Why the argument for WFH could get a big boost from AI

The pandemic changed how people worked, shifting most professionals to remote or hybrid models. For the software company Atlassian, this flexible, distributed approach persists to this day.

“We have 13,000 employees spread across the globe, and individuals can choose their working location every day,” said Annie Dean, Head of Team Anywhere, Atlassian’s distributed work policy. “It’s about how we work, not where we work.” 

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The implementation of the flexible model has produced positive effects for employees and the company alike. Internal data reveals that even though only 34% of employees have opted to work from home, 92% of Atlassian employees reported that the ability to work from anywhere allows them to perform their best, and 91% said it’s an important reason for staying at the company.

Atlassian employees aren’t alone in preferring a flexible work style. Despite more and more companies calling workers back to the office, many employees aren’t ready to give up remote work.  

“The headlines like to sensationalize that remote work is over and RTO is the future and all that, but it really is not the case,” said Keith Spencer, Career Expert at FlexJobs, a job-hunting platform specializing in hybrid and remote work. “Remote and hybrid work is incredibly popular and in demand.”

Demand for remote work

A Gallup poll found that, as of January 2025, employees continue to enjoy much more work flexibility now than before 2020, with the majority of US remote-capable employees still working in hybrid or fully remote arrangements.

Gallup also found that half of US remote-capable employees expect hybrid work, and 60% of respondents prefer it. The numbers for on-site work were much weaker, with 24% of US remote-capable employees expecting to be on-site, and 8% preferring it. 

According to the Gallup poll data, hybrid employees’ top advantages included work-life balance (76%), more efficient use of their time throughout the day and week (64%), less burnout or fatigue at work (61%), more freedom to choose when or where to work (57%), and higher productivity (52%). 

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Flexibility underpins all those advantages. Employees enjoy having some control over where they conduct their work and, ultimately, where they live.

For instance, Josh Weisberg, Zillow’s Head of AI, said cloud HQ, the company’s remote-first policy, allows employees to experience a different form of team efficiency and creativity based on flexibility, accommodating all different workstyles and preferences. 

“I think that giving people the flexibility to live where they want — you have different families, different age children — it gives you flexibility in terms of how you balance between your work and your life,” said Weisberg, from his boat, where he will be living for the summer. 

Weisberg added that a big reason for Zillow’s success is its implementation of AI tools, which have allowed employees across the company to streamline their work internally.  

Emergence of AI

While the pandemic rapidly transformed how everyone lived and worked, the emergence of generative AI technology also has the same potential for rapid workplace transformation.

Beyond the use cases that generative AI has become most known for, such as writing reports and coding, many AI tools are pivotal in streamlining team functions. For example, an employee no longer needs to attend a meeting to get a full transcript, summary, or notes with action items. 

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Similarly, the technology has helped remove siloes between individuals and teams because many digital workplaces now have AI tools that help users easily access the information they need in a conversational way. 

Dean said remote environments make it easier to take advantage of AI.

“AI doesn’t know what’s happening at the water cooler — it knows what’s happening in your Zoom conversations, in your Slack chats, in your Confluence pages,” said Dean. “If you want AI to be able to have access to the information that you’re creating and consuming, you need to be in a digital, digitally native environment.”

AI is only one type of technology that can help employees stay connected. Take Booking Holdings, the company behind Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable, and more, which offers a flexible work model for its employees that is rooted in investments in programs that don’t require in-person attendance. 

“From structured learning programs to organic peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, we invest strongly in culture as a strategic advantage,” said Paulo Pisano, Chief Human Resources Officer, Booking Holdings. “And as AI adoption accelerates, we see an opportunity to nurture even more curiosity and continuous learning into our culture.”

But what about the culture?

Despite the clear benefits on individual morale, working from home also presents some challenges. In Gallup’s poll, hybrid-employee respondents cited less access to work resources and equipment (31%), feeling less connected to their company’s culture (28%), decreased collaboration with their team (24%), impaired working relationship with coworkers (21%), and reduced cross-functional communication and collaboration (18%) as the biggest obstacles of hybrid work.

The common theme among these challenges relates to interpersonal relationships. To tackle this issue, many business leaders are taking two key measures: keeping an office space that employees can access and creating opportunities for meaningful collaboration. 

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Coinbase, the crypto technology company, went remote-first in April 2020 and has remained a remote-first company since. Despite welcoming flexibility, there are still office spaces available for people to gather and work together consistently. 

Dominique Baillet, VP of People at Coinbase, said the company puts a lot of thought into planning these on-sites so that employees get a fair return on their time investment, build meaningful connections, and get important work done. 

“We invest heavily in in-person off-sites, which are a combination of team building, if you will, connection as well, as working on gnarly topics that are better suited for in-person conversation,” said Baillet. 

When considering team bonding, people typically think about the side conversations that occur in the office while doing activities such as getting coffee or getting lunch. However, these experiences can often be distracting and aren’t directly tied to output. 

“Another fallacy that we buy into is that the 40-minute water cooler talk somehow aids innovation, and therefore productivity,” added Baillet.

In fact, many of these interactions can sidetrack workers who prefer more control of their environment and value taking a break to do tasks they enjoy, such as taking a quick midday walk or doing the chore that is on their mind. 

“When I used to work in the office, I was in a cubicle farm kind of environment, and phones ringing, conversations happening, footsteps up and down the hall like that, I was constantly being distracted,” said Spencer. 

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By putting in the effort to create intentional events in which all employees working on a certain function, team, or project meet regularly, employees may be able to get more out of the social experiences, in particular with the people they work with. 

Atlassian has on-sites that take place a couple of times a year. Dean said the company found that the social bonds formed at these events don’t degrade for four to five months, so even if those organic interactions don’t happen in the regular day-to-day, the intentional meet-ups have long-lasting impacts. 

Rethinking office spaces

Beyond bolstering relationships, most business leaders cite wanting to use the offices they’ve paid for as the biggest reason why RTO mandates are imperative. However, Baillet warned that this train of thought falls under the sunken cost fallacy. 

“It is not thinking about what’s best for the business; it’s not thinking about what drives the most productivity,” said Baillet. “The truth is, the way that you think about your office footprint is all about supply and demand.” 

There will be an inevitable shift in how companies approach real estate to best accommodate these workstyles. For example, Baillet said Coinbase is intentional about the length of the leases the company signs to maximize flexibility and in the investments in office footprints to “make those offices a magnet, not a mandate.”