When I talk to other negotiators about the future of negotiation, I hear a lot of uncertainty and maybe even fear. “Will AI fully replace negotiators in the future?” “Will there be no more handshakes at the table” and so on and so forth.
The good news is, that this is a completely normal reaction, because “the future” in general and negotiations have one thing in common: uncertainty! You don´t know what´s happening tomorrow and you don´t know how the other party in a negotiation reacts to your counterproposal or if you really scored the best possible deal. The bad news is, that this uncertainty results in a perceived lack of control and if humans think they are not in control they feel discomfort or maybe even fear.
But guess what? Uncertainty is also inevitable as a negotiator and when looking into the future. It is part of the game, so we need to have the right mindset and we must leave our comfort zone when we approach our negotiations and when tackling future challenges.
Easier said than done, so how should we do that? Let´s rewind a bit and look at the history of negotiation to put everything in perspective.
Humans have been negotiating for thousands of years. Civilizations thrived due to trade negotiations, wars stopped due to peace negotiations and whole business empires have been built by strong negotiators. Every day we negotiate. Often with suppliers or customers, sometimes with our boss, colleagues, friends or – the most difficult negotiations- with our kids. So, negotiations are ancient business, and they are a fact of life, like brushing teeth! Therefore, I am convinced that the history of human negotiations will not come to a full stop “just” because of AI and strong technological development.
However, we know by now that AI is changing pretty much everything around us in a rapid pace. When I first used ChatGPT I had exactly the same mind-blowing experience that I had in 2007 when someone at a party pulled out the first iPhone! And how have smartphones changed our lives until today? We will see the same and even more drastic changes due to AI. And therefore, also the changes we will see as negotiators in the next few years are going to be significant.
But what will change exactly? Obviously, no-one can answer this question with 100% certainty, but I try to have a pretty good guess. Let´s get back to the first question “Humans vs. AI?” or in other words “will humans be replaced by AI?”
To answer these questions let´s look at some strengths and weaknesses of humans and AI when it comes to negotiations.
Preparation: To be honest, most human negotiators fail when it comes to thorough preparation because preparation is perceived as boring, even though it is one of the greatest levers you have in your toolbox. Going to a negotiation without proper preparation is like asking a carpenter to build a roof without saw and a claw-hammer. AI obviously doesn´t care if something is boring, the result will always be of the same quality if the data allows it.
Relationship: building strong relationships with your suppliers and customers will remain a human responsibility in my opinion. Up until now AI is not able to build relationships with humans. And I don´t recommend having a relationship with chat GPT even though it sometimes feels like you are talking to a human when using it extensively ????
Emotions & Emotional Bias: Humans are human, also because of emotions. Emotions can be great in negotiations when used in a controlled way or showing empathy when building relationships. They can be counterproductive when uncontrolled or if you fall prey to emotional biases such as your perceived sense of fairness. AI does not have emotions (yet?) and is therefore the perfect tool to challenge emotionally biased decisions of human negotiators.
Multi-Tasking: to be honest, I am bad at multi-tasking and most other humans as well. I can put a lot of focus on one negotiation and realize great results when I have the resources to do so. AI doesn´t care if it supports 5000 negotiations at the same time if the technological capacities allow it.
If we look at the strengths and weaknesses it becomes obvious that humans and AI are the perfect team when it comes to negotiation! Many tasks that are regularly performed poorly by humans are the strong suit of AI and vice versa. I think there is tremendous potential to be discovered via the perfect split in responsibilities between human and AI negotiators!
So, we have seen that quite a lot will change.
But what will stay?
The fundamentals. Negotiation success will still come down to thorough prep work, creating a position of power (being able to walk away from a bad deal), creativity and your skills as a negotiator. Period.
Collaboration: I am certain that the importance of collaborative negotiations and building strong relationship to your customers and suppliers will significantly increase in the future. If the supply chain is disrupted than you want to be the first in mind and not the last. That is how additional value is being created and humans will drive this value.
Leaving your comfort zone: I think some people negotiate their whole career from their comfort zone. No need to tell you, that the effects are devastating for an organization. Therefore, it remains your responsibility as a negotiator to leave your comfort zone or try to create the right environment to leave the comfort zone. Otherwise, you will only get what the other party is allowing you to get.
Human Interaction: I am absolutely convinced that we will still see handshakes at the negotiation table. Whenever there are humans involved there will be human interactions. There will be relationships to be built and value to be created.
Uncertainty: Finally, uncertainty will stay. But let´s face it: the future will be great. We will be supported in many tasks by AI. We will focus on strategic spend negotiations, we have more resources to be creative and to collaborate with our partners and therefore to create even more value for us as individuals or for our organization!
In a nutshell: It´s not “Humans vs. AI” it is “Humans & AI”, because humans and AI will form a perfect team and create greater negotiation results than we have ever seen. Human negotiators will have a great tool at hand to focus on real value adding tasks and high-stake negotiations. AI will lead tail spend negotiations requiring only human interaction in case of failure or exceptional confirmation. Doesn´t that sound great? I think that is exactly what we as negotiators want: to focus on the really important strategic negotiations. To build relationships and resilience. To create great results and to have fun! So let´s be optimistic, let´s have a positive mindset and embrace the future and embrace leaving our comfort zones to be ready for the next developments in negotiations! The future will be great!