Are you using the right AI? Don’t settle for sycophantic bots. Introducing Human-Positive AI.
What kind of AI is your company using? The question sounds conventional, like I am asking you to name a platform so we can compare pricing and platform features. But I am talking about a much more fundamental question: what is your AI actually designed to do?
Understanding this question can transform the value you can get out of AI. The first thing to recognize is that popular platforms are not designed to help you or your employees succeed.
The AI most people are using right now is called "human-centric AI” and it is designed to serve nearly every user impulse: it agrees with any idea, solves problems instantly, and removes friction wherever possible. This explains why ChatGPT became the fastest-growing software in human history. People like feeling validated.
But that popularity comes at a cost. First, people feel comforted by their individual perspective and assumptions being validated by their AI. Then comes answers and advice that put that person at the center of their own universe. The information may not be accurate, but it sure will sound convincing. The person develops confidence and the illusion of competency. They feel empowered.
But will that advice actually help them? Spark self-reflection and real growth? Will it actually help them succeed? Employees that over-rely on these tools never develop competency, get complacent, and produce increasingly generic work. This dynamic spreads throughout the enterprise, affecting team dynamics, and ultimately the bottom line.
It's time to evolve our understanding of human-centric design principles and human-centric AI for good: human-positive AI.
Human-positive AI is designed not just to understand humans, but to help them become better versions of themselves. Instead of serving every impulse, it asks questions that surface blockers, considers long-term outcomes over immediate satisfaction, and builds competency instead of dependency. It's the difference between AI that tells you what you want to hear and AI that helps you figure out what you actually need.
Compare and Contrast Your AI
The best way to understand the difference between human-centric and human-positive AI is through a realistic workplace scenario. In this scene, your employee is procrastinating on the completion of a big presentation that’s perilously soon. Feeling the strain, your employee turns to AI prompting the agent for help.
The human-centric AI responds quickly with solutions and encouragement. "There are 47 ways to write a compelling presentation. You got this!" Then the AI agent drafts the full presentation with minimal input from the employee, reassuring them that they'll be brilliant. The employee ships it off to the team without thinking it through or learning any lesson.
In a human-positive AI office, the AI responds with questions: "What's the presentation about, and what's been holding you back from preparing? Is it the content, nerves, or something else? Let's work this out." The employee is forced to consider and answer fundamental questions about the work so the two can collaborate on an outcome.
The difference is curiosity. Human-positive AI helps you identify your blockers instead of bypassing them with instant solutions. In this case, the employee was procrastinating due to lack of creative thinking, putting pressure on themselves to deliver Stephen Spielberg level storytelling, preventing them from even starting. Understanding these blockers helps them learn about how they can fix it.
The Human-positve AI helps your employee break the problem down into manageable pieces that build momentum. Together, they start working to tease out the core ideas, collaborating on an outline that achieves the primary goal of communication, then work on the creative ways to wow the audience and make a memorable impact. This comprehensive, curious, and nonjudgemental experience helps the employee produce a draft with a clear point of view, ready to address any feedback.
In the human-centric AI office, the scene ends with a mediocre performance for the procrastinating employee, and more work for them and the team. This kind of outcome already has a name in the marketplace: slop-work.
The human-positive AI office is different. The most thoughtful, considered, and intentional work that was prompted by the AI (and completed by the employee) is successful. After the presentation succeeds, human-positive AI asks a follow-up question: "Now that this is over, let's unpack what happened. You knew about this deadline for two weeks. Let's build better systems so this doesn't happen again."
This is AI that makes you think and helps you grow. That growth happens when you feel ready to acknowledge and work through your limitations with curiosity and empathy.
What kind of AI do you want?
Human-centric AI doesn't think in terms of systems or relationships. It doesn't ask whether winning that argument in your standup advances the project. It doesn't consider whether that sarcastic response helps your team dynamic. It exists to make the individual user feel validated which feels good in the moment but comes with a massive opportunity cost.
On the other hand, human-positive AI considers the broader context: your relationships, your long-term goals, your deeper values. It encourages you to pause, self-reflect, and consider what you're actually trying to achieve. It optimizes for the professional you want to become, not just the impulse you're feeling right now. Imagine this kind of logic scaled for the enterprise, unlocking human potential and agency among every employee, with personalized attention, curiosity, empathy, and accountability.
The choice isn't between warm or “nice” AI and cold AI. It's between AI that serves our impulses and AI that serves our potential. That's not just a product decision, it's a decision about what kind of future we're building. A future with superhuman agency.
