How do we decide which operational seats must remain strictly human and which parts of our processes can be safely handed over to AI?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To draw a hard line between human responsibility and AI automation, you must look at conative strengths: how people naturally take action to solve problems. AI is highly cognitive. It can process massive volumes of information, write drafts, and analyze patterns. What AI completely lacks is conation, the instinctual drive to build, risk, and create relationships.

Using the Kolbe Index framework, we know that human action is driven by striving instincts such as Fact Finder, Follow Thru, Quick Start, and Implementor. Your leadership and strategy seats require high human conation. For instance, setting the company vision on your V/TO, managing interpersonal conflict during a Level 10 Meeting, and making final personnel choices using the People Analyzer are strictly human activities.

On the other hand, highly repetitive steps in your documented core processes that demand heavy Follow Thru or Fact Finder behavior can often be automated or augmented by AI. Tasks like gathering data, drafting standard compliance reports, or checking work against a set of predefined rules are prime candidates for AI. If a task requires genuine empathy, entrepreneurial risk, or complex human negotiation, it must remain in a human seat. Keep the conative heavy lifting human and use AI to handle the cognitive grunt work.