Stop Calling AI Your Co Worker and Focus on Real Empowerment

Generative AI is rapidly evolving, and startups are increasingly marketing it with human names and personas. This approach is designed to make AI feel less like software and more like a trusted co-worker, aiming to build quick trust and reduce fears about job displacement. However, this trend risks dehumanizing real employees by abstracting them into replaceable bots.

Startups, especially those emerging from accelerators like Y Combinator, are pitching AI as staff replacements—AI assistants, coders, and employees. For example, Atlog offers an “AI employee for furniture stores” that manages payments and marketing, allowing one manager to oversee multiple stores. This implies fewer human hires, but the fate of displaced workers remains unaddressed.

Consumer-facing companies also adopt this tactic. Anthropic named its AI platform “Claude” to evoke warmth and trust, similar to fintech apps that use friendly names to mask transactional motives. This strategy makes users feel safer sharing sensitive data with an AI that feels like a companion rather than a faceless algorithm.

Yet, this anthropomorphizing of AI is reaching a tipping point. While generative AI excites many for its potential, each new “AI employee” raises concerns about the real human workers it replaces. Predictions suggest AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, potentially pushing unemployment rates to 20%. The human cost of automation is becoming increasingly urgent.

The language companies use to describe AI matters. Unlike past technologies—mainframes or PCs—that were marketed as tools to enhance productivity, today’s AI is often framed as a colleague or employee. This framing risks trivializing the displacement of workers and overlooks the need for AI to empower humans rather than replace them.

The future of AI should focus on extending human potential—making people more productive, creative, and competitive—rather than presenting AI as a fake worker. Businesses and developers should prioritize building tools that support great managers and individuals in making a meaningful impact, rather than masking automation as companionship.

In summary, while anthropomorphizing AI may ease adoption in the short term, it risks dehumanizing the workforce and obscuring the real consequences of automation. The industry must rethink how it markets AI and focus on ethical, empowering solutions that respect and enhance human roles.