AI Needs ‘EI’

Daniel Goleman is author of the international best-seller Emotional Intelligence and Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day. He is a regular contributor to Korn Ferry. 

About three-quarters of Gen Zers say they’re turning to social media for career advice these days, with one quarter of them using ChatGPT for tips of where and how to apply for jobs. Given the tough state of the job market for young workers, enlisting the technology's assistance makes sense—unemployment is close to 8.5% for those age 20 to 24, more than double the overall rate. Add to that the reality that "recent college graduates are not having as many conversations with professionals, and therefore often operate in a vacuum," according to Korn Ferry Advance career coach David Meintrup. When human mentors are scarce, older workers seem worn down, and the traditional career ladder feels increasingly unstable, why not ask AI what to do next?

But here’s something every one of us needs to understand: AI is only as insightful as what we give it. Ask ChatGPT to help you find a job that matches your concrete skills and academic credentials, and it will generate a cognitively reasonable list of options. But ask it to help you find work that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose and that's where most algorithms will hit a wall. Not because the technology isn't sophisticated enough, but because meaning isn't something that can be extracted from a résumé. It has to come from within.

This is one of many places in the AI conversation where emotional intelligence (EI) becomes essential. To know what matters to you—what you care about, what you want, and what actually lights you up—takes self-awareness, the foundational competency for developing EI. Self-awareness is the ability to understand your own emotions, values, and motivations—to know not just what you're good at, but what matters to you and why. It's the difference between taking a job because it pays well and taking a job because it aligns with who you are and what you want to contribute to the world.

Without self-awareness, in many ways AI is just a fancy search engine. It can be helpful for finding jobs that match keywords, but can lack the ability to guide you toward work that feels genuinely fulfilling. And fulfilling work matters: Research reveals a strong correlation between an employee's sense of purpose and the depth of their engagement. One study showed that 73% of employees at purpose-driven companies report being engaged, compared to just 23% at companies where purpose is absent. Everything we want in our work life correlates with a strong sense of meaning—things like increased engagement, increased profit, and higher levels of overall well-being.

The challenge for Gen Z—and really for anyone seeking career guidance from AI—is that finding purpose requires the very skills that algorithms can't replicate. Emotional intelligence competencies like self-awareness help us know what we value and what motivates us. Empathy helps us look outside ourselves and connect with others in meaningful ways. Organizational awareness keeps us attuned to larger systems and how we fit within them. These competencies don't just help us perform better at work; they help us understand what kind of work is worth performing in the first place. It’s the difference between a means to an end and a path of growth that leads, dare we say, to happiness.

This doesn't mean AI can't be useful in a job search. It can help you identify skills gaps, polish your résumé, or prepare for interviews (at least when it comes to the technicalities of the job). But without the right input, it really can't tell you what will make you want to get out of bed in the morning. It can't help you recognize when a company's values align with yours, or when a role will give you the kind of growth and sense of contribution you crave. To get those insights you first need to have something AI doesn't: self-knowledge.

For leaders and organizations, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The same generation turning to ChatGPT for career guidance is also hungry for meaning at work. They're asking deeper questions about purpose, impact, and values—questions that require a base level of emotional intelligence to even begin to answer. Organizations that help young employees develop self-awareness and other EI competencies aren't just building better workers; they're helping them build better lives and become more effective users of AI itself.

The future of work isn't a choice between human intelligence and artificial intelligence—it's about understanding the way the two dance, play and interact. To make the partnership between humans and AI productive, we need emotional intelligence to guide us. Self-awareness helps us ask the right questions. Empathy helps us understand how our work affects others and connects us to larger missions. Organizational awareness helps us understand the broader context AI can't see. Adaptability helps us refine our prompts and try different angles when AI's suggestions don't quite fit, rather than giving up or accepting generic advice. When we bring these competencies to our interactions with AI, we don't just get better career advice, we get guidance that actually leads somewhere meaningful. No algorithm can replace human insight, but with it, AI becomes a far more powerful tool.

Co-written by Elizabeth Solomon

Click here to learn more about Daniel Goleman's Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence.