Why these startup CEOs don’t think AI will replace human roles

As AI companies get bigger in valuation and usage, there is a constant debate about how AI is replacing humans in various jobs. Studies suggest that roles where AI can automate most tasks will be impacted, though some analysts believe that AI may also create jobs, with the displacement effect only transitional.

David Shim, CEO of meeting notetaker and intelligence company Read AI, told TechCrunch at Web Summit Qatar earlier this month that even with the rise of AI tools, it will ultimately be humans who decide the course of action, and their job will be important. He equated the technology with using maps in a car.

“I think there’s always going to be a human in the middle,” Shim said. “I think the job is going to get easier over time. But a good example would be like driving a car. When we first started, you used to have a map. And you’d pull out the map. And you’d go in and say okay I’m driving. I’m deciding what happens. Now everyone uses Waze or Google Maps, and the map is telling you where to go. And you’re just following that order. But you’re the human in the middle who can decide what happens.”

Shim acknowledged that AI would affect jobs, noting that advertising agencies may lose human roles in favor of automated tools. However, he noted that tech platforms would need jobs to oversee the automation process.

Abdullah Asiri, founder of AI-powered consumer support tooling startup Lucidya, said that he believes that AI will replace tasks but not roles. He said that when his company’s clients use Lucidya, customer support agents often take up different roles and responsibilities. He noted that some become supervisors who guide other humans and AI, while some take up relationship-building and business development responsibilities using the time they saved.

Read AI’s Shim noted that meeting notetakers have freed up humans from taking notes manually.

“Nobody here wants to sit down and take meeting notes, but as you start to take away that job, you have a little bit more time to do other things that you can go and focus on. You can send that report a little bit faster, or you can respond back to a customer and actually have better context to make better decisions, versus spending a bunch of time gathering all the information and having little time to make a decision,” he said.

AI’s internal use and hiring

As tech companies like Read AI and Lucidya are increasingly using AI tools, they want to keep their teams lean. Currently, Read AI’s customer service team consists of just five people, who serve millions of monthly users. Shim noted that the company is using AI tools to make a small team more productive and give them more context to help them do their job more quickly.

The companies are said to be reaping productivity gains. Read AI said that its sales tool helps predict the state of a deal using data from CRM systems like HubSpot and Salesforce. The startup said that it has seen deals worth $200 million approved through that system. Shim said Read AI captures 23% more context with each update, which could be used to evaluate what worked or what didn’t in a lead call.

Lucidya’s Asiri also noted that the company uses AI tools, including Read AI, for meetings and marketing asset creation. He said that the company wants “scale outcomes without scaling headcounts.”

“The goal for any company is to hire people who are AI native, who are very strong with AI, but we need to be realistic,” Asiri said. “Today, this skill is being developed. You cannot find a lot of people who have very strong AI capabilities, not building AI, but using AI.”

Asiri noted that people who would be able to build agents that can help them do their job would be more desirable to hire.

Handling customer perception of AI

Shim noted that just a few years ago, many people were hesitant to have AI notetakers in meetings and didn’t understand why a bot was on the call. However, now people are more receptive to notetakers as long as you give them controls around recording, he said.

Asiri said that Lucidya discloses to users when it’s using a voice AI to communicate. He said that for users, issue resolution is more important than the fact that an AI bot is handling their calls.

“It’s all about resolving issues and finding customers’ problems and resolving them,” Asiri said. “As long as the AI agents are actually focusing on that part, customers are happy that their issues are being resolved. The customer really doesn’t care whether it’s fixed by AI or a human, as long as it’s fixed fast and accurately.”