Dehumidification is already obligatory in AC units by the nature of how they work. When you cool air down it can’t hold as much water and so that water condenses and leaves the air. The current way that we handle this is we just let that water condense on your AC evaporator coil, then expel the cool water as waste. But it’s more efficient if your AC unit spends its time cooling air instead of water.

If you cool air to a temperature comfortably above the dew point, there is absolutely no reason that dehumidification is obligatory. There are two reasons for dehumidification: running the coils at a temperature cargo-culted from a standardized guideline that doesn’t take the local climate into account and running the coils at a temperature such that adequate cooling capacity can be achieved at a low-enough airflow.

At the other end of the spectrum, most radiant cooling systems cannot safely dehumidify.

Sadly, this is seldom the case for heat in Ottawa. Often it can be 32C, 35C, with 80%, even much higher humidity.

Seeing as it was -30C a mere 6 months ago, and many Canucks think 15C with sun is a nice temp, comfort comes at close to 20C.

Which of course, with the sun pounding on the house, means you need the return air to be 10C or some such.

Air brought down to ~50% humidity is quite a lot more comfortable and not at all dry.

If it reduces the humidity to just the point where condensation would form in the A/C coils, you won't see any change (except to reduce the load on the A/C).

Not sure where you are located, but most people have low toleration for overly dry air. Running an air conditioner in a dry place like Arizona or California will only make it drier. Running it in a humid place like Florida or Virginia makes the humidity level tolerable. When I lived in California, we used an evaporative cooler most times of the year. Only the hottest days did we turn to AC. But here in the east coast, the evaporative coolers would probably be mostly useless.

It's not a binary "dry/wet" thing. If you live in a humid place, you can probably remove quite a bit of moisture from the air before you encounter those symptoms.

Yes, this getting used in offices or public transport and the air there getting even drier sounds extremely scary and horrifying to me. With a humidity under 40% I feel pain and under 30% I develop severe inflammation in my whole pharynx and become unable to function from pain.