Working Alone Together

Last week, I had thirty people in a room.

Smart. Senior. Curious.

All with access to the same tools.
All moving faster than ever before.

And yet…

Something felt off.

Not silent.
Just… contained.

Less “what do you think?”
More “I’ve got this.”

Not that long ago, we blamed distance.

We blamed screens.
We blamed lockdowns.
We blamed the sudden shift to remote work.

And we were right.

We were physically apart.
Disconnected by circumstance.
Trying to recreate something human through rectangles on a screen.

But there was something else happening back then.

We reached for each other.

We asked more questions.
We checked in more.
We over-communicated—not because we wanted to, but because we had to.

Connection wasn’t efficient.
But it was necessary.

Now?

We’re back in rooms.

Back in offices.
Back in proximity.

And somehow…

Less connected.

Because the tools got better.

Faster.
Smarter.
More capable.

They remove friction.

But friction was never just inefficiency.

It was interaction.

The question you had to ask.
The person you had to call.
The half-formed thought you had to say out loud and risk sounding wrong.

That was the work.

But it was also the connection.

Now you don’t need to ask.

You prompt.

You don’t need to discuss.

You generate.

You don’t need the room.

You need the interface.

And slowly—almost invisibly—something shifts.

We become more self-sufficient.
More independent.
More… contained.

Not because we want to be alone.

Because now we can be.

That’s the part that’s hard to see.

During COVID, we were alone—but we knew it.

We felt it.
We compensated for it.

Now, we’re surrounded…
and drifting into isolation anyway.

Not imposed.

Optimized.

In that room yesterday, the work was good.

Ideas were flowing.
Problems were being solved.

But something was missing.

Not intelligence.
Not capability.

Energy.

The friction of conversation.
The interruption.
The moment where someone leans in and says, “I don’t think that’s it.”

We talk a lot about what AI will replace.

Tasks.
Jobs.
Functions.

But maybe the real risk isn’t replacement.

It’s removal.

The removal of those small, human moments
that made the work feel shared.

Because output is easy now.

But overcoming?

That still requires people.

So maybe the question isn’t:

How do we use these tools better?

Maybe it’s:

Where should we resist using them?

Where do we keep the conversation?
The mess?
The back-and-forth?

Where do we choose to involve someone else—
even when we don’t have to?

Because the future of work won’t be decided by how fast we move.

It will be shaped by how we choose to move together.

The tools will keep improving.

They’ll get faster.
Smarter.
More intuitive.

They’ll keep giving us answers.

But in a world of infinite answers…

Ask someone.