Communicating from the heart in an AI-powered world

This is the edited transcript of a keynote speech given at a Toastmasters event in Delhi on May 3, 2025. Many thanks to Toastmaster Sachin Malik for the invitation.

I’ve always found that my children – and the next generation – have been my greatest teachers. One day, many years ago, when my daughters were in their teens and I was a hassled working mom, I was driving my elder one to her friend’s house. She must have been 15 or 16 at the time. I was very irritated with her for being late and messing up my schedule. So after giving her this very angry lecture, I ordered her to repeat what I had said. “Tell me, what did I just say? What did you hear?”

And she bitterly replied: “I hear you… you are bitching about me.”

I was instantly mortified and ashamed of myself. That’s not what I was trying to communicate with her. I calmed myself down and I told her everything I needed to say in a more reasonable and loving voice. This time she understood and she promised she’d never do those things again.

So the big lesson for me in the whole incident was that communication is not about what’s being said, it’s about what’s being understood. It’s not just what I’m saying but how I’m saying it. It’s not just the content but the heart behind the words that’s being communicated.

Today we have so many amazing tools to help us communicate better. We can use AI to write or to edit what we write – whether it’s an email or an essay or even a book. A lot of people are doing that now. In fact, the younger generation are using AI to express themselves even before they are using their own brain! They feel AI is smarter than them so they’ve outsourced their thinking.

And I don’t blame them because AI comes up with absolutely perfect stuff. Everything is consistent. All punctuations are in place, nothing is repeated. It’s perfect. Which according to me is the giveaway. Because human beings are imperfect, and human communication is full of imperfections. 

When human beings write or speak or use body language or communicate in any way, we’re not just conveying the meanings of words. We are also communicating our intention, our thoughts, our personality, our energy, even our belief systems. We are communicating our humanity – the essence of who we are and what makes us human. And AI can’t do that.

There is a heart behind every piece of human communication. Humans are not just the physical body. We are also souls. It may not sound scientific but look at your own experiences. Have you ever communicated or connected with another person without a single word or even without being physically present? It happens to me all the time. I just think about a person and then I get a message from them.

Today morning, I was going through my phone gallery and I saw this photo of a Slovakian friend of mine from many months ago, and I thought of her fondly. And just now while I was sitting here waiting to give this talk, I got a message from her, out of the blue, asking me, “Any plans to come to Europe?”

Imagine that. We’re communicating our love and affection for people – and conversely even our anger and hatred – simply with our thoughts. You can say that we are communicating our vibes, or in Buddhism we call it the karma of thought (just like we have karma of speech and karma of action).

It’s not just humans who communicate without words – every being in the animal kingdom does it all the time. If you have pets at home, you’d know how they communicate with just their actions or even just a look. And, of course, if you’ve been in any kind of intimate relationship, you know how lovers and close friends and siblings communicate with just eye contact even if it’s from the other corner of the room.

In Savita Ambedkar’s autobiography, in which she talks about her life with her husband Dr BR Ambedkar, she references this aspect of communication between couples. Whenever she entered an auditorium where he was giving a speech, and if she was wearing a sari that he had chosen for her that morning, then he would give her a special look from the podium that was just meant for her, and that only she could understand.

But communication is not just outward, it can also be inward. Sometimes a voice in our head guides us in the right direction at the right time. That may be our higher wisdom communicating with us, or our intuition; some people may call it God; scientists may say it’s the subconscious mind. In many cultures people see signs in natural phenomena – they feel these are signals from divine beings.

So, imagine, at any given moment, human beings are communicating in so many different ways! Through words, through actions, through our thoughts, through eye contact, through our vibes, through our energies.

And what exactly are you communicating? You’re communicating you. And artificial intelligence can’t do that; it can communicate your words but it cannot communicate you.

Since I’m from a creative field myself, I must say that one of the most powerful forms of human communication is art. We talk about authors having their own unique voice, about artists having that unique signature in their paintings. AI can copy their style and even technique but it cannot copy their lived experiences, which give their art so much meaning and so much depth that it moves you to deep emotion. Great art can be healing, or even a mystical experience.

Let me give you an example of how art can communicate even without words. You may have heard of the 1972 Bollywood classic Pakeezah.

The protagonist in the film – played by Meena Kumari – is a courtesan living in the early 20th century in Lucknow. She makes a living by dancing for men. In most of the songs in the film, she’s putting up a performance for these patrons of hers.

Let’s hear a small clip from one of the songs. Please keep the context of the film in mind while listening. Here’s this woman in a deeply patriarchal society performing for men, a woman who has suppressed her true emotions and desires under all that pretty makeup and that beautiful voice of Lata Mangeshkar.

Did you notice the silence in the middle? First that music and then that silence. Did you notice how that silence conveys so much – about what it means to be a woman in a man’s world? A woman who probably had a lot to say but couldn’t say it? In that silence we actually feel her essence, her heart.

And then after the silence, she goes, “Nigodhi,” and the whole performance starts again. I’m sure everyone can understand what it means to put on a performance for someone who is above you in the social hierarchy.

Using some music and silence and very few words, the music director has communicated an entire social and cultural context in just a one-minute clip. That’s how powerfully art can communicate.

Before I end, I’d like to address the question that most people probably sign up to Toastmasters for: how do I communicate better? And since the best communication comes from the heart – rather, I argue all communication comes from the heart – the best way to communicate better is to know your heart really, really well.

Know who you are. Know what you want, what makes you tick. Know what you like, what are your goals, what are your values, what is your purpose in this lifetime, why are you here? It’s only when you know you that you can communicate you.

And when you know your heart better and better, you’ll reach a point where, even without using any words, you will be understood. Your presence itself will be your communication.