The latest World Happiness Report made headlines across major news channels. One figure stopped me: young people aged 15 to 24 are increasingly unhappy. I cannot read that from a distance. I have two daughters, aged 15 and 17.
A generation already under pressure
The causal link is well documented. Social media has deeply affected an entire generation: constant comparison, validation-seeking, permanent exposure, loss of bearings. We let a social and psychological pressure settle in without measuring its effects in time.
This is not a retrospective indictment. It is a fact. And that fact forces us to look clearly at what is coming next.
AI arrives in this context
At the very moment we are beginning to measure the effects of the first wave, a new one arrives. More powerful still. And carrying real, immense opportunities that I advocate for in every mandate and every conversation.
But it also arrives with new expectations. Move faster. Produce more, at lower cost. Prove your legitimacy alongside machines. Exist in a world where the boundary between the human, the simulated and the automated grows a little blurrier each day.
This is not a reason to slow down the transformation. It is a reason to lead it differently.
What this demands from leaders
Our role is not only to adopt value-creating technologies. It is to decide how. And for whom.
Keeping humans in the loop is not a nostalgic stance. It is a strategic choice. It requires concrete trade-offs: not over-optimizing to the point of losing meaning and control, preserving spaces of authenticity within organizations, restoring value to the real, to human connection, to imperfection, where creativity is born.
We cannot afford to inflict a double burden on this generation. After the social pressure created by social networks, it falls on us not to let a new cognitive and identity-related pressure take root, driven by AI. The consequences would be hard to measure, and slow to repair.
What cannot be automated
In an increasingly dematerialized world, what differentiates will not be purely technological. The organizations that get the most out of AI will not necessarily be those that have automated the most. They will be the ones that preserved what machines cannot produce: trust, judgment, creativity, meaning.
At every major technological shift in history, the organizations that endured were those that knew how to combine the power of tools with the depth of the human. AI is no exception to this rule. It confirms it.
The competitive edge of tomorrow will be deeply human. That is a conviction. It is also what history teaches us. Let us build from there.
I am available for a CEO or Managing Director mandate in a BtoC or B2B, SaaS, Data or e-commerce company undergoing transformation. If you are running a search or would like to discuss these challenges, feel free to reach out directly.