Guest Blog by Future Proof Advisor, Amy Friedlander Hoffman
Like everyone, I’ve been thinking a lot about AI and what our near future will look like.
Two things feel certain. First, like internet 1.0, the world is about to change dramatically, and we don’t know how. Second, the rise of AI will create an equal and opposite reaction. People will place even greater value on being together in person and seeking experiences that demand our full presence.
In a loud attention driven economy, there may be nothing more countercultural than being truly present.
The Last Source of Truth
We are entering, or perhaps already living in, a world where the only thing we know for certain is real is what is directly in front of us.
Images, video, voices, and text can all be generated, manipulated, or fabricated with increasing sophistication. Deepfakes are becoming harder to identify. AI-generated content floods our feeds. The distinction between what is real and what is made up is becoming harder to see.
But what you see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and feel in your own body – holds massive weight.
We trust direct experience at a visceral level. As more of our digital environment becomes uncertain, firsthand experience becomes more valuable. Presence becomes a form of trust.
A conversation across a table. The electricity in a room. These are not simply experiences. They are evidence.
That has real implications for business. Companies and brands that create authentic human experiences, where people can participate instead of simply observe, will earn something increasingly scarce: belief.
Engagement Over Consumption
The shift toward IRL is not about rejecting technology or romanticizing a pre-digital past. AI will create extraordinary businesses, new capabilities, and entirely new ways of working.
But consuming content is not the same as living life.
You can scroll through a thousand posts about connection and still feel alone. You can watch countless videos of remarkable places and never leave your house. You can watch beautiful people “looksmaxing” without moving a muscle.
Passive consumption creates the illusion of participation, but it does not satisfy the deeper need. It does not create memories in the same way, build relationships, or leave us feeling full.
Presence does. Active engagement does.
The moments that matter ask something of us. They require attention, curiosity, and connection. In return, they give us something real.
The Human Need
The irony of AI is that it may make us more aware of what it means to be human.
Human connection is not a nice-to-have. It is a fundamental need.
No matter how helpful or personalized AI becomes, it cannot replace the embodied experience of being with another person or participating in something collective.
It cannot reproduce the warmth of eye contact, the sweat from bodies dancing together or the memory made when a group shares a moment that could only have happened in that specific time, with those specific people.
In fact, AI may intensify the desire for all of it.
The more our interactions become automated, and the more agent-to-agent transactions happen in the background, the more we will value experiences that feel distinctly human. The more time we spend in virtual environments, the more we will crave what is immediate, physical, and shared.
AI is not making human connection obsolete. It is making it more essential.
The Opportunity for Business
There will be an enormous class of businesses built for the AI era: companies that automate, personalize, predict and scale in ways we are only beginning to imagine.
There will also be a powerful and potentially equally consequential group of businesses that succeeds by bringing people together.
These are the companies that give people a reason to leave the house, put their phones down, meet someone new, move, play, debate, and belong.
For brands, IRL cannot be a marketing add-on or a one-night activation. The greatest opportunities will create genuine participation and real community. They will offer an experience people cannot get from a feed, an AI assistant, or a perfectly personalized stream of content.
The question for leaders is not whether technology will continue to reshape how we live and work. It will.
The more useful question is: What can we create that people need to experience together?
Choosing Presence
Presence is not passive. It is an active choice to engage with what, and who, is in front of us.
The conversations we have, the people we meet, and the moments we share will increasingly become the things we trust most, not because they are flawless, but because we were there.
Maybe that is the greatest appeal of IRL. It reminds us that we are here. We are human. And we need connection that is real, unfiltered, and irreplaceable.
And no algorithm can solve for that.
Amy Friedlander Hoffman is a Future Proof Advisor with deep experience helping high-growth companies scale. An executive, advisor, and investor, she has held leadership roles at Liquid Death, Uber, and AT&T, and currently advises startups and emerging brands across technology, media, and consumer products.