AI makes it easier to simulate connection, can tech deepen human relationships instead?
Let’s be honest: AI is getting eerily good at sounding human. It can craft hyper-personalized content and emails, and handle entire conversations. It’s also made sales outreach noisier and eroded trust in once-reliable channels like email, chat, and even voice—and crazy enough, video. But it’s so seductive and fast. It’s learning and adapting faster than ever. And it’s not going to stop: in Q1, it already represented the majority share of global venture capital funding.
But one thing AI still can’t fabricate is a real, trusted human relationship. These can’t be made up or scaled with prompts. They’re built through shared experiences, mutual trust, and real-world context.
And yet, in today’s business world, precious human connections are slipping through the cracks. They’re buried in inboxes, lost in forgotten LinkedIn threads, siloed in the minds of your team and stakeholders. The right lead, investor, or candidate is often just one intro away, hidden in the network you already have. LinkedIn is great if you’re an individual building an audience but it fails to unlock the collective relationship capital of an entire company.
I’m David, CEO of The Swarm. We’ve built a new relationship mapping technology, and our mission is to make relationships and company networks more visible and actionable.
Here are a few things I’d love to discuss here:
The current state of AI’s ability to simulate relationships: where it helps, where it hurts, and where we should intentionally keep it out of the way
Whether tech can automate parts of business relationships—and which parts actually make sense to automate
How to use existing tools to map and activate an entire company network
Real-world tactics for humans: warm intros, investor activation, client referrals, and more
And the big questions: — Will AI-to-human relationships become the norm? — Will AI-to-AI relationships start replacing us entirely? — Can we still use tech to amplify real trust and connection, instead of just faking it?
