What’s better than AI?
In 2008 Kevin Kelly wrote a popular post about what’s better than free in response to the internet making everything copyable and thus worthless. He outlined where to find the value.
In this case, when AI can replace so many of the tasks and knowledge work that fuels most white-collar careers, you need to shift to what’s now valuable.
As we talk a lot about how to double down on what’s uniquely human, I got inspired by Kevin’s post and thought there should be one that addresses the transformational impact of AI. This isn’t an ‘either/or’ but ‘and’. The real power is in combining the two using AI as a collaborator. Here’s what I came up with. Let me know what you think and what I might have missed.
1. Sensory Intelligence
This is your ability to make quality judgments based on direct physical experience that AI can only approximate.
This is about the wisdom we gain through our physical senses: the knowledge that comes from touch, taste, smell, balance, and awareness. It's knowing when something "feels right" in a way that can't be fully captured in data or described in words. When we interact with the physical world, we process countless subtle signals that inform our judgments instantly and holistically.
When we interact physically with products, spaces, or materials, we gather information impossible to replicate in 1s and 0s. This is why we still want to test drive cars, try on clothes, and experience spaces in person before making decisions.
2. Emotional Resonance
This is your capacity to build genuine trust, create meaningful interpersonal bonds, and make decisions that consider emotional impacts.
When customers or colleagues feel emotionally understood, they develop loyalty that transcends rational cost-benefit analysis. This is why people will pay more for services with genuine human care and why we value leaders who show authentic emotional intelligence. In marketing, emotional resonance builds brands that people identify with personally rather than just rationally prefer. The ability to genuinely care and demonstrate that care through emotional presence creates value no simulation can duplicate.
3. Cultural Participation
This your ability to gain insider trust, navigate unwritten rules, and contribute meaningfully to evolving traditions.
Cultural insiders command trust that outsiders can't match regardless of their technical expertise. This explains why a local business thrives despite chain competition and why companies invest in cultural immersion for key staff.
In marketing, authentic cultural participation allows you to speak in ways that resonate deeply rather than appearing as an inauthentic outsider.
4. Authentic Connection
This is the foundation for trust-based relationships that survive challenges, create mutual growth, and unlock opportunities invisible to transactional interactions.
People crave services that include genuine human connection from healthcare to education to hospitality. We don’t like talking to bots. This explains why luxury brands emphasize relationship-building and why businesses invest in face-to-face meetings despite their cost. In marketing, authentic connection transforms customers into advocates who promote your business through personal recommendations. The ability to forge genuine human bonds creates resilient networks that provide support, information, and opportunities that algorithms cannot access.
5. Aesthetic Taste
This is your ability to cut through information overload, present ideas in compelling ways, and have a sense of style that an algorithm can’t touch because of your unique vision shaped by a lifetime of experiences.
In a world drowning in options, curated choices command premium prices (akin to the notion of “Findabilty” that Kevin Kelly talked about). This is why people pay for expert selection in everything from wine clubs to investment portfolios.
Good taste allows you to communicate complex ideas in ways that feel intuitively right to your audience. In marketing, aesthetic taste helps you stand out from competitors who all have access to the same data but lack the judgment to present it meaningfully. The ability to recognize and create beauty, appropriateness, and resonance creates value that transcends functional utility.
6. Adaptive Wisdom
Your resilience to navigate uncertainty, extract meaningful lessons from challenges, and develop judgment comes only through lived experience.
People pay for the wisdom that comes from experience from mentors, consultants, and advisors who've weathered similar challenges.
In the marketing world, your adaptive wisdom allows you to anticipate changes rather than merely react to them. Organizations that develop and honor this wisdom build institutional knowledge that helps them navigate uncertain futures more successfully than competitors guided purely by data.
7. Narrative Consciousness
This is your ability to create coherent meaning across time, build consistent identity, and make decisions within larger contexts.
People want something to believe in. Something that gives them meaning. This explains why brands invest in origin stories and why consumers will pay more for products with heritage. In marketing, narrative consciousness allows you to position offerings within meaningful contexts rather than just highlighting features. The ability to understand and shape narratives builds trust.
8. Creative Alchemy
Your capacity to produce original ideas, generate unexpected solutions, and imagine possibilities that don't yet exist is a core differentiator you want to take advantage of.
Original creation commands value that no copy can match which is why original art sells for millions while perfect reproductions are a commodity.
Breakthrough creativity allows you to solve problems that others haven't recognized or imagined solutions nobody else could conceive. In marketing, creativity helps you develop offerings that create new categories rather than competing within established ones. The ability to bring genuinely new ideas into existence elevates you from competing because you’re establishing value that can't be easily replicated.
Each of these create the seeds of value that elevate what each of us as humans can offer even as AI capabilities expand. I don’t profess to say that any of this is easy, but the opportunity lies in leaning into what’s real today and embracing AI as a collaborator.
By understanding and cultivating these qualities, we can focus on developing the aspects of our work and relationships where human capabilities create the greatest value.
