I spend a lot of my time in rooms where people talk about AI like it’s a new team member. “She understands our customers.” “He’s great at writing copy.” We know we’re talking about software, but we cannot help slipping into human language. That instinct isn’t a glitch in how we think, it’s a clue. It tells us what we actually want from technology: partnership, not replacement.

In this article, I explore why we treat AI like humans, why that tendency gets stronger the more we use it, and what it reveals about the future of marketing. We will look at the psychology behind anthropomorphism, the trust problems it can create when vendors over-humanise their systems, and a more honest model for human–AI collaboration.

At Jam 7, we call it creative amplification: using AI not to do the work of an entire marketing team, but to multiply what great humans can already do.

Why Your Team Calls the Chatbot “She” (And Why That Matters)

You’ve probably noticed it happening in your organisation. Someone refers to your AI tool as “she” or “he” instead of “it.” A team member talks about the AI “understanding” their needs or “wanting” to help. Your sales director mentions that the AI “thinks” a lead is qualified.

We anthropomorphise AI constantly, attributing human characteristics, emotions, and intentions to systems that are fundamentally lines of code and statistical models.This instinct to humanise AI isn’t a bug in human psychology. It’s a feature. And understanding why we do it reveals something profound about the future of human-AI collaboration in business.

The brands that win in the age of AI won’t be those that build the most human-like machines. They’ll be the ones that understand what our impulse to anthropomorphise AI reveals about our deepest needs, and use that insight to build genuinely collaborative relationships between human expertise and AI creativity.

The Psychology Behind Why We See Humans in Machines

When you interact with a conversational AI that responds thoughtfully to your questions, something remarkable happens in your brain. You can’t help but attribute human-like qualities to it, even when you know that it’s not conscious. This isn’t irrational. Research by Epley identified three core psychological drivers of anthropomorphism that are particularly relevant for B2B technology buyers.

1. Our desire for control and understanding

When AI systems are complex or opaque, we humanise them to make sense of their behaviour. If you can’t predict how the AI works technically, attributing human-like intentions (“it’s trying to help me”) becomes a cognitive shortcut.

2. Our need for social connection

B2B buyers don’t just want tools; they want partners. When decision-makers anthropomorphise AI, they’re often signalling a desire for collaborative relationships, not transactional ones.

3. How AI behaves

The more AI mimics human communication patterns, the more we draw on our knowledge of human behaviour to understand it. Modern large language models excel at this mimicry so convincingly that they become anthropomorphic conversational agents.

Here’s the counterintuitive finding that should make every B2B marketer pause: the more people interact with AI, the more they anthropomorphise it. A study published in Wiley Online Library found that 67% of ChatGPT users attributed consciousness to the AI, and increased interaction actually strengthened these beliefs rather than dispelling them.

I see this as an opportunity rather than a challenge for ethical B2B brands. If the natural trajectory of AI adoption leads to increased anthropomorphism, how do we harness the benefits of this cognitive tendency whilst avoiding the risks of deception or over-promise?

What Does Anthropomorphism Reveal About What We Actually Need?

The more powerful AI becomes, the more responsibility we have to protect what makes human creativity irreplaceable. Our job isn’t to automate marketers out of the room, it’s to give them superpowers.

When I sit with founders and CMOs, almost none of them actually want “AI that replaces the team.” What they describe, almost without exception, is technology that behaves like a trusted partner: it learns their world, respects their judgement, and helps them do their best work at scale.

The question isn’t whether we should anthropomorphise AI. The question is whether we do it honestly.

When marketing leaders refer to AI as a “team member” or tech founders describe their AI tools with human-like agency, they’re revealing something essential about how they want technology to function in their organisations. Research from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business uncovered a fascinating paradox: learning about AI’s capabilities makes people value distinctively human attributes more, not less. As AI becomes more capable, we don’t devalue human contribution, we become more protective of what makes us uniquely human.

This explains why Adobe, despite being a technology giant with sophisticated AI capabilities, deliberately positions its approach as “human-led, agentic future”, emphasising that whilst AI powers workflows, humans remain central to strategy. They understand that their B2B customers aren’t looking for human replacement; they’re looking for creative amplification.

Conversational AI fundamentally changes our sense of self and social interactions. When B2B buyers anthropomorphise AI, they’re not confused about what AI is. They’re negotiating a new relationship with technology, one where the boundary between tool and partner becomes genuinely blurry.

The implications for B2B marketing are profound:

• Anthropomorphism signals partnership desire: When prospects describe wanting AI that “understands” them, they’re expressing a need for technology that adapts to human workflow, not the reverse.
• Human traits become more valuable: Emphasising human expertise alongside AI capabilities resonates more powerfully than AI-only messaging because it addresses the psychological need to preserve human value.

Individual differences matter enormously: Research in Nature Human Behaviour shows that some individuals easily overcome AI’s artificiality through anthropomorphism, whilst others struggle to connect despite human-like interfaces.

Your B2B audience will naturally segment into AI-comfortable and AI-skeptical groups, and both deserve authentic messaging.

The Trust Paradox: When Humanisation Helps (and When It Hurts)

Not all anthropomorphism is created equal. There’s a crucial distinction between anthropomorphism that builds trust and anthropomorphism that erodes it.

Helpful anthropomorphism positions AI as a creative amplifier, a partner that extends human capabilities without claiming human attributes it doesn’t possess. 

Misleading anthropomorphism suggests AI has consciousness, emotional experiences, or moral agency that it fundamentally lacks.

The ethical line is transparency. Research published by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence identifies serious risks when anthropomorphic design goes too far: emotional attachment that clouds judgement, privacy concerns when users treat AI as confidants, and dangerous over-reliance on systems that can’t actually reason.

Consider the difference in how B2B marketing agencies position AI:

• AI as replacement (some competitors): “AI-native capabilities” that explicitly contrast with “traditional agencies,” focusing primarily on speed and efficiency gains with minimal emphasis on human expertise.
• AI as partner (ethical approach): “Human-AI partnerships” and “symbiotic intelligence” that explicitly warn against automation eroding human capabilities, as advocated by PwC.

The trust paradox is this: anthropomorphic language can build engagement, but it also creates expectations. The more human-like we make AI sound, the more disappointed people feel when it makes mistakes that no human would make.

Leading marketers using AI achieve 60% greater revenue growth than their peers, but it requires an integrated customer view and an organisational AI culture built on transparency and trust.

Human Expertise + AI Creativity: The Honest Collaboration Model

We don’t need AI that pretends to be human. We need AI that amplifies what makes humans extraordinary.

The B2B brands that will win in the AI era are those that position AI as a creative amplifier, not a human substitute.

I like to think of creative amplification as moving from AI as a clever intern to AI as a force multiplier for seasoned strategists.

In my view, the best campaigns still start and end with human judgement, AI simply broadens the set of viable ideas and speeds up the path to the right ones.

How does this work in practice?

Traditional marketing team: One strategist generates three campaign concepts in a week. Human creativity is the bottleneck.

AI-replacement model: AI generates hundreds of campaign concepts automatically. Human judgement is removed from the creative process.

Creative amplification model: Human strategist defines the brief and strategic parameters. AMP’s specialist agents (guided by that human strategy) generate dozens of variations that explore creative territories the human might never have considered. Human expertise then selects and refines the most promising directions.

The output isn’t “human” or “AI”, it’s collaborative. Human expertise + AI creativity = exponential possibilities that neither could achieve alone.

The NIM Marketing Intelligence Review notes that AI is moving from operational to strategic decision-making roles, and human-machine collaboration is the next frontier.

B2B marketers must position AI as a strategic partner, not merely a tactical tool, but a partner whose capabilities and limitations we’re honest about.

What Does This Mean for B2B Tech Brands Today?

If you’re a tech founder or marketing leader evaluating AI solutions, understanding anthropomorphism gives you a powerful lens for assessing vendors and approaches.

Ask these questions:

1. Does the vendor emphasise human expertise alongside AI capabilities? If the pitch is purely about AI speed and scale with minimal discussion of human strategic input, that’s a red flag. Research consistently shows that audiences value human attributes more as AI becomes more prevalent.
2. Is the anthropomorphic language transparent or deceptive? Using terms like “AI agents” or “marketing brain” to make systems comprehensible is helpful. Claiming AI “understands” your brand in ways that suggest consciousness is misleading.
3. Does the solution amplify human creativity or attempt to replace it? The most successful B2B AI implementations position AI as a creative multiplier. Forrester research shows that leading AI adopters prioritise productivity gains but maintain strong human governance and strategic oversight.
4. Is there a human-in-the-loop for critical decisions? Over-reliance on autonomous AI is one of the key risks of anthropomorphic design. Ethical solutions maintain human oversight, particularly for strategic and creative decisions that define brand identity.

If your AI story doesn’t make your humans more valuable, you don’t have an AI strategy, you have an automation strategy. And your customers will feel the difference.

Edelman’s research on B2B marketing identifies trust as “the new currency” in the AI era. Authenticity matters more than ever when AI is involved. Buyers can sense when vendors overpromise AI capabilities or undervalue human contribution.

The key is to guide specialist AI agents to produce content that maintains your authentic voice whilst exploring creative possibilities at unprecedented scale. This isn’t the future of marketing.

It’s how great marketing should have always worked: strategic human insight combined with creative exploration at scale, answering customer questions better, faster, and more honestly than your competition.

Next Steps in Honest Anthropomorphism

We will continue to anthropomorphise AI. It’s how human brains make sense of complex, responsive systems. Having explored why we anthropomorphise AI and the trust dynamics it creates, the critical question becomes: how do we move forward responsibly? Let’s examine the practical principles that transform anthropomorphism from a potential liability into a strategic advantage.

The principles of honest anthropomorphism:

• Transparency: Be explicit about what AI can and cannot do. When you describe AI capabilities using human-like terms (“understands,” “creates,” “thinks”), clarify what those terms mean in the context of AI systems versus human cognition.
• Human primacy: Always position human expertise as the strategic foundation. AI should amplify human creativity, not diminish human contribution. This isn’t just ethically sound, it’s what your audience psychologically needs to maintain trust.
• Partnership framing: Use anthropomorphic language that emphasises collaboration, not replacement. “AI agents working alongside human strategists” is honest. “AI doing the work of an entire marketing team” sets unrealistic expectations.
• Accountability: Maintain human responsibility for outcomes. Anthropomorphic language can blur accountability when things go wrong. Be clear that humans remain accountable for strategy and results, with AI serving as a powerful amplifier.

The brands that answer customer questions better, faster, and more honestly will win. Honest anthropomorphism helps us build the human-AI partnerships that make this possible: acknowledging AI’s remarkable capabilities without claiming its consciousness, and where we celebrate human expertise without pretending AI hasn’t fundamentally expanded what’s possible.

Conclusion: The Human Question

I believe the most powerful question isn’t “What can AI do?” It’s “What can humans do when their creativity is amplified by AI?”

The answer, increasingly, is: things we never imagined possible.

As we’ve explored throughout this article, anthropomorphism isn’t just a quirky cognitive bias, it’s a window into what we value most about being human. We attribute human qualities to AI precisely because we’re negotiating what role humanity will play in an AI-augmented world. And the research is clear: the more AI becomes part of our professional lives, the more we value distinctly human contributions like creativity, strategic judgement, and authentic connection.

The brands that will thrive in this era aren’t those that position AI as a replacement for human expertise, nor those that treat it as merely another automation tool. They’re the ones that honestly embrace AI as a creative amplifier, extending what humans can achieve whilst preserving what makes human contribution irreplaceable.

This isn’t about choosing between human creativity and AI capability. It’s about recognising that together, they create possibilities that neither could achieve alone. When we’re honest about what AI is: sophisticated pattern-matching guided by human strategy, not consciousness, we can use it to its full potential without sacrificing the trust and authenticity that B2B relationships require.

That’s the future I’m interested in building at Jam 7: not human or AI, but human creativity amplified by honest, transparent AI partnerships.

FAQs

Is anthropomorphising AI dangerous or helpful?

Anthropomorphism is neither inherently dangerous nor helpful, it’s how we use it that matters. Anthropomorphic language can build engagement and make complex AI systems more comprehensible, but it can also create false beliefs about AI consciousness and capabilities. The key is transparency: use human-like language to explain AI functions, but be explicit about the difference between AI’s statistical pattern-matching and human reasoning.

Why do B2B buyers anthropomorphise AI more than other technologies?

Conversational AI interfaces trigger our social cognition instincts far more powerfully than traditional software. When AI responds in natural language and adapts to our input, our brains automatically apply the same cognitive frameworks we use to understand human behaviour. Additionally, B2B buyers often lack a deep technical understanding of how AI works, which increases anthropomorphism as a cognitive shortcut for making sense of complex systems.

Does anthropomorphising AI decrease trust when the system fails?

Yes, significantly. When we attribute human-like qualities to AI, we also develop human-like expectations. If you position your AI as “understanding” customer needs, buyers expect human-level comprehension, and trust erodes sharply when the system produces obvious errors or misunderstandings that a human would never make. This is why transparent communication about AI’s actual capabilities is crucial for maintaining long-term trust.

Should B2B brands position AI as team members or tools?

The most effective positioning is “collaborative partner”, acknowledging AI’s sophisticated capabilities whilst maintaining clarity about human strategic leadership. Research from Adobe and PwC show that “human-led, AI-enhanced” messaging resonates more powerfully than either “AI as tool” (undersells the transformation) or “AI as replacement” (triggers resistance and anxiety). The goal is to show how human expertise and AI creativity combine to create outcomes neither could achieve alone.

How can marketers use anthropomorphism ethically?

Ethical anthropomorphism requires three commitments: First, transparency about what AI can and cannot do, using human-like terms for clarity but not deception. Second, maintaining human accountability for strategic decisions and outcomes. Third, positioning AI as amplifying human capabilities rather than replacing them. When you refer to “AI agents” or describe AI “creating” content, clarify that these are sophisticated pattern-matching systems guided by human strategy, not conscious entities with independent judgement.

What’s the difference between anthropomorphism and personification in AI marketing?

Anthropomorphism means giving human qualities to non-human things (“the AI understands your brand”), whilst personification means giving human form or personality to abstract ideas. Both are forms of humanisation, but anthropomorphism carries higher risk of creating false beliefs about consciousness and agency. Personification (like naming specialist AI agents) can make systems more approachable without necessarily implying human-level reasoning, making it often safer for B2B marketing.

How does anthropomorphism affect AI adoption in B2B organisations?

Anthropomorphism can both accelerate and impede adoption. When AI is described as a “collaborative partner” that works alongside humans, it helps reduce people’s concerns by showing that AI is meant to enhance their work rather than take their jobs. However, excessive anthropomorphism can create unrealistic expectations that lead to disappointment when AI fails to meet human-level performance. The most successful B2B AI implementations balance approachable, human-like interfaces with transparent communication about capabilities and limitations.

About the Author

Mitchell Feldman is Co-Founder and CEO of Jam 7, a growth marketing agency powered by the Agentic Marketing Platform™ (AMP). He built and sold RedPixie to HPE and earned Microsoft’s Cloud Partner of the Year award from CEO Satya Nadella. With 30 years in technology, Mitchell pioneers AI-enhanced marketing that amplifies human creativity, helping B2B tech companies accelerate growth through honest, human-led strategies.

Origianl Creator: Mitchell Feldman
Original Link: https://justainews.com/ai-compliance/ai-ethics-and-society/anthropomorphism-in-ai-why-we-treat-ai-like-humans/
Originally Posted: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:21:23 +0000