathy, encouragement and connection. AI can’t feel, so it can’t make anyone else feel anything either. And people can tell the difference.

Everyone loves to say they’re “in the people business.” But when you hand your most human responsibilities to software, you’re not in the people business anymore—you’re just in business. And people feel that too.

Related: 5 Reasons Why Emotional Intelligence Is the Future of Work

Let AI make you smarter, not colder

AI absolutely has a place in business — an important one. Use it to:

• Create job posts
• Streamline onboarding
• Track performance trends
• Organize schedules
• Automate reminders
• Document processes
• Summarize meetings
• Provide operational clarity

These are smart uses. But when it comes to coaching, hiring, motivation and culture, the responsibility still belongs to humans.

The highest-performing businesses I see — whether franchisees, franchisors, owner-operators, or corporate teams — use AI to increase clarity and speed and leaders to build trust, connection and meaning. AI can help your business run better. Only people can make it feel better.

AI will keep improving. It’ll get faster, smarter, and more intuitive. But it will never replace the elements of business that make employees stay, customers return, and companies grow.

If you say you’re in the people business, the real work isn’t finding ways to automate people — it’s finding ways to show up for them. AI can run your systems. People run your business. And the companies that remember that will be the ones that win.