The album was announced by frontman Ryan Tedder in September 2019, with a planned release in 'late November' of that year. Tedder stated that he wanted to put out an album with eight or nine songs and then continue releasing new music in 2020. Tedder later revealed that the album had been delayed until the second quarter of 2020 because it was 'physically impossible to finish an album in the timeframe that we thought we needed it', and he believed the album would not be successful if released between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Tedder also said the band had 'two years worth of songs just scattered on hard drives' and were trying to find and finish 'the best ones' to make 'a coherent album out of the last two years'. Tedder stated that the May 8 release date was delayed because of it being a 'weird time', amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 1, 2021 the band announced via their Instagram account that the official release date for Human would be August 27, 2021.