AI Appreciation Day is more than a tip of the hat to AI; it’s a sincere recognition of the ways in which AI is improving the world in business while preserving—and even enhancing—our human values. From transforming education to powering small businesses, AI is reimagining the book on how we learn, connect, and succeed. This day is a moment to think about shifting balances between machine imagination and human intelligence, so that innovation will be a tool to enhance human agency and not diminish it.
AICreate – Innovation Day: Promoting Human Agency
In learning, AI is today an over buddy—providing customized learning, grading automatically, and increased access. Learning, however, is very much human in form. As Mr. Siva Balakrishnan, Founder & CEO, Vserve rightly encapsulates:
On AI Appreciation Day 2025, we celebrate AI’s power to transform education while safeguarding human agency. AI should elevate educators’ creativity and judgment, not replace them. By blending smart automation with empathetic teaching, we can use AI to scale learning without diminishing our human essence. Our goal must be to empower people to direct technology, ensuring classrooms where technology amplifies human insight and values.
Educational AI can and should be a co-pilot—enhancing teacher ability, supplementing differentiated instruction, and affording every student the time that they require. Being dedicated to empowerment, and not substitution, ensures that human insight will be at the helm of guiding upcoming generations.
Keeping Humanity Relevant in the Age of Machines
Greater strength of AI also raises major controversies about human agency and ethical use of technology. In the view of Mr. Praveen Joshi, MD and Founder Member of RSK Business Solutions Pvt Ltd:
In an age where AI transforms education and automation becomes pervasive, safeguarding human agency is vital. Technology must support, not supplant our ability to choose, create, and connect. As machines reshape learning, it is up to us to ensure they amplify our humanity rather than diminish it, keeping compassion, creativity, and ethical judgement at the forefront.
It is a perspective that points to a deeper truth: while AI adds scale and efficiency, it is human heart and mind that need to guide its application. Compassion, empathy, and judgment are all qualities that no machine can simulate, and should be the foundations of any AI-driven future.
AI Appreciation Day in Commerce: Empowering SMEs
Beyond classrooms, AI is also on the verge of democratizing access and inclusion, particularly in financial and trade services. Mintoak Co-founder and CEO Mr. Raman Khanduja explains how AI is revolutionizing the dynamics of small businesses interacting with digital finance:
For a long time, SMEs were financially excluded not by intent but because traditional channels failed to serve them effectively. Digital payments and infrastructure laid the foundation for inclusion and started engaging them meaningfully. Now AI is set to strengthen and accelerate that progress. It allows the payments ecosystem to offer data-driven support that helps merchants run their businesses better and smarter. At Mintoak, we believe AI isn’t just about automation. Its about deeper engagement and real empowerment for the SME sector. It’s a powerful step forward in building a more inclusive and responsive financial ecosystem.
This is a milestone day—AI is no longer an out-of-sight, out-of-mind back-end activity; it’s becoming more of a force for financial inclusion. AI is powering everything from fraud detection to credit underwriting and customer engagement, making business owners wiser with information once inaccessible.
Why AI Appreciation Day Is Important Now More Than Ever
In our generation, when all industries are embracing the fast pace of digitalization, celebrating “AI Appreciation Day” is an opportunity to refocus our priorities. It’s not merely celebrating technological brilliance but recalling that our technologies need to be in the service of our values.
We must leverage AI:
- To enhance—not displace—human intelligence.
- To enhance—not destroy—human empathy.
- To include—not exclude—marginalized communities.
By appreciating the good which can be done by AI and aware of its restraint, we may chart an innovation and morality-based future.
Final Thoughts: A Responsible and Hopeful Future
AI Appreciation Day is not just a day to appreciate clever machines and remark on how wonderful they are—it’s a plea. A plea to app developers, educators, policy makers, small business owners, and everyday citizens to shape this technology into something good. As with care woven in, AI can be that force for creating more possibility, an amplifier of voices, and a world in which technology serves human beings rather than telling them what to do.
And taking a moment to reflect on the words of wisdom of these business leaders, we are reminded that the greatest advantage of AI is not what it can do, but how it allows us to improve ourselves—improve ourselves for each other, and for the world.