Investors are rightly focused on identifying the winners in the AI era. Yet in our rush to understand what machines can do, we may be spending too little time thinking about what should remain uniquely human.If AI leads to more concentrated power and more consequential decisions, stewardship, accountability and governance become more important, not less. Research into long-term stock market returns suggests a remarkably small number of companies account for a disproportionate share of wealth creation. Most contribute little. Some destroy value. A tiny minority create extraordinary value.For investors, one of the greatest risks is therefore not owning poor businesses but missing the rare businesses that generate exceptional returns. AI may amplify this phenomenon. The eventual winners could benefit from powerful network effects, data advantages, computing scale and talent concentration, allowing a few firms to capture a disproportionate share of the rewards. Markets reflect this uncertainty. Equity investors have placed some AI-linked companies on extraordinary valuations, anticipating years of rapid growth, while debt investors in the same companies have often been more cautious, suggesting the risks may be greater than equity markets are willing to acknowledge. No wonder many of us feel a little like we are playing Snakes & Ladders, just one roll away from either extraordinary success or unmitigated disappointment. Much of the conversation centres on AI capability. What can the technology do? Which companies will benefit? How quickly can it be deployed and how much productivity can it unlock? Those questions matter, but they are simply not sufficient.Far less attention is given to human agency. Which decisions should remain human? Who remains accountable when systems fail? How should boards govern technologies that may become more complex than the organisations deploying them? What principles remain non-negotiable, regardless of what technology makes possible? These are not merely ethical questions. They are investment questions.That’s why the apparent decline in interest in environmental, social & governance (ESG) issues feels misplaced. Part of the problem is the label itself. ESG has become burdened by politics, reporting requirements and competing interpretations. Yet ESG is simply a framework for asking a far older question: how should power be exercised? AI makes that question more urgent. Algorithms may process more information than humans, identify patterns we miss and improve decision-making in countless ways. But they cannot carry responsibility, exercise ethical judgment or act as stewards. Those obligations remain fundamentally human.This is why governance frameworks such as King V matter. Their relevance does not diminish in an AI-enabled world; it increases. The core questions of ethical leadership, accountability, transparency and sustainable value creation become more difficult, not easier, when decisions are shaped by systems few people fully understand. Investors therefore face a dual challenge. The first is identifying the companies most likely to benefit from AI. The second is ensuring those companies use that advantage in ways that create durable value for shareholders, customers, employees and society. The two cannot be separated. A company that wins through scale but loses trust may not have won at all. Perhaps the challenge is not simply finding the next ladder. It is agreeing on the game we are playing. Markets are already trying to identify the winners of the AI era. Yet if AI leads to more concentrated power and more consequential decisions, the more important question may be what winning should look like. Pope Leo XIV has cautioned that AI risks becoming a monument to human hubris unless it remains centred on human dignity and inclusiveness. In a world increasingly shaped by AI the more capable our machines become the more valuable distinctly human qualities such as judgment, ethics, responsibility and stewardship may prove to be. That may be the real paradox of AI — and precisely why the principles underpinning ESG may matter more in an AI world, not less. • Crosoer is chief investment officer at PPS Investments.