Everyone is talking about AI, but nobody is explaining why it feels different depending on who you are. Or why your reaction to it gives away more about your tribal hardwiring than it does about the technology itself.
When Salesforce arrived in my MOD department, I was the project manager tasked with making it work across a portfolio of complex innovation projects, and I approached it the way I approach most new things — with genuine enthusiasm, a willingness to get my hands dirty, and an absolute determination to understand it well enough to make it do what I needed it to do. I learned the system, mapped the processes, built workflows, and, in a relatively short time, developed a working understanding of what it could and couldn’t do for us. The projects ran well, the technology delivered what it was supposed to deliver, and then — fairly predictably, for anyone who knows me, I started to get bored.
Not because Salesforce was bad. Not because I had stopped finding it useful. Simply because I had met the challenge, the curiosity had worn off, and what had been new and interesting had become routine. Routine is a word Hunters do not do well with, becoming slightly restless and bored.
I have had the exact same experience with AI.
I use it, and I have found it genuinely valuable, and I will keep using it in the ways that serve me, but the novelty has worn off in the same way that novelty always does for me. I’m less excited about it than the collective conversation on LinkedIn is telling me that I should be. The endless posts about AI changing everything, AI replacing everything, AI being the most significant development in human history. I can look at an AI post, and it is obvious. These posts that once wowed me now wash over me like all noise does once you look closely enough at the source to know what you are dealing with.
The interesting thing is the same thing that I keep coming back to as someone who has spent years thinking about how different people respond to the same situation, that my experience of AI is almost entirely a Hunter’s experience of AI. This tells you almost nothing about how a Protector, a Gatherer, or a Healer experiences the same technology at the same time.
The four tribes aren’t having the same conversation about AI.
If you are a Hunter
Hunters would be the first in your organisation to start using AI tools, probably before anyone officially sanctioned it, and almost certainly before anyone thought about a policy for it. The novelty was irresistible, the efficiency gains were immediately obvious, and the speed at which a Hunter can absorb a new capability and start deploying it is, as always, both an asset and a warning sign. The warning sign is the same one I recognised in myself, the risk that a Hunter declares themselves done with something before they have fully explored what it can do at depth, because depth requires patience, and patience requires the kind of sustained engagement that loses its appeal once the initial challenge is met.
The Hunter’s relationship with AI is most valuable when there is still something genuinely new to solve, and most vulnerable when it tips from novelty-seeking into daily work processes.
If you are a Gatherer
The Gatherer has probably been researching AI far longer than they have been using it, which fits how Gatherers approach anything uncertain. They want the full picture before they commit, they want the risks as well as the benefits, the limitations as well as the capabilities, the real-world evidence as well as the promotional material, in a landscape where AI is moving faster than anyone can fully document, that thoroughness can tip into paralysis if it is not carefully managed and actioned.
When a Gatherer commits to an AI tool, however, they are usually the most effective user in the room because they have done the work to understand it properly, not just the work to get started. The Gatherer’s relationship with AI is most valuable when they apply their research instinct to genuine depth rather than indefinite delay, and most vulnerable when the volume of available information becomes a reason not to act.
If you are a Protector
The Protector’s primary concern about AI is not their own relationship with it but everyone else’s. What it means for the team, what it means for the people whose roles are changing, and whether the organisation is moving faster than its people can comfortably follow. Protectors ask the human questions in a conversation that is mostly technical, and those questions matter more to a Protector than anyone else, because organisations that get AI adoption wrong almost always get the people side wrong rather than the technology side.
The Protector’s relationship with AI is most valuable when their instinct to look after the tribe helps people find their place in a changing landscape, and most vulnerable when the weight of everyone else’s uncertainty becomes too much to carry without their support.
If you are a Healer
The Healer is the tribe member most likely to be quietly concerned about what AI means for the humans it replaces or displaces, and least likely to say so out loud in a room where the main mood is enthusiasm. Healers approach AI cautiously not because they lack the intelligence to use it but because their instinct is always toward the human cost of change, and in a conversation that is moving very fast and asking very few questions about the people in its path, that instinct is not a weakness, it is exactly the kind of counterbalance that every organisation needs, and very few are listening to.
The Healer’s relationship with AI is most valuable when they apply their empathy to helping organisations navigate change in a way that brings people along rather than leaving them behind, and most vulnerable when their concern for others silences their own voice in a conversation that needs to hear it.
The technology is the same for all four of them. The experience of it could not be more different, and understanding which tribe you are sitting in when you think about AI, (whether you are bored of it like a Hunter who has already moved on, anxious about it like a Gatherer who has not yet gathered enough information, worried about the people around you like a Protector, or quietly concerned about the human cost like a Healer), changes everything about how you use it, how you talk about it, and how you lead your team through it.
If you have not yet taken the Caveman Tribal Sorter, this is the week to do it, because knowing your tribe does not just help you understand your colleagues, it helps you understand your own perfectly rational reaction to the thing that everyone around you seems to be reacting to completely differently.
Take the free Tribal Sorter: https://cavemanprinciples.com/#quiz
Caveman Thought
The tribe did not all react to fire the same way. The Hunter immediately worked out how to use it to hunt further into the dark, probably burning himself in the process. The Gatherer studied it carefully before deciding it was safe but only after he’d stubbed his toe in the dark. The Protector made sure everyone else was warm before they sat down. The Healer worried about who might get burned. All four of them needed it. None of them was wrong.
Parting Question
When you think about AI honestly, not the version you say out loud in meetings, which of those four reactions is closest to your own? And when did you last have a conversation with someone whose reaction was completely different, and you actually tried to understand why?
As always, be the tribal member you are meant to be. It makes for a much easier and simpler life.
Your friend,
Carl – The Caveman.
P.S. When you are ready, here are a few things that might help you;
- You can book me to attend your next event as a Keynote Speaker.
- Want to take a FREE personality test? Check out The Caveman Principles Tribal Sorter.
- Check out my theories – The Caveman Principles and The SLAP Technique
- Grab a copy of my book The Caveman Principles, directly from my printing agent.
- You might want to book a spot on one of my eLearning courses to help you master a new skill.
- Or, if you have time and want to schedule a Caveman chat (with virtual coffee) for a discovery call, do it here.