Prompt humans too. It is magic. You type, prompt GenAI and… | by Alfredo Gonzalez Briseño | Nov, 2025
The benefits from prompting people and listening
You may have been in those kind of team meetings. You are mostly listening and being told what is happening or what to do. In rare occasions your brain is picked. When that dynamic is the norm and finally teams are asked what they think, a typical response is an awkward dead silence.
What to do instead? Inform what you have to inform, but when it is time to discuss, ask and honestly listen. This last part is super important.
If you have never done it and decide to give it a try, be gentle and expect some of this: people may feel they are being put on the spot or surprised that you are asking them.
If that happens, do not be discouraged and keep creating a habit of prompting them. People often like to share their views and even be intellectually challenged when you provide with the right environment, questions and attitude.
I do not have empirical evidence on the benefits. From my experience, I can tell you that first you will be enriched by what others have to say, by their different ways of thinking and perspectives on things.
That is what you get. But most importantly, you are giving them voice, clearly signaling that you respect what they think or say — even though you may not agree — , and giving them a chance to thrive by bringing out what is inside them.
In the end, you build stronger ties with your colleagues, teams, clients and people.
If you want to dig deeper into this topic and actual evidence, here I share a paper from Harvard University scholars and an article by the American Psychological Association.
But in the age of AI and GenAI, this conversation should go beyond evidence.
People as the ultimate destination
Today, AI may seem like the best thing that could ever happen on earth. It is fascinating, but we should not forget that it is a tool.
Artificial or human, there is more in life than what you can get from intelligence. For humans, it means that, beyond productivity and doing things more quickly, easier and at a lower cost, there are more important quests — like finding or rediscovering who we are.
To do so, we need to prompt ourselves, others and life. That is something we cannot do with AI.
If at some point in the future we can, AI may give us the answers that we want, but I am still not sure it will give us the answers that we need. That’s why in this AI-driven world we should not forget prompting humans, too.
