The Human Side of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) keeps showing up in our industry conversations, and I think we are talking about it the wrong way. We are talking around it. What we are not talking enough about is what we want it to actually do, and who benefits when it does it.

I lean toward a concept I call inclusive prosperity. When I think about AI in cleaning and facility solutions, I think about our front-line teams-the people cleaning buildings, working in warehouses, running production floors. AI should make their work more efficient, but it should also be a way for all of us to grow together. The last thing our industry needs is technology that widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Artificial intelligence (AI) keeps showing up in our industry conversations, and I think we are talking about it the wrong way. We are talking around it. What we are not talking enough about is what we want it to actually do, and who benefits when it does it.

I lean toward a concept I call inclusive prosperity. When I think about AI in cleaning and facility solutions, I think about our front-line teams-the people cleaning buildings, working in warehouses, running production floors. AI should make their work more efficient, but it should also be a way for all of us to grow together. The last thing our industry needs is technology that widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

What leaders do differently

If you are a CEO or a senior leader, your job is about to change. You will spend less time gathering and interpreting information because AI will do most of that for you. That sounds great, until you realize the skill set required to lead is shifting along with it, with less time looking behind. More time looking forward, around the next corner, anticipating what comes next.

My founder used to subscribe to a clipping service. For anyone under a certain age, that was a real company that literally cut articles out of newspapers and magazines about your competitors and clients so you could keep up. From there, we moved to Google searches and then to LinkedIn. Now we have market intelligence tools like the AlphaSense research platform and the global investment research firm Third Bridge, which comb through millions of websites, documents, and earnings calls to deliver insights in seconds.

The information will keep coming faster. The question is what we do with it. The leaders who win will not be the ones with the most data.

Better questions, not bigger dashboards

We do not need more dashboards. We have enough dashboards. What we need is the discipline to sit down with all of that data-staffing trends, labor costs, customer feedback, operations, financials, production schedules, distribution routes-and ask it something useful.

Try this: What are the three things I need to pay attention to this week? What trends are going to affect my business six months from now? How do these patterns look against the client sectors I serve?

That habit cannot stop with the corner office. Teach your teams to ask curious, forward-looking questions, too. Good questions, those that are asked across an organization, are more valuable than any single tool.

Delegation gets easier if you let it

Many leaders struggle to delegate because they think letting go means losing control. I will admit to having my own control issues, and I suspect I am not alone in the C-suite. AI can quietly make this easier. It can validate that work is happening and that it is being done well, which means we can spend less time checking on people and more time trusting them.

There is a flip side. AI can also tempt leaders into thinking they no longer need their teams for information, because they can pull it themselves. That is a trap. The point of delegating is not just to offload work. It is to build judgment in others. Use AI to free yourself to delegate more, not less.

Culture is built between people

Technology should remove friction. Done well, AI takes the repetitive work off our plates, so managers have more time to coach, mentor, support, and recognize their teams. That is the ideal. The reality is that vacuums fill quickly. When we became more efficient with cell phones and laptops, we did not gain free time. We just did more work.

The same risk applies to AI. If we are not deliberate, the hours we save will get swallowed by more to-dos. So be purposeful. Put human interaction on the calendar, just as you would put a budget review there. Spend the time you gain with your team and your customers, or you will not spend it that way at all.

Where to start

For owners and operators who feel intimidated by AI, my advice is simple: Do not start with the technology. Do not start with Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever tool is the topic of conversation this month. Start with your pain points.

Where are you having to solve the same problem repeatedly? Is it scheduling? Proposal development? Or maybe hiring? Find the friction first, then look for AI that can help you address it. In our own business, as legacy systems reach end of life, we are intentionally looking for partners with AI built in, or with serious investment in AI on their roadmap.

You are not trying to become an AI expert. You are trying to become curious. Find the right person, the right product, and become functional with it-knowing that whatever you love today may look very different a year from now.

This is not about whether AI will reshape our industry. It will. The question is whether we shape it on purpose, with our valuable people in mind, or let it shape us.