OPINION: Why Relational Intelligence is the key to thriving in the AI era

For the past century, we have treated intelligence as something measurable — a score on an IQ test, a standardized exam or a checklist of marketable skills. Education systems were built on the belief that if we filled young minds with enough knowledge, progress would follow.

We rewarded students for getting the right answers, for competing rather than collaborating, for mastering subjects rather than navigating human relationships. But we’ve been measuring and incentivizing the wrong things. We’ve built systems that treat relationships as invisible, as if they’re “nice to have” rather than essential. The consequences of this omission are now becoming painfully evident. In 2020, 44 percent of high school youth reported having no source of supportive relationships — either adults or peers, a reduction by half from a decade earlier.

IQ scores, which had been steadily rising throughout the 20th century — a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect — are now declining across Western nations, including the U.S., for adults and children. This year’s NAEP scores revealed that in both reading and math, most fourth- and eighth-graders still performed below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Meanwhile, emotional intelligence (EQ) — one of the most in-demand skills — has its own limitations. Despite the growing presence of social-emotional learning (SEL) in schools, our era is defined by loneliness, polarization and social fragmentation.

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The real measure of intelligence isn’t algebra proficiency or the ability to recite grammar rules. It’s our ability to build relationships, foster trust, collaborate and navigate an increasingly interconnected world. In an AI-driven future, our greatest strength will not be IQ or EQ but RQ — Relational Intelligence — the capacity to connect, understand and thrive through human relationships.

For most of history, survival depended on relationships — on families, communities and shared responsibility. Yet in our relentless pursuit of data and efficiency, we have systematically devalued them. We have designed schools that prize individual achievement over collective problem-solving, workplaces that prioritize productivity over human connection and policies that treat care work as a private burden rather than a societal responsibility.

Now, as artificial intelligence automates the analytical and technical tasks we once equated with intelligence, we must ask: What remains distinctly human?

Human skills — our ability to build trust, intuit emotions and form deep interpersonal bonds — are among the most-in-demand competencies precisely because AI cannot replicate them. The best doctors don’t just diagnose; they listen. The best teachers don’t just deliver information; they inspire. The most successful entrepreneurs anticipate and navigate human needs before they’re even articulated.

Yet, we continue to underfund the very things that make us human. We invest billions in remediation while early learning — where relational intelligence is first developed — remains vastly underfunded.

Decades of neuroscience confirm what parents have always known: Relationships are foundational to brain development. Secure, loving interactions with caregivers and educators wire the brain for resilience, self-regulation and problem-solving.

Conversely, relational deprivation leads to profound cognitive and emotional impairments. Studies on Romanian orphans who lived in state-run institutions during the communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that children deprived of human connection suffered severe developmental delays. Even when placed in loving homes later, many struggled with attachment and executive functioning. The ability to build and maintain relationships is the essential skill that shapes a child’s ability to learn, connect and thrive for life.

We continue to treat relationships as secondary — a “soft” issue compared to academic rigor or economic productivity. But relationships are not a luxury; they are the foundation of our future. As LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer notes, relationship skills are essential in an increasingly “relationship economy.” And if you need one more reason — relationships also help us live longer!

Some states are beginning to recognize the power of relational intelligence in shaping the workforce of tomorrow. Mississippi’s education reform, known as the “Mississippi Miracle,” wasn’t just about better reading instruction — it was about providing sustained mentorship for teachers and fostering deep, meaningful relationships with students.

Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program, ranked among the nation’s best, prioritizes small student-teacher ratios, play-based learning and high-quality professional development — embedding relationship-building into early education. In New Hampshire, play-based learning has been mandated in early grades on the basis of strong research on the effectiveness of guided play. California’s expanding community schools have proven to improve academic performance, increase student attendance, enhance behavioral outcomes and boost family engagement by fostering holistic student success and community building.

These successes highlight a fundamental truth: Intelligence isn’t just about knowledge; it’s about connection, collaboration and care.

But schools alone cannot solve our existing education and relational crises. Because relationships don’t just happen in classrooms. They happen in families, neighborhoods and faith communities and in how we care for one another as a society. That’s why some of the most effective initiatives don’t look like traditional schools at all.

• Family hubs in the UK and the U.S. provide parenting classes, mental health resources and playgroups, recognizing that family is the first classroom. Instead of treating early learning as an institutional function, these hubs strengthen relationships at every level, ensuring that parents are supported as their child’s first teachers.
• Programs like Jumpstart and Big Brothers Big Sisters foster early learning through caring, consistent relationships between trained volunteers and young children, enhancing literacy, social-emotional growth and a lifelong love for learning.
• Tūtū & Me in Hawai‘i reimagines early learning by engaging grandparents and caregivers, ensuring children are embedded in extended family relationships that preserve cultural wisdom and intergenerational bonds.
• TrainingGrounds in New Orleans empowers parents and caregivers as a child’s first teachers, cultivating relational intelligence in everyday interactions.
• Alabama’s Small Magic initiative uses technology, powered by LENA, to provide parents with strength-based recommendations on language development, helping them engage more deeply in their children’s early learning.

These programs don’t just enhance learning; they strengthen human connection, showing that intelligence is not just about knowledge acquisition but about cultivating habits of care, attention and interaction.

Related: What aspects of teaching should remain human?

The pandemic was a relational shockwave — it stripped away human connection and revealed its vital role in development. Young children faced delays, mental health crises surged and social fragmentation deepened. Emerging from isolation, we craved connection — but more importantly, we realized connection is the bedrock of well-being.

The future belongs to those who can build and sustain meaningful relationships in an increasingly automated, interconnected world. If we fail to prioritize relational intelligence alongside cognitive and emotional skills, we risk preparing children for a workforce — and a society — that no longer exists.

But if we get this right — if we embed relationships at the core of education, family life and economic systems — we can cultivate a society that is not just more intelligent and resilient, but more adaptive, connected and future-ready.

We do not have an intelligence crisis. We have a relational crisis. And it’s time we started treating it like one.

Isabelle C. Hau is the executive director of the Stanford University Accelerator for Learning and the author of “Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education.”

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

This story about relational intelligence was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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