At risk of hyperbole, the role of humans in an increasingly AI-powered world will arguably be the key issue we grapple with over the next two to five decades.
I am an optimist. I happen to believe that AI will—at least in the best-case scenario—take over much of the grunt work that humans do, freeing up our creativity.
Whether or not you share such a rosy view of where we are headed, I think we can all agree that the influence of AI on our professional and private lives remains only in its infancy.
Human-in-the-Loop
Even for heavily AI- and automation-intensive workflows, it’s very evident that the involvement of humans is still needed. The reasons for this should be self-evident.
The term for keeping humans involved in one or more steps in a given automation workflow is “human-in-the-loop.”
I’m going to share a prime example here based on a personal anecdote. The following really happened to me—and it happened last month.
A Shining Example of the Need to Add the Human Back into the Loop
In the spring of this year, I contracted with an email list provider who also sent emails out to prospects on the user’s behalf. Let’s call them Z-Send (this name is entirely fictitious, while the story is entirely real).
Z-Send’s system leverages a multi-domain sender methodology (think multiple “from” email addresses being used on your behalf) to help reduce instances of email content being flagged by the internet powers-that-be as spam. The company has a decent reputation, strong social proof examples, and a fairly transparent work-delivery process. I decided to take a chance on them.
Setup was easy, the onboarding process was decent (not great, but decent). Audience-targeting options for list generation seemed to fit my needs. They even helped write the first batch of emails, leveraging best practices. And they provided plenty of video tutorials.
I Had a Few Issues with the Service Offering During Month 1
After month one of service had come and gone, I was satisfied enough to keep going but had several points of dissatisfaction. If I could get those addressed, I would be all-in to give it a try for a couple more months.
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They charged a setup fee and a month-one maintenance fee at the same time. But here’s the rub: the month-one fee’s “clock started ticking” the day I signed up. Since setup takes 1–2 weeks, that means I didn’t really get a full month of service from month-one’s fee.
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I had questions about suppressing prior lists during list selection for month two, but it was hard to find an answer on their website.
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I had a question about embedding wildcard characters into the emails (e.g., {{insert first name here}}) for customization purposes.
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There was no official notification of when month two started. Instead, month two was just silently auto-billed to my account. No fanfare. No notification. Just a charge to my credit card.
There were a few other issues, but these were my main gripes.
I Reached Out to Customer Service
I decided to reach out to Z-Send via the usual means. Since I had been introduced during onboarding to a customer success person, I tried him first. However, after emailing him twice, I did not receive any replies. I suspect it wasn’t a real person but was either a placeholder name for a team of people or an AI chat agent.
Next, I went to the help center on the website, which directed me toward a community-style Q&A center. But my questions did not have answers that were easy to find. And I didn’t feel like scrolling through tons of similar questions to try to find my needle in their haystack.
I finally resorted to reaching out to the original salesperson via email as a Hail Mary. But again, I never heard back. I guess I had served my purpose when I signed up for the service and they earned their commission. Box checked (at least for them).
So, I Decided to Cancel the Service
Frustrated, I set out to cancel. So, I went through the proper channels on the website to do so. During this process, I was met with a message that said, “I would love to hear what we could do to retain you as a client.”
“Finally,” I thought. “A sign of life.”
I took a chance and shared my reasons for wanting to cancel. Within seconds, I received an auto-reply message directing me to potentially helpful (but still missing-the-mark) topics in their customer portal.
Ugh. That was the coup de grâce in my status as their customer. There was not even an attempt to connect me to a real human or a promise to “get back to me within one business day.” Either step could have helped me get my questions answered—and would have made me feel heard. But a redirect to an FAQ? No, I was done.
A Missed Opportunity
Here’s the thing: this was Z-Send’s opportunity to keep me for another month or more. But they couldn’t bother to dedicate 5–10 minutes of a real human’s time to answer my questions—even when I was at the point of actually canceling on their website. If there was ever a need for a human-in-the-loop, this was it.
The subtext was clear: my several hundred dollars per month did not warrant a few minutes of attention.
The lack of a human touch also made me question their service as a whole, including:
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Did they really care about keeping customers, or only converting them?
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Were they interested in improving their service?
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What other aspects of their process sucked?
At the end of the day, I was left with the impression that they had a pretty cool service (on paper, at least). And they were on the automation bandwagon, clearly. But they had lost sight of what really moves the needle: responding to client needs.
Humans, Rejoice
As a CEO, when you take the inevitable steps to implement automation where you can, it’s essential to take stock of where to keep humans involved. This will certainly vary by industry and specific company, but to get the ball rolling, here are a few guidelines. Keep a human in the loop when:
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Your customers (and prospects) want to actually talk to someone
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When months or years of domain expertise are required
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When you value genuine creativity—in words, visuals, or ideas—that is not just regurgitated versions of past humans’ creativity
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When you are setting strategic direction
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When you just need somebody involved who’s been there: seen it, heard it, felt it
My advice to CEOs and marketing professional in this area is: continue to automate where you can so that you can put your most important assets—your humans—on the most important jobs.
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