When AI Handles the "How's the Weather?" Part of Your Meetings
Let me tell you about something that made me deeply uncomfortable at first: teaching a computer to make small talk.
I know, I know. It sounds like teaching a fish to ride a bicycle. Small talk is supposed to be this uniquely human thing—the verbal equivalent of a warm handshake. So when a client asked me to build an AI tool that could chat with prospects before meetings, I felt like I was crossing some sacred line.
The idea was simple enough: let the AI handle the pleasantries while humans saved their energy for the meaty conversation. But honestly? I expected it to crash and burn spectacularly.
Plot Twist: People Actually Liked It
Here's where things got interesting. The AI didn't sound like a customer service bot having an existential crisis. It sounded... normal. Pleasant, even.
But the real kicker? People genuinely appreciated one thing above all else: the consistency.
Think about your last awkward pre-meeting chat. Maybe you fumbled through weather commentary. Maybe you forgot someone's name. Maybe you were having an off day and your usual charm was stuck in traffic.
This AI? It showed up the same way every time. No Monday morning grumpiness. No post-lunch energy crashes. Just steady, friendly conversation that set a relaxed tone.
The Surprisingly Human Touch
Our little digital assistant handled the basics beautifully—confirming meeting times, asking genuinely interesting ice-breaker questions, creating that gentle on-ramp into real conversation. The kind of stuff that usually feels like a necessary chore.
And here's what caught me off guard: removing the pressure to perform perfect small talk actually made the whole interaction more human, not less.
When you're not mentally rehearsing your weather observations or scrambling for something witty to say, you can actually be present. You can save your mental energy for the conversation that matters. You can walk into that meeting feeling prepared instead of depleted.
Maybe We've Been Thinking About This All Wrong
This whole experiment taught me something: we don't need to eliminate human connection. We just need to be smarter about where we spend our social energy.
That pre-meeting chitchat? It's not really about the weather or traffic or whatever surface-level topic we land on. It's about creating a comfortable space before diving into business. And if a well-designed AI can create that space consistently, maybe that's not a loss of humanity—maybe it's just good sense.
Sometimes the most human thing we can do is admit what drains us and find a better way forward. Even if that way involves teaching a computer to ask about your weekend plans.
Who knew?
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