Summary: For managers juggling a million things, showing up prepared and present for 1:1s isn’t always easy. This is exactly where AI can help. The trick is using it to save time without sounding robotic.
We sat down with LifeLabs Learning facilitator Mads Blodget, who spends their days helping managers feel more confident in complex conversations. In this conversation, Mads shares how AI can help make one-on-ones clearer, kinder, and more human, rather than less. You’ll find insights grounded in the CAMPS Method™, real coaching examples, and a mindset shift for the AI era.
Q&A with Mads Blodgett
Q: Let’s start with the big picture. What are you seeing right now when it comes to managers and AI?
Mads:
Many managers are curious about AI, some are embracing it, and the majority are pretty nervous about what’s going to happen to their jobs 6 months or a year down the line. With the rise of AI and prominence of layoffs, there’s a massive amount of change happening, and that’s impacting team members and managers. This is translating into two big challenges: managers are coming into one-on-ones mentally overloaded, and they’re trying to protect their teams from negative impacts of change. There’s a high degree of felt responsibility right now, but a really low degree of control: the perfect recipe for burnout.
Q: How do you see AI helping managers prepare for one-on-ones without losing the human touch?
Mads:
One of the biggest pain points I hear in our Effective 1-1s workshop is, “I know what I should be doing—coaching, feedback, development—but just staying informed eats up all our time.”
AI doesn’t replace the most important parts of one-on-one: clarity, connection, and nuance. But it can replace the flood of status updates and “Wait, what happened with that?” moments. If AI is embedded across a workflow, using it for reporting can significantly reduce the time spent on updates. Even if your direct report is just starting out with AI, they can record a rambling verbal status update into an LLM and let it turn unstructured thoughts into something legible and fast to review!
Some managers I’ve worked with are using AI prep for one-on-ones in a similar way: for example, one manager told me they use a 5-minute voice memo to brain dump what’s on their mind: worries, wins, anything. AI can then turn that chaos into a structured outline that helps them show up with clarity and presence.
AI is also great for capturing action items and takeaways if you have a company-approved note-taker. The key is to align with your direct report afterward and ask, “Did the AI capture this right?” That shared output becomes a record you can track over time.
Q: When it comes to leading change, why is it critical for managers to balance structure with empathy, and how can AI help?
Mads: The pace of change isn’t slowing down. No one manager can protect their team from it entirely, and we wouldn’t want them to. That’s where growth and innovation happen. But unbounded uncertainty is draining. It increases burnout and spills into personal lives.
Sometimes managers respond with a ton of empathy and validation, which is great! But if that’s all there is, people can leave feeling even more anxious. Empathy without clarity doesn’t resolve uncertainty.
One leader told me they used AI to sort through messy internal communications during a change. They handed the documents, emails, and notes to the company’s LLM and asked, “What can I say to my team? and “What should I hold back?” That structure gave their empathy weight; it brought clarity.
Certainty is one of the top five drivers of engagement and retention. When people know what’s known, what’s not known, and what’s coming, they stay engaged.
Q: For a manager who’s new to AI, what’s one simple way to start using it for one-on-ones, without sounding scripted?
Mads: Simple: don’t let it give you a script. If it does, don’t read it (and update your instructions for the model so it’ll act as a thought partner, not a thought-replacer!). Use AI for questions, not statements. Brain dump everything you’re thinking about, and then ask, “What are three coaching questions I could ask?”
You can also tell the AI, “I’m tempted to jump into advice mode. What could I ask instead?” Let it coach you into being more coach-like.
Also, if you and your direct report are both comfortable, just use it for note-taking and as a supplement to your verbal capture of action items. Even if you change nothing else, you’ll show up more prepared, with more context and insight for your next 1-1.
AI shouldn’t be writing scripts for your one-on-ones. The goal is to preserve your cognitive space, not replace your voice. AI helps you think, structure, scaffold, and offload, not speak for you. 1-1s are still about designing for engagement by tending to people’s CAMPS cravings.
And there’s research showing that when AI writes too much relational content—praise, feedback, encouragement—trust drops. People can sniff out inauthenticity. So be careful about the boundary: AI should help managers think, not tell them what to say.
Q: Can you share an example of how a manager used the Lifelabs CAMPS framework?
Mads: I worked with a senior engineering leader who valued autonomy [the “A” in CAMPS]; freedom to act really drove him. It was so important to him that assumed it would be a primary motivator for his team, too. But some folks were early in their careers, and too much autonomy felt like being lost in the woods.
So I asked him to rate each team member’s satisfaction with their CAMPS needs: Certainty, Autonomy, Meaning, Progress, and Social inclusion. Then, which needs matter most to them? And which matters most to you?
He realized he was giving everyone what he valued: autonomy. But what they needed was more certainty. The lesson? Don’t manage based on your own preferences. Calibrate to the person. I sometimes joke that CAMPS is like the Five Love Languages, but research-backed.
Q: How can managers support direct reports who are worried AI might make their jobs obsolete?
Mads: Don’t over-promise. It’s tempting to reassure, but if that reassurance doesn’t match reality, it backfires. People don’t trust Pollyanna managers.
One habit we teach is the Two-Hander: Here’s what we know. Here’s what we don’t know. For example: we know the team is going full speed on AI enablement. We don’t know yet how that impacts this role. We do know AI can help with XYZ tasks. We also know you’re here for your judgment, your ability to read the room, and your discernment.
We need to stop glossing over the real stuff: layoffs, shifting expectations, changes to the implicit workplace contract. Instead, return to the conversation regularly. Say, “I don’t have perfect certainty, but I can promise to keep you in the know,”
A phrase we use at Lifelabs is: AI might change the how of work. Even the what. But it doesn’t change the why.
Q: Why do high-quality one-on-ones still matter in an AI-enabled workplace?
Mads: AI can track performance and tasks, but that was never the point of a 1-1. These conversations are for interpretation: weighing trade-offs, navigating complexity, building trust, and engaging every employee. 1-1s are where we engage and retain, and where we solve problems that only we can figure out.
That’s the mindset shift: One-on-ones aren’t for updates. They’re for action, strategy, and insight. AI can’t do the work, but it can make room for the work that matters.
