Is GenAI Eroding Personal Connection Among Colleagues in Your Organization? PSOW’s Pamela Eyring Shares the Most Effective Tactics to Bring It Back
Three years ago, a single blog post from OpenAI changed the world (at least for now).
The announcement was simple: “We are excited to introduce ChatGPT to get users’ feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses.” Five days later, more than a million people were using the service to write emails, draft essays, and, of course, rewrite perfectly normal sentences in the style of a pirate, a Victorian novelist, or a passive‑aggressive coworker.
Today, OpenAI is far from the only player in the AI space, and hundreds of millions of people interact with its products every day. According to Pew Research, 62% of American adults report interacting with the technology “at least several times a week.”
Undoubtedly, GenAI tools have revolutionized output. They’ve also introduced a subtle, corrosive effect on the relational elements of professional life.
In other words, as we outsource parts of our output to GenAI, we are inadvertently creating a protocol intelligence deficit in human connections.
In a new article published by AI Journal, PSOW’s leader Pamela Eyring shared insights to address how the widespread adoption of GenAI is changing the cadence of the workplace.
More specifically, a tool for synthesizing reports or producing rough drafts has infiltrated the informal corners of the workplace.
As the report “ChatGPT at Three: New research uncovers its seismic impact on workplace communication, from manners to HR matters” explains, AI has become a go-to colleague, a “must-have element in many tasks once handled exclusively by humans.”
As a result, nearly one-third of employees report speaking with colleagues less since adopting AI tools into their daily workflows. What’s more, when colleagues do connect, these conversations are coarser and more divisive than before.
More than a quarter of professionals report being less polite since adopting GenAI.
To be sure, GenAI isn’t the only reason for the disconnect. It’s also not unprecedented.
One MIT research analysis found that technologies that streamline communication and decision-making processes “reduce the overhead of collaboration, freeing workers to focus on their own work in isolation.”
There are fewer informal check‑ins, and a growing comfort with treating AI as a reliable stand‑in for a colleague, creating an environment in which 75% of employees feel excluded at work, and two-thirds feel disconnected from their colleagues.
This shouldn’t be surprising.
When communication is optimized for speed, the diplomatic nuances of professional etiquette are the first elements to disappear.
Here at PSOW, we see a rising demand for the cultivation of protocol intelligence as a modern competitive advantage. As products and outputs become increasingly homogenized, protocol intelligence becomes the primary differentiator for leaders.
Similarly, for sales teams and executives, technical proficiency is now table stakes. The ability to close the deal comes from professional presence and mastery of verbal and nonverbal cues, which GenAI, despite its friendliness, doesn’t bring to the table.
Trust comes from building relationships. The antidote is intentional development and implementation of soft skills.
To learn how, read the full article in AI Journal here and reach out to our team for resources to build this team skill set as a competitive advantage for your organization in 2026.