If you were part of this conversation, you know the energy: leaders thinking deeply about hybrid teams, new approaches to learning, and the responsible blending of human and artificial intelligence. During the initial gathering exploring Resilience in the Age of AI, we didn’t just debate the future of work—we helped redefine it through a transformative shift in how we frame the relationship between humans and AI. As Mohammad Jarrahi put it, it’s not “Humans or AI”—it’s Humans “hyphen” AI. That little hyphen? It’s where the real magic happens.

What Most Organizations Get Wrong. When you put efficiency above all else, you risk erasing the hidden networks and subtle flows of human knowledge that fuel innovation. And you vastly overestimate what AI can achieve on its own, especially in the messy realities of business.

Partnership, Not Replacement What makes humans irreplaceable is not just our creativity or judgment but the way we bring context, ethics, and meaning to messy problems. When these strengths complement each other—when we design for hybrid intelligence—that’s when extraordinary things happen.

Elevation vs Elimination Simply removing tedious tasks isn’t “augmented intelligence.” What happens with the time and cognitive energy AI gives back: Are your people learning? Creating? At LILA, we heard how true innovation lives in this elevated middle ground—where creative prompts from humans meet AI’s systematic pattern-spotting. This is where tacit knowledge is amplified—not replaced.

Three Things to Try Right Now
Design for Symbiosis: Evaluate your processes—are they set up so AI and people truly collaborate? Pinpoint one workflow to redesign, focusing on how AI can amplify, not just automate, human input.

Map Your Tacit Networks: Ask yourself who your “hidden connectors” are. Are there knowledge flows or informal influencers that tech solutions often bypass? Identify one area to protect or strengthen those connections.

Balance Efficiency & Learning: Don’t just track cost savings—ask, “Where is AI freeing up time for exploration, creative problem-solving, or skill development?” Choose one metric to capture AI’s augmentation, not just its automation.

The future belongs to those who create new combinations of human and artificial intelligence—those who operate in the hyphen, not the divide. If you want to move past the noise and shape what’s next, join us on this journey

“It’s not just about ‘keeping humans in the loop’ for the last mile (as a judgment check at the very last step), but keeping both humans and AI in the game along the way.” Mohammad Jarrahi – Professor UNC.