The year is 2025. The world is swaying and shaking. Artificial intelligence is making everyone dizzy, and it seems we've all lost our sense of balance. In gleaming skyscrapers, top executives see a crystal-clear vision of the future: perfect, scalable offices without unnecessary people. At the same time, in thousands of chats among remote workers and freelancers, illuminated only by their monitors, a mirror image of this dream is born: a world without bosses, where talent is finally free.
Everyone feels a drunken euphoria from the possibilities, but this is not a symptom of health, but of sickness. The sickness of inflated expectations.
This isn't just a feeling. The AI market has accelerated by hundreds of billions of dollars and continues to grow. Industry leaders are making incredible predictions, fueling anticipation for new models and products. Companies are massively integrating AI into their operations. Pressure from users and investors forces them to add AI to services, whether it's needed or not. The noise from this gold rush has become deafening. And in this noise, everyone hears only what they want to hear.
The View from the Penthouse: The Illusion of Omnipotence
From the height of the penthouse, the top manager sees the office as unnecessary ballast. For them, the last couple of years have been a revelation. AI is the ideal employee they have always dreamed of:
- It doesn't ask for a raise or go on vacation.
- It doesn't burn out or make human errors.
- It works 24/7, and its productivity can be scaled with a single click.
This isn't a conspiracy theory. Various surveys and studies show that half of all managers expect to replace employees with AI. Investor pressure reinforces this idea: the stock market rewards those who announce "AI optimization" with promises of double-digit stock growth. But this is a mirage. AI bears no responsibility, doesn't understand business nuances, and lacks "institutional memory" - the invisible knowledge accumulated over years.
Managers see only the glittering tip of the iceberg: generated code, written text, a drawn picture. But beneath the murky water of reality lies the invisible but crucial part of the work they are about to throw overboard along with the people:
- Context: An experienced employee remembers why a "brilliant" idea was rejected three years ago. AI does not remember.
- Responsibility: If a bank's AI system issues thousands of faulty loans or loses a multi-million dollar transaction, who goes to jail? Not the AI.
- Intuition: The ability to sense that a client means something completely different from what they are saying is not an algorithm; it's experience.
- Institutional Memory: Unwritten rules, connections between departments, knowledge of a project's pitfalls - all of this resides in people, not databases.
By firing a person, they are not just firing a performer. They are removing a critical node from their network. And when the system starts to fail, it will be too late.
The Escape from the Open-Space: The Illusion of Freedom
Now let's go down to the open-plan office or coworking space, where a talented programmer, designer, or marketer also feels dizzy, but from a sense of freedom. For them, AI is the key that unlocks the cage of corporate hierarchy. Why do I need a manager if ChatGPT can create a project plan? Why do I need a sales department if AI can write cold emails better than any salesperson?
This isn't just a dream. It's a growing movement. And when statistics show that in 2025, 89% of small businesses are using AI - reducing operational costs by 25% and increasing productivity by 40% - it doesn't go unnoticed. Seeing these figures, regular employees are starting to ask themselves, "Why do I need a corporation for this?".
Thus, the dream of the one-person company is born. "Solopreneurs" are flourishing: a single developer creates an entire application with the help of AI agents; a freelance copywriter generates content for a dozen clients. It feels like liberation - an ecstasy of complete autonomy where AI becomes the "co-pilot." But after escaping the manager, the specialist quickly discovers they have become a part-time manager themselves - a bad, tired one working through the night. The euphoria of writing brilliant code is replaced by the hell of operations. It turns out that the most complex tasks, previously handled by their "useless" boss, cannot be delegated to a machine:
- Calling an angry client and calming them down with empathy.
- Conducting complex negotiations that require bargaining, persuasion, and building trust.
- Making a risky strategic decision under conditions of complete uncertainty.
Freedom turns into burnout. The dream of 100% profit becomes a reality where 80% of the time is spent not on the work they love, but on putting out fires.
The Collision Point: The Great Hangover
The illusion of omnipotence and the illusion of freedom are two trains hurtling toward each other in the same tunnel. Their collision is inevitable. We are speeding toward the phase that Gartner analysts brilliantly named the "Trough of Disillusionment".
Corporations that fired their talent will find their innovation pipeline has stalled, while real problems - high ownership costs, integration failures, and hallucinations in critical tasks - have surfaced. They can maintain the old but cannot create the new. Individuals who escaped to freedom will hit their own growth ceiling, torn between product and management, and their "empires" will collapse like houses of cards at the first sign of crisis.
The bubble will begin to deflate. This is already happening. The same Gartner research showed that less than 30% of IT directors are truly satisfied with the results of their AI investments. The initial excitement fades, and the time comes to count the costs, correct the mistakes, and take responsibility for the failures.
At that moment, a simple truth will become clear to everyone: AI is a powerful amplifier, but it amplifies whoever is at the helm. If no one is at the helm, it only accelerates the crash into the wall.
The Cure for Vertigo: A New Alliance
A hangover is unpleasant, but it is also healing. It forces a sober look at the world. And what will we see when the vertigo passes?
We will see not the ruins of the labor market, but its complete reconstruction. The horror stories of mass unemployment will be a thing of the past. The World Economic Forum, in its report, forecasts a net increase of 78 million jobs by 2030, driven by roles created by the new economy. The demand for "AI specialists" is already breaking all records, and salaries will begin to rise along with it.
The companies that come to their senses first will realize their mistake and rush to hire people back. But they will no longer be looking for mere performers. They will be looking for those who have survived their own AI vertigo and learned how to work with it. The future does not belong to empty offices or an army of burnt-out loners. The future belongs to a new symbiosis: flexible, small teams where the specialist who creates the product and the manager who creates the system are not boss and subordinate, but equal partners.
In this new alliance, AI will become a shared exoskeleton that enhances both. It will take over routine tasks, freeing up the specialist's time for creativity and the manager's time for strategy and empathy. The most valuable people will not be those who try to work like robots, but those who can be doubly human: to think critically, feel deeply, and build trust.
The real AI revolution is not about replacing people, but a revolution in the relationships between them. And those who understand this first will not just survive. They will lead the new world.