2026-09-16

AI finds the opportunity. Humans create the relationship.

I’ve been thinking about AI outreach.

There’s an obvious temptation to use AI to send more messages.

Find 10,000 people.

Generate 10,000 personalised introductions.

Send them.

Congratulations.

You’ve invented cheaper spam.

But AI might be incredibly useful for everything that happens before a worthwhile human interaction.

Find the right people.

Research them.

Understand why they might actually care.

Identify the signal that makes a conversation relevant.

Then let the human do the thing humans are particularly good at.

Listen.

Respond.

Change direction.

Make someone laugh.

Build trust.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to automate the relationship.

Automate the work required to find the relationship worth having.

This one came literally from the discussion after Hannah’s post, so it’s unquestionably new.