What conversation is really for
The social benefits we’re at risk of losing from AI aren’t just produced by the kinds of straightforward interactions we portrayed earlier between the junior and senior colleagues. Sometimes workplace conversations that are frowned upon have unintended positive consequences too.
Consider eavesdropping. Communication scholars Leila Bighash of the University of Arizona and Andrea B. Hollingshead of the University of Southern California explain that eavesdropping provides environmental knowledge that is “not readily available through conventional information-seeking strategies.” University of California at Santa Barbara’s Paul Leonardi has found that through eavesdropping workers “were slowly becoming aware of what and whom their coworkers knew and filing that metaknowledge away for later use.” It provides contextual awareness, helping employees understand relationships, influence, and organizational dynamics otherwise hidden from formal communications.
And then there’s gossip. Not the pernicious kind that can be hurtful and even toxic. But rather, the mundane ways we share information in conversation likely not captured through formal channels. Gossip creates shared understandings and social bonds. Chicago Booth’s Ronald S. Burt describes it as a “prism,” reflecting the values and norms of the organization, and as an “echo” reinforcing those norms through repeated conversations. Gossip also builds reputations. And reputation is a critical predicate for the trust that enables teams to thrive.
Why the danger is easy to miss
If the risk of lost conversations were obvious, careful managers would already be guarding against them. The reason they don’t is structural. The functions that vanish when an interaction is eliminated leave no record and appear on no dashboard, while efficiency is measured constantly and reported eagerly. Automation’s gains arrive immediately and visibly. The losses they produce come later with seemingly indeterminate cause: junior employees who never learned what their predecessors knew; teams with little in common but their metaphorical jerseys.
No one decides to dismantle the social infrastructure a company relies on to sense problems and develop its people. It happens one seemingly sensible choice at a time. Why interrupt a busy colleague when the answer is already in the system? Why ask a senior person to review a draft when a tool can polish it instantly? Each choice is reasonable on its own; together they can hollow out capabilities the organization did not know it had until they are gone.
Start with a question
None of this is an argument against AI. The gains it promises are real. Organizations that hesitate unduly will lose out. The task is to automate with open eyes, to streamline the conversations that are purely task based while encouraging the ones quietly doing more. Take a short pause before replacing a conversation with a machine. Ask a single question: What else may be happening here?
Actively seek out the conversations that carry something—mentoring, an early read on a problem, a relationship that holds two teams together. The point is not to preserve every meeting and hallway exchange, but to recognize that the manifest output of an interaction does not always represent its full value.
It is a lesson those in the oil company’s map room learned only when their ships were already missing their ports.
John Burrows is a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and an associate fellow at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School. Seth Rachlin, a sociologist and former Capgemini executive vice president, teaches at Arizona State University. They are the authors of the forthcoming Social Capital at Work: Building the Hidden Asset That Drives Trust, Engagement, and Performance (Simon & Schuster) from which this essay is adapted.