AI: Where Do We Go From Here?
The Paradox of Progress
We made work faster, smarter, and more connected. AI writes our code, organizes our data, and drafts our ideas. We can deploy a product in days and scale it to millions overnight. I’ve experienced this magic first hand - at work and in side projects. As a design leader, the ability to imagine and then experience an idea in hours vs. weeks or months is truly amazing.
And yet — layoffs rise, burnout spikes, and meaning feels harder to find. The mental gymnastics involved in training AI to replace you are humbling and scary. The promise of progress sometimes feels incomplete. Somewhere between “move fast” and “make it work,” we started optimizing everything except why we work in the first place.
The Efficiency Trap
We’ve built systems designed to maximize efficiency, but not necessarily effectiveness. In our quest for speed, we’ve made the tools brilliant — and the humans exhausted. AI didn’t break the system; it simply revealed how fragile it already was.
The opportunity now is to let AI handle what’s mechanical, so people can return to what’s meaningful — creativity, connection, and judgment.
The Great Disconnection
Remote work showed us that we can build from anywhere — and for many, it was life-changing. Commutes disappeared. Parents could handle school drop-offs without guilt. People rediscovered quiet mornings, movement, and presence. For the first time in decades, life didn’t have to orbit entirely around work.
But freedom came with friction. As offices emptied, so did many of the shared rhythms that made work feel communal. We learned that balance doesn’t automatically create belonging. Now, as companies recalibrate, some are mistaking presence for purpose. They believe bringing people back together physically will automatically rebuild culture. But what teams are really asking for isn’t free lunch or hybrid schedules — it’s clarity, trust, and respect.
The opportunity: redesign work around outcomes and trust, not surveillance and control — and protect the flexibility that helped so many people finally breathe.
The Brand Hollowing
When companies go “all in on AI,” they often pull out of their brand. They stop articulating who they are and what they stand for, because speed feels like the new identity. But brand isn’t decoration — it’s direction. It’s how organizations make meaning out of motion. Without it, even the most advanced tech feels hollow.
The opportunity: let brand and purpose shape how AI is used — not the other way around.
The Psychological Cost
The modern work equation often asks for full commitment but gives limited stability in return. Startups offer stock that rarely matures - see dead equity. I recently spoke to a veteran startup design exec who stated he had shares from 8 different companies - none had delivered any value. Corporations offer titles that are full of accountability and limited authority. And both quietly reward burnout as a sign of loyalty. We can’t keep pretending resilience is infinite. What we need now is reciprocity — a rebalancing of what work gives back.
The opportunity: build organizations where success and well-being aren’t opposites.
The Real Inflection Point
We didn’t go wrong by embracing speed or technology. We went wrong by confusing progress with acceleration. Speed is neutral — it just amplifies what’s underneath. If our systems lack empathy or clarity, faster tools won’t fix that; they’ll magnify it.
The opportunity: slow down just enough to design with intention — to align progress with purpose.
Where We Go From Here
Maybe “the future of work” isn’t about better tools. Maybe it’s about better agreements — between people, purpose, and progress.
- Work should give as much as it takes.
- Technology should amplify humanity, not exhaust it.
- Brand should anchor culture, not decorate it.
- Leadership should measure clarity of purpose, not just output.
We stand at an extraordinary moment: AI has given us leverage, scale, and speed. Now we have to give it direction. The next revolution won’t be artificial. It will be human.
