How AI Could Kill the Return to Office. As AI collides with office work, the best leaders are rethinking RTO.
The RTO Irony: Why Forcing Employees Back to the Office is a Multi-Million Dollar Mistake
From the glass towers of Silicon Valley to the trading floors of Wall Street, a familiar mantra is echoing through executive suites: “We need people back in the office to restore productivity.”
But if you step into those newly repopulated offices, you’ll see a different reality. You’ll see employees wearing noise-canceling headphones, joining Zoom calls from company desks, and doing the exact same work they could have done at home—only now, they’re paying $20 to commute and eating a "sad desk salad" just to get through the day.
The timing of these return-to-office (RTO) mandates is more than just inconvenient; it’s deeply ironic. As companies pour millions into AI initiatives designed to automate, streamline, and decentralize work, they are simultaneously forcing people back into physical structures designed for a workflow that AI is making obsolete.
The Quiet Part Out Loud
Executives often cite "culture" and "collaboration" as the drivers for RTO. However, the data tells a different story. Recent research shows that rigid mandates don’t actually improve innovation or team connection. Instead, they weaken morale and accelerate attrition.
So, why the push? The justifications often mask deeper, less comfortable motives:
Investor Pressure: A physical office is a tangible asset that looks like "work" to shareholders.
Shadow Reductions: Using RTO as a mechanism to nudge employees to quit, avoiding the optics and costs of formal layoffs.
The Control Fallacy: A lingering belief that visibility is a proxy for performance.
If an employee underperforms remotely, geography isn't the problem. Leadership is.
Two Transitions Collide: AI vs. The Office
We are currently witnessing two seismic organizational shifts happening at once:
The AI Transition: Shrinking the demand for repetitive human labor and decentralizing where work happens.
The Office Transition: The shrinking relevance of a centralized physical hub.
By doubling down on physical presence while investing in technologies that promote independence, leaders are creating a strategic contradiction. You cannot claim to be an "AI-first" company while maintaining a "1950s-first" management style.
What Actually Works: Data Over Nostalgia
At my firm, Orgvue, we decided to move past the anecdotes. We analyzed our workflows end-to-end before setting a policy. What we found was that a one-size-fits-all approach is a recipe for failure:
Product Teams: Saw massive value in physical whiteboarding and real-time creative friction.
Customer Success: Performed better with the flexibility to work from wherever made the most sense for their global client base.
Instead of a mandate, we redesigned the purpose of the office. We introduced collaboration hubs for teamwork, quiet zones for deep work, and even a podcast studio. People now come to the office because it makes sense for their tasks—not because a memo told them to.
The Trust Test for Modern Leaders
When you issue a blanket RTO mandate, you send a clear signal: “We don’t trust you.” In a competitive talent market where the best people have options, that is a dangerous message to send.
Before you sign that next RTO memo, ask yourself:
Is there data proving office presence improves productivity for this specific team?
Is the office a destination people actually want to go to?
Are we solving a business problem or satisfying an executive preference?
The Bottom Line
The organizations that succeed in the next decade will be the ones that align their work models with their technology strategies. This means embracing autonomy, data-driven insights, and trust over badge-swipe metrics.
If you need to see someone to believe they are working, the problem isn’t remote work—and AI is about to make that painfully obvious.