In his seminal 1982 book Megatrends, John Naisbitt put forth a powerful notion that remains relevant today: The more “High Tech” we become, the more we need “High Touch.”
Naisbitt wrote that book just as the personal computing industry was emerging. It was the era of the battle between Apple and Microsoft for market dominance, and nobody knew who was going to win. Fortyish years later and it seems that those two companies divided the labor—Microsoft handled the business end of things while Apple took the personal and creative side. And given the leaders of those two companies at the time, it made perfect sense that it would go that way.
I recently read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. In it, the author paints an unvarnished picture of who Jobs was—by no means a soft and cuddly guy. But he understood what nobody else seemed to get at the time; he understood how to add the High Touch to the High Tech.
The Lesson from Steve Jobs
Jobs was the one who rounded the corners on devices. He was the one who insisted on a soft white color rather than the industry-standard gunmetal gray. He was the one who put a handle on the iMac—not just for utility, but to make the machine feel approachable.
He even put a smiley face on the screen to greet the user. He was a tyrant about the packaging, about making sure that the experience of buying, opening and setting up Apple’s products was a positive and meaningful experience.
He understood that for technology to penetrate our lives, it had to feel human.
From Servers to Social Connection
We saw this dynamic play out again when the internet hit the mainstream. Once again, large companies and venture capitalists threw massive amounts of time, labor, energy, people and money into a very high-tech industry. The apparatus required to support this new world was mind-blowing: countless servers, complex networking, sophisticated software, millions of employees.
And what came out of all that high-tech infrastructure? Kitten videos.
We used this massive technological leap to watch each other’s kids grow up on Instagram. To interact with our loved ones “face to face” even when they were thousands of miles away. The technology was the vehicle; the destination was human connection.
The Dawn of AI in Distribution
Now, we stand at the dawn of artificial intelligence and agentic AI. The question we must ask is: What will the “High Touch” component be that emerges from this latest “High Tech”?
For the distribution industry, perhaps AI translates most significantly to reducing or eliminating the friction of a sale. Faster quotes, transparent delivery information, the right products in the right places at the right times, more accurate invoices and therefore fewer disputes. What historically took days will now take minutes. All the back and forth will be drastically reduced if not eliminated.
And what will we do with the all that time saved? Strengthen relationships with customers. Instead of having to track a customer’s order, the account manager can talk football with the customer which, as any good AM will tell you, is 90% of the job.
If you read enough articles or listen to enough podcasts about this technology, the conclusion almost always circles back to one truth: Humans still matter. You need a “human in the loop.” We can make AI as human-like as possible, but you cannot substitute the nuance and warmth of a real person.
The Hive Mind vs. The AI
When I was with a small distributor of construction supplies, the inside salespeople
utilized a simple email distribution list to share knowledge. When a customer sent a picture of an obscure part saying, “I need a hundred of these,” and the salesperson didn’t know what it was, they would blast that image out to the distribution list. This would invariably lead to a series of wisecracks, inside jokes and, eventually, the part being correctly identified by someone, as well as a source for where to get it.
They were tapping into the “hive mind” to get the answer. It followed the principle that none of us is as smart as all of us. In reality, that is exactly what AI is: the collective knowledge of all of us, digitized. And super fast.
We should note that the technology to identify that part has existed for a while now. We have Google Lens, or you can upload an image to your LLM of choice, and it will likely tell you exactly what that item is in seconds. With the right AI-enabled software, it will even generate a quote.
Perhaps those inside salespeople know this. But maybe they reach out to the email list anyway because they crave the interaction. They want the relationship with their peers. They need the middle of the pyramid in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Belonging.
Entering the Age of Agentic AI
As we move into the age of “Agentic AI”—where AI can take actions on our behalf—we must remember the lesson of the last 40 years. Technology does not replace the need for human connection; it amplifies it. AI is a force multiplier, it’s not a workforce replacement.
In distribution, the winners won’t be those who use AI to replace people. The winners will be those who use AI to clear the clutter, allowing their people to be more “High Touch” than ever before.
And yes, some of the human connection will be replaced by AI. For the better. What the “hive mind” could do in terms of identifying, sourcing and quoting, AI can do 10 times better and faster. But AI won’t crack wise. It won’t get the inside jokes. It won’t talk about football in any meaningful way. Those are tasks designated exclusively for us humans.
And that’s a good thing. And that will never change.
For nearly 30 years Mike Doyle has led marketing departments for publicly-traded and privately-held retail and B2B companies like K&G Fashion Superstore (a division of Men's Wearhouse), Floor & Decor, White Cap and Ram Tool. Proficient in both creative and analytical marketing tools, he has seen the evolution of martech from its humble beginnings to its current state of AI-enablement. Mike holds a BA in Mass Communication from St. Bonaventure University and an MS in Marketing from Georgia State University