EI in the Age of AI

With the first full working week of 2025 in the books (YASSS! We made it), I’ve started to notice something subtle and interesting that I want to share and get your thoughts on.

I am noticing a stronger push for emotional intelligence (EI), authenticity, and genuine connections in the age of AI. None of these concepts are new, of course, but here’s how I’m seeing it all play out in my little bubble.

1. AI Writing Assitant Isn’t Always My Friend

If you’ve been here for a while, you likely know that English is not my first language, and as such, I really don’t have the best grammar (I still think about whether I should use Foot vs. Feet in measurement conversations). I started using Grammarly in 2023 to help tweak my grammar, punctuation and spelling as my volume of writing increased that year.

What started out as a wonderful relationship between me and a tool that was watching out for silly errors like a missing comma, turned into Grammarly constantly wanting to change my tone of writing these days so it sounds “professional” and “polished” for a platform like LinkedIn.

Now, I get why the product team designed for that, but in the mass training and application of AI-assisted writing tips, I find that my tone and writing style are increasingly lost in the tool’s suggested edits.

I write like how I speak. And if you’re reading this, I’d like to think that it’s one of the more attractive qualities of my pieces. So, when a writing assistant tool I pay for is actively trying to make me more generic and less authentic, I kind of have a problem with that.

Am I leaving Grammarly anytime soon? Probably not; I still haven’t found an alternative that’s as good at correcting my tenses and punctuation. But am I ignoring more and more suggestions from the tool? Yes, absolutely!

2. Sales Outreaches are Starting to Suck

I get it, no one likes to write email marketing sequences or do cold outreach from scratch. I do believe AI does a fantastic job in helping generate ideas, set templates, and creating a ~70% there product. However, it’s the blatant copying, skip-the-review-and-thinking, and pasting that’s getting to my nerves a bit.

It’s become quite evident to me if a message or email was AI generated with minimal human edits. And those make their way to the trash bin really quick.

While AI tools has dramatically expedited activities and increased efficiency in 2024 (looking at you ABMs who can mass custom messaging in outreaches now), I do believe we are starting to neglect a critical part in the sales process: connection.

If you are in a scrappy environment, yes, you should absolutely use AI. But also intentionally design in elements of the process where you can still create that human connection. After all, HR tech buyers are not just signing up for the technology anymore. It is more about the partnership than ever.

3. I Can’t Use Emoji’s Anymore

This one is courtesy of a comment from Alex Kouchev responding to my comment on the latest edition of his newsletter, Work Edge Report (I highly recommend subscribing if you haven’t already). TLDR: I was talking about how I’m looking forward to AI becoming less of a hot topic and more of a practical solution, he responded with we can assess that progress by noticing fewer ✨ and 🪄 emojis in UIs. His comment and a subsequent post I read somewhere made me notice that AI-generated content loves the use of emojis.

Here’s the thing: I am a die-hard Millennial. The will-not-give-up-ankle-socks, can’t-seem-to-get-rid-of-all-her-skinny-jeans, and will-always-standby-the-🤣-emoji-because-💀-just-feels-weird kind.

I have a penchant for using emojis. And as it appears, so does a lot of AI-generated social posts and content.

So, here I am, consciously limiting myself to emojis out of the fear that readers and platforms could pick that up as AI-generated content (imagine a face-palm emoji here because I can’t insert one anymore).

Now, I’d like to think that noticing all these things and making adjustments is a sign that I’m entering a new phase in my relationship with AI where we’re not looking at each other googly-eyed, but instead drawing some practical boundaries. That said, I don’t think I am the only one drawing some boundaries this year, so I am curious how tech builders and sellers will adapt to this subtle shift.

Here’s to hoping that we all become more pragmatic in our relationships with technology and AI in 2025.