A client told me recently that something subtle had changed in his organization.

​

The emails had become colder.

​

He noticed fewer personalized greetings, if any at all. There was no small talk. Messages went straight to the point. They were efficient.

​

No more “Hope you’re well.”
No more “Thanks for your help.”
No more human texture.

​

He wasn’t sure if he was imagining things. So he decided to test it. Since his company had already integrated AI into its workflows, it was easy for him to analyze his email correspondence over the past year.

​

The result confirmed his intuition. The messages had indeed become less personal.

​

Why?

​

Perhaps people were increasingly working with AI, where tone plays no role. Instead of humans teaching AI to sound more human, AI may have begun teaching humans to communicate more like machines.

​

Or perhaps many of these emails were already being written by AI, removing the human voice from the exchange altogether.

​

Either way, something is shifting.

 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article on trends shaping work in 2026 (Aykens et al., 2026), one point stood out: Despite massive investment, most AI initiatives are still struggling to deliver meaningful returns.

​

At the same time, organizations are under pressure to move faster, become more efficient, and demonstrate results.

​

Many therefore find themselves in an uncomfortable position:

​

• High expectations•

• Uneven outcomes

• Rising pressure on people

• Growing cultural dissonance

​

This pressure tends to show up first in small places. Emails are one of them.

​

When communication becomes purely functional, something else begins to fade. Tone, context, and relationship slowly recede.

​

And with them, something even more important: trust.

 

We have seen this pattern before.

​

Around ten years ago, everything suddenly had to become agile. Open offices were meant to transform collaboration. Flat hierarchies were expected to unlock creativity.

​

Some of these ideas worked. Many did not, at least not everywhere and not to the extent that had been hoped.

Organizations do not simply adopt ideas. They absorb them through culture, systems, and people. That process takes time.

 

The risk is not change itself. The risk is change without fit.

​

• Adopting ideas faster than the organization can realistically integrate them

• Pushing transformation further than the culture can sustain

• Optimizing for efficiency while gradually eroding connection

 

We tend to think that the way we work today is timeless, that it has always been this way.

​

It has not.

​

For most of history, work was tied to identity and inheritance. People were born into a trade, learned it, and remained within it. Stability came from continuity, not choice.

​

The modern idea of a job, of choosing a career, moving between roles, and collaborating across teams and organizations, is a relatively recent development.

​

Which raises a question:

​

If the system itself is evolving again, what will happen to the human layer inside it?

 

AI will undoubtedly become a powerful part of how we work.

At the same time, it is beginning to reshape something more subtle.

​

• How we communicate•

• How we relate

• How we show up for each other

• ​

Yes, efficiency is improving.

​

But if communication becomes colder, faster, and more optimized, what exactly are we optimizing for?

​

— Chris Newman
Newman Seminars