Being Human: Authentic Connections Are Key To Success in 2026 & Beyond

In 2026, organisations face a critical AI marketing paradox: while automation tools deliver efficiency, research shows audiences increasingly feel "moral disgust" towards AI-generated content that lacks authenticity. For clubs and associations, the solution isn’t to abandon technology; it’s to balance efficiency with genuine human connection. This means embracing anti-design trends that celebrate imperfection, using personal language rather than corporate speak, and positioning your organisation as a vital third space where real community happens. By prioritising authentic content over AI-generated material, you’ll build a community where members feel genuinely seen and valued, not reduced to data points.

I know that “Being Human: Authentic Connections” sounds like a title of a performance art piece, but I promise I’m going to keep this grounded and unpretentious. 

Society is always in a state of flux, but recently there have been a few big shifts that I think it’s important to talk about, because understanding what’s happening will help you adapt and keep your membership organisation thriving. So today, let’s talk about the important trends that you need to be aware of and how you can use them to help your membership organisation thrive. 

The AI Paradox

According to recent studies, 68% of Australian workers and 84% of Australian office workers use AI in the workplace. Currently, sentiment around how AI is impacting people's jobs is mostly positive, “with a large portion (64%) believing AI is having a somewhat or extremely positive impact on their job.”

So AI is being widely adopted and is generally helping people in the workplace. However, as consumers, we feel quite differently. An article in the Journal of Business Research used the term “AI-authorship effect” to describe the impact that AI-created content has on audiences, and it isn’t good. 

The research paper shows that in response to AI-created marketing and content, audiences: 

• Spread less positive word-of-mouth statements 
• Inspires less brand loyalty 
• Perceive the communications as inauthentic 
• Feel “moral disgust” when consuming AI content
   

The Nürnberg Institut für Marktentscheidungen showed groups of people identical marketing copy, telling half that it was human-made and half that it was AI-made. NIM stated, “The ad described as AI-made was perceived more negatively than the identical ad presented as human-made—especially regarding emotional aspects.” 

NIM also found that people were less willing to visit websites featuring AI-generated ads. 

Overall, obvious AI makes people less likely to accept your message, visit your website, and view your brand positively. 

So, AI is massively helpful and makes our jobs easier, but customers don’t like AI-made content. The question we need to answer is how to balance these two pieces of information to get the best from AI without alienating members. 

Balancing AI Efficiency With Human-ish-ness

The answer is to be human. Human beings, at our core, are just monkeys in shoes. We’re just little creatures who like the sound a rock makes when thrown into a pond, and like collecting shiny stones and cool-looking sticks. Unfortunately, our brains got too big for our own good, and we invented AI, taxes, thermonuclear missiles and boy bands. 

Content made by AI is too polished and too slick; there are none of the little quirks that make human content human. So, in order for you to keep getting the time-saving benefit and competitive edge that AI gives you without losing members and turning people off, you need to use AI strategically. 

• Use AI for the heavy lifting. Let it help you understand your membership data, help you brainstorm event themes, or suggest an outline for a complex email or article.

• Keep doing all the human stuff. When it comes time to actually talk to your members, write the words yourself. Use AI to edit or check your spelling, but the voice, the stories, and the humour need to come from you.

A good practical example of this is in a recent article, where I needed a wanted poster of a praying mantis wearing a waistcoat. (Don’t worry, it also didn’t make a lot of sense in context) Instead of using AI to generate it in ten seconds, I spent ten minutes and quickly drew one. 

Yeah, it took me longer, and yeah, it doesn’t look as nice as the AI one, but I think my crappy ten-minute drawing is funny. It adds more character and humour to the article than the robot’s one.  

AI may be great at a lot of things, but having a personality and being funny isn’t one of them. I don’t know if this will land for everyone, but I went to very religious schools, including very new age ones and very traditional ones. AI writes like a youth pastor at a new-age church trying desperately to be cool and relate to the kids. I keep expecting it to sit backwards on a chair and tell me, “I just want to have a, like, rap with you about a cool guy I know called Jesus.” 

I don’t know if you know what I mean, or if you can relate at all, and I certainly don’t mean to cause any offence, but that is what AI’s tone of voice reminds me of. 

Use AI to help understand your data, use it to help plan events and emails, use it to help edit emails, but write the emails yourself. Keep the humanness in your organisations. 

The Rise Of Anti-Design

Anti-art as a style has been around for a very long time, and the term dates back to the 60s. It has a lot in common with the earlier Dada movement. Basically, it’s a rejection of common processes, methods, styles and meanings of art. 

The reason I bring up this little chunk of art history is that, in the wake of AI-generated images, AI graphics, and AI “art” (please note that AI art is in quotation marks), anti-design has become more popular once again. 

People are tired of the flawless, soulless work of AI, and more and more people are using anti-design in their imagery. So, what does anti-design look like? There is no single answer to this question, but generally, anti-design includes: 

• A lack of symmetry 
• Ignoring the left-to-right flow
• Ignoring colour palettes and theory
• Using unconventional fonts
• Using hand-drawn elements
• Using handwriting 
• Using collage 
• Overlapping elements 

The general idea is to avoid perfection and make it clear that a human made it; this can often include clearly hand-drawn elements that have been photographed or scanned to make them digital. As someone who does and enjoys both regular and digital art, you cannot fake the texture of real brushes, texter nibs or paper. While this will add time and effort to your images, it isn’t a bad idea if you want your content to stand out against the tide of soulless, flawless content that is currently everywhere. 

Here are a few recent anti-design examples. 

This isn’t a fringe trend either; one of these posters is a Nike advertisement. I realise that this isn’t for everyone, but it’s important to note that obviously flawed, messy human imagery is trending and standing out against the crowd. What you do with this information is up to you. 

I mocked up an example of this. I used an image I created in Canva for a LinkedIn post and made a new version in an anti-design style. I grabbed an acrylic paint marker, scribbled my heading on a piece of paper, took a picture of it and uploaded it to Canva. I did everything else in Canva using their elements. It took longer than normal, but not significantly longer. 

You might hate that; it might absolutely clash with your style and branding. You absolutely do not need to use this. I am just letting you know that this style is currently popular and stands out well against the sea of AI slop.

Death To The Corporate We

All too often, membership organisations fall into the trap of using sterile language and the dreaded "Corporate We." This collective pronoun is how people refer to a group as if they were a single, homogeneous hive mind. “We would like to invite you to our new event,” “We are today announcing…” You get the point. It’s a linguistic trick most commonly used by corporations, the royal family, and the most annoying couple you know.

The corporate we isn’t all bad; it certainly has its uses, and we at Member Jungle have certainly used it. (See what I did there?) The issue is that it feels sterile and impersonal; it feels like the sort of language a bank would use. Sometimes that is appropriate, but other times you need to use more personal language. 

For example, here are two very similar short emails inviting a member to a club event, one uses the corporate we and the other uses I pronouns. You can see straight away that one feels more engaging and personal than the other.

The Corporate We

“Hi John, 

We are excited to invite you to the Example Club’s newest event on the 17th of April. We have been working incredibly hard to make this event as amazing as possible, and we really help you can join us on the day. 

Kind regards, 

The Example Club Team.”

The Personal I

“Hi John, 

I’m really excited to invite you to the Example Club’s newest event on the 17th of April. The whole event team has been working so hard on making this event an amazing one. I really hope you can come down, support all the team’s hard work and have an amazing day with everyone. 

Kind regards, 

Steve, Events Manager

The Example Club.”

The first email feels like little more than an automated notification, while the second feels much more like a real person reaching out and inviting the member to the event. 

In a time when AI and automated email templates rule the roost, it is all too easy to turn out dull, impersonal messages that aren’t going to resonate with your members. Using much more personal language and using much less sterile corporate language will help your emails, push notifications, and website copy stand out against the tide of grey and beige corporate babble. 

Of course, using more personal language doesn’t mean you have to go back to doing everything manually. Your automated emails and event push notifications can and should still feel personal. You can avoid the corporate jargon while still letting the technology do the heavy lifting to make your life easier. It’s not about doing more work; it’s about making the work you do sound more human.

Be Your Members' Third Space

The Third Space Theory proposes that people should have three spaces or spheres in their lives. Their home space, with their family, their work space with their colleagues, and then a third space where they can truly be themselves, relax, and connect with their community.

With the rise of remote work, the lines between our first and second spaces are blurring. Anyone who has tried to focus on a serious work call while their partner, roommate, or dog was loudly crashing around the kitchen knows this pain all too well. When your office is your dining table, you never truly "leave" work, and you never truly "arrive" home.

This is exactly why your membership organisation is more important now than ever.

In a world where we are increasingly isolated behind screens, your membership organisation is your members’ vital third space, where they can relax, indulge in their passions and be themselves. This is something you should absolutely lean into, yes, your events and membership are always going to be your bread and butter, but by making your organisation a space where people can relax and be themselves, you’ll add another vital dimension to your club. 

A really good example of this is a rock-climbing club I used to be part of. There were a few spaces in the gym where they could have easily squeezed in extra gym machines or dedicated warm-up areas. Instead, they put in a ping pong table and a few tables and chairs.

Members would just hang out there. People would scan in, buy a coffee, and sit down to get some work done at one of the tables. They’d go for a few climbs, then come back and do a bit more work. It gave people a reason to be there outside of just climbing. You could go, get a coffee, and spend time with like-minded people. By choosing furniture over more equipment, they actually created a great Third Space for their members.

So, when I’m talking about making your organisation a third space, it doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. It can be as simple as adding a few tables and a barbecue to your next event, or creating social meetups that allow members to just hang out. Give them a way to spend time with others who share their passion. Official events are great, but sometimes we get so busy doing the all-event stuff that we don't actually get a moment to sit down and talk with people.

Use Real Content

There is a temptation for clubs and associations to portray themselves as slick and polished, like a global brand. Sometimes, that’s great, well-made content shows that you put time, effort, and money into your organisation. However, don’t underestimate the power of grounded, honest, unpolished content. Sometimes, what people really want is a little peek behind the curtain to see how things actually are.

Professional content definitely has its uses, so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater here. It’s just that in a world of AI, polished has become the default setting. It’s now so easy to fake a perfect image that it provides fewer trust signals than it used to. Slightly rough-around-the-edges, real content often goes much further because it feels authentic.

Having a professionally filmed and lit video of your most eloquent member flawlessly reading a script is still useful, but it might not be as effective as just walking around an event with your phone. That slightly shaky video of John shouting over the wind noise about how much he loves his membership is going to feel much more real and do a lot more for your credibility than a scripted masterpiece.

We recently saw a great example of this at Member Jungle. Miller and Leigh were filming a video when our CEO, Michael Barwell, accidentally walked through the back of a shot. Realising what he’d done, he stopped and started trying to distract them. Yes, it technically “ruined” that take, but what we got was so much better, a little snippet of the real people at Member Jungle.

Seeing Michael on that freezing winter’s day wearing his Newcastle Knights beanie, trying his best to distract the people filming, made for a much more engaging video. We kept both videos as both types of content are useful, and posted them both separately. The “ruined” version has a lot more views than the “perfect” one. 

The moral here is keep making polished content, but show people the rough human edges of your organisation too. That slightly shaky video of a member shouting over the wind noise about how much they love your club is going to feel much more real and do just as much for your credibility as a scripted masterpiece.

I know the example I’ve given here was videos, but it works for all content, videos, photos, and interviews. People want to see those messy human sides, so don’t be afraid to show that side of your organisation. 

Being Human Is The Key To A Successful Membership Organisation

AI is a fantastic tool for the heavy lifting, but it doesn’t make a great faceman. You should absolutely use AI and automated tools to save you time in running your organisation, but you must keep that strong human aspect in your organisation. Because in a world of soulless slop and flawless content, showing up as a messy, stupid human is the fastest way to stand out and be noticed. 

For more information on how to turn your organisation into a genuine home for your community, check out 5 Ways To Build A Sense Of Belonging In Your Club Or Association.

For more on making that critical first interaction feel personal and human, check out 4 Ways To Welcome New Members To Your Club.