AI can answer quickly, summarize instantly, and work without fatigue. It cannot automatically understand the emotional history of a team, the pressure behind a colleague’s silence, or the relational cost of a decision.
That gap is why relational intelligence is becoming a leadership issue. In 2026, Penny participated in George Mason University ODKM conversations and a learning event focused on “Reauthoring the Team: Relational Intelligence in the Age of AI.”
The question is bigger than productivity
Organizations often begin AI adoption with questions about efficiency: What can be automated? How much faster can the work move? Where can costs be reduced?
Those are legitimate questions, but they are incomplete. AI changes roles, status, expertise, identity, and how work is coordinated. That means leaders also need to ask what happens to trust, responsibility, belonging, and the quality of human judgment when an artificial system becomes part of the team’s workflow.
Relational infrastructure
Teams rely on invisible infrastructure: the ability to disagree productively, interpret context, repair misunderstandings, recognize pressure, and make meaning together. AI can support parts of the work without replacing the need for that infrastructure.
A leadership-development question
The AI transition is therefore not only a technology implementation. It is a leadership-development challenge. Leaders will need to become more explicit about judgment, accountability, relationship, and the kinds of work they want humans to continue doing with and for each other.
That makes coaching and organization development highly relevant. Both create structured ways to examine assumptions, team dynamics, and how people want to work together as conditions change.