What AI Can’t Replace: You, in Person

Here, in the fall of 2025, employee demands for flexible work have been muted by a changing reality, one in which employment itself feels less certain. Distributed work was never destined to end well for employees, especially those in high-cost markets like the US. And now, with the rise of AI, the connection between work and specific human workers is eroding even further.

Separating worker from place was always an existential threat to the worker. The more disconnected the employee, the easier it is for the employer to optimize for task fulfillment. It becomes less about providing employment for Jennifer, who, in turn, is known to use the income to support her family. Instead, employers today are encouraged to optimize through technology.

Ironically, it was employees, in their quest for more flexibility, who championed the very use of technologies which accelerated their disconnection from the company. In pushing for remote work, many employees overestimated their value. Others imagined hybrid schedules as a sustainable compromise. But what seemingly all missed is how much not being together weakened the bond between themselves and their employer.

Enter AI. It is the ultimate expression of technology’s quest for efficiency and cost reduction, in some cases, bypassing the human worker entirely. The dream of flexible work giving way to a new equilibrium of freedom and productivity may have been an illusion. Our current moment reflects deep economic and cultural forces pushing us toward the efficiency motive, the full realization of which may be less human-centric.

Yet for most of human history, society has been organized around physical connection, around people being together. Technology increasingly stands between us, mediating, filtering, and, in some ways, replacing that connection. Unless the value you bring to your company is exceptional, irreplaceably tied to you, your best strategy for career preservation may be personal connection.