Tim opens up the idea that most of modern life now runs through a screen. You order food without talking to anyone, resolve a customer service issue through a chatbot, get a quote online without ever hearing a voice, and scroll through hundreds of curated posts without a single real exchange. Troy picks up on how normalized that's become, especially in industries like insurance and real estate where an entire relationship can now happen without the client and the agent ever meeting in person. Efficient, sure. But Troy argues something important gets lost every time a human touchpoint gets automated away, even when the automation technically works fine.
That's where the return to analog comes in. Troy and Tim talk about how, paradoxically, the more the world automates, the more people crave the opposite: a real phone call instead of a text, a face-to-face meeting instead of a video conference, a handwritten note instead of an email blast. It's not nostalgia for its own sake, it's a response to genuine scarcity. When everyone else is chasing automation to cut costs and save time, the businesses and people who show up in person are suddenly rare, and rare things stand out. Troy connects this directly to how he runs Pinnacle Insurance, where door-knocking and in-person client meetings have become a differentiator precisely because almost nobody else is doing them anymore.
This idea lands just as hard for real estate professionals and small business owners as it does for anyone watching AI reshape their industry. A realtor competing against algorithm-driven listing platforms, a contractor competing against instant online quotes, an agent competing against comparison sites that never pick up the phone, all of them are operating in a market where human presence has become a competitive advantage instead of just a nice-to-have. Tim and Troy's conversation reframes AI not as something to fear or fight, but as a force that's quietly making genuine human connection more valuable, not less.
There's also a deeper point underneath the trend: people don't just want more information, they want to feel heard, and no chatbot has figured out how to actually deliver that no matter how sophisticated the technology gets. Troy talks about clients who don't just want the cheapest quote, they want to know someone is actually paying attention to their specific situation, their specific risk, their specific life. That's something automation can support but never fully replace, and it's exactly the gap Troy and Tim believe smart businesses should be leaning into right now instead of racing to remove the last human being from every process they run.
The bigger lesson here isn't anti-technology, it's about knowing where technology should stop and a real person should start, and building a business that intentionally protects that line instead of eroding it for the sake of convenience.
It's worth sitting with how counterintuitive this actually is. Every business trend of the last decade has pushed toward removing friction, automating touchpoints, and scaling without adding headcount. Tim and Troy are essentially arguing the opposite is starting to work in certain moments: adding friction back in, on purpose, in the form of a real conversation, can be the differentiator that automation can't replicate. It's not a rejection of efficiency, it's a recognition that efficiency and connection solve different problems, and the businesses winning right now are the ones that know which problem they're solving with a given client at a given moment.
If you've ever felt like you're talking to more machines than people in an average day, this clip explains why that feeling is so widespread right now, and why leaning into real human connection might be one of the smartest business moves available in an increasingly automated world.
Troy Thompson is the owner of Pinnacle Insurance of Minnesota and founder of Savvital. Find him on YouTube at Pinnacle Insurance Agency of MN and Savvital, on Instagram @iamtroythompson, on Facebook as Troy Thompson, at pinnacleinsuranceofmn.com, and on LinkedIn as Troy Thompson.
Bricks and Risk is a podcast dedicated to real estate, insurance, and building your business, hosted by Sean Mooney and Tim Garrity.