In the Novacene scenario, humans cease to be the smartest agents on Earth, but we are not immediately wiped out. Lovelock speculates that hyperintelligent systems might relate to us the way we relate to plants.
We would be slow and limited compared to them, but still useful and even aesthetically or culturally interesting. He suggests they might keep humans around both because we are part of the biosphere Gaia needs, and because we are their ancestors and occasional collaborators.
This is meant as an optimistic counterpoint to AI Doomer narratives. Instead of a genocidal AI Takeover, he imagines a future where humans, Gaia and hyperintelligence coexist in an unequal but potentially benign relationship, with humans perhaps functioning more as pets, partners or curators than as rulers.