What The Founders Of EQ Think About Its Future In The Age Of AI

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When psychologists John Mayer, Peter Salovey, and David Caruso first coined the term “emotional intelligence” in 1990, the Internet was barely a concept. Today, their work faces its most fascinating test yet: the rise of artificial intelligence.

In a recent interview, the trio looked back on how emotions became a science and forward to what happens when empathy meets algorithms.

The Origin Story: Making Sense of Emotion

Back in the 1980s, emotion research was fragmented. “There was a conference on facial expressions here, a symposium on emotion regulation there,” Salovey recalled. “Researchers in these various fields didn’t really know of each other’s work. We wanted to give them a framework.”

Mayer had just left a lab focused on intelligence testing and wondered if feelings could sharpen, rather than cloud, one’s reasoning. “I’d been studying how emotions influenced thinking,” he said. “It seemed like there was a lurking coherence, a reason emotion affects cognition. It would be helpful to pin that down.”

Caruso added, “We were trying to bring order to this crazy field. The goal wasn’t to create a pop psychology. It was to understand how emotion and thought actually interact.”

That effort produced the ability model of emotional intelligence, a view of EQ as a measurable set of skills, not a personality style.

Emotional Intelligence Is an Ability, Not a Personality

As EQ became a corporate buzzword, the founders watched the term drift. “There’s been a lot of good research done under the umbrella of emotional intelligence,” Mayer said, “but a lot of it misuses the term.”

Salovey explained the confusion: “People began including everything from optimism to happiness. Those are fine things to measure, but they aren’t emotional intelligence.” Mayer gave a great example: “You can be really depressed and still score high in emotional intelligence. They’re two different things.” His point being, your happiness doesn’t dictate your ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions, and your ability to do so in your interactions with others.

Caruso sees the consequences in hiring. “You’ll read articles saying, ‘We need team players high on EQ,’ and then someone gives a self-report survey asking, ‘Do you think you’re good with feelings?’ That’s not how you measure ability,” he said. “You end up hiring assertive people when what you actually need are people who read the room and manage tension.”

Their preferred definition remains succinct and clear: Emotional intelligence is about perceiving emotions accurately, connecting emotions to thinking, understanding how emotions evolve, and managing emotions effectively.

How Salovey Led Yale With EQ

Salovey drew directly from the model during his presidency at Yale. “Universities are conflictual places,” he said. “You’ve got students, faculty, trustees, and the public, all with different expectations. My job was often to listen, empathize, and reframe, not just solve the problem.”

He described deliberately managing his own reactions: “When you’re attacked in the newspaper or by a politician, that arouses your feelings. You have to appreciate others’ emotions, manage your own, and resist the desire to fix everything immediately.”

The takeaway for leaders: every meeting is an emotion-rich system. The real work lies in the conversation.

Anger, Anxiety, And The Language Of Regulation

Asked whether some emotions “don’t belong at work,” Caruso pushed back: “Anger can be destructive, sure. But it often signals injustice. The point isn’t to ban anger. It’s to recognize it, understand why it’s there, and channel it.”

Mayer offered a personal reframe. “After college I’d tell people I was anxious, and colleagues told me, ‘Don’t say anxious, say concerned.’ That little shift changes everything. Anxiety comes from concern, and it’s a way of reframing your feeling to fit the workplace while staying truthful.”

Salovey noted that applying EQ skills depends on capacity and context. “It’s one thing to have the competencies,” he said. “It’s another to have the emotional bandwidth to use them, especially in unsafe or high-stress environments.”

When Emotional Intelligence Meets Artificial Intelligence

All three researchers pointed to different risks and opportunities when thinking about AI and its relationship to emotional intelligence.

“I worry about deskilling,” Mayer said. “People start to think, ‘I don’t need to understand anything anymore, but AI will take care of that for me.’ But we can’t let technology do our empathizing for us.”

Mayer’s equally wary of manipulation. “AI systems, like social networks before them, are designed to capture attention. They can use emotional cues to keep you talking. We need to guard against that.”

Salovey sees potential upside. He cited an example of how AI might improve its emotional intelligence in a customer service context. “If an AI can detect irritation in your voice and switch you to a human, that’s emotional information used well,” he said. “It’s identifying emotion and acting on it, the very definition of emotional intelligence.”

Caruso added that the founders’ framework already lives inside technology: “AI that senses mood while you drive or moderates tone in a chatbot is using the same logic we use in training leaders: perceive, understand, and respond appropriately.”

Their consensus: leaders should treat AI as an amplifier of human empathy, not a replacement for it.

How To Apply These Insights Today

• Define EQ as an ability. Train and assess perceiving, connecting, understanding, and managing emotions. It’s not a personality trait.

• Model listening in meetings and conversations. As Salovey said, lead conversations by empathizing and reframing before problem-solving.

• Label emotions precisely. Mayer’s “concerned, not anxious” is a tool anyone can use.

• Adopt AI with intent. Use systems that surface emotion data to improve human connection, not exploit it.

Thirty-five years after defining the field, Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso are now mapping the next frontier, one where technology can either hollow out or heighten our humanity.

Sources:

1/ “Emotional Intelligence” by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer

2/ “Past, Present & Future of EI” a live interview with Dr. John D. Mayer, Dr. Peter Salovey & Dr. David R. Caruso