Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

The Future of Office Attendance

The Future of Office Attendance
Explore the evolving landscape of office attendance as remote work remains popular, revealing key trends and insights for the future workplace.

Is this the new normal? Will this last?

“Despite the corporate push for a return to the office, data suggests that office attendance is still below pre-pandemic levels. Placer.ai’s Nationwide Office Building Index, which looked at 800 office buildings, found that numbers were more than the majority at 60% of pre-pandemic levels."—

The Death of The Copier: Resisting the Return: Executives Ditch the Copier for the Comfort of Remote Work


Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-Side Dashboard Architecture: Why Moving Data Fetching Off the Browser Changes Everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The Work of Being (in progress)

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The Practice of Work (in progress)

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

We always panic about new tools (and we're always wrong)

Every time a new tool emerges for making or manipulating symbols, we panic. The pattern is so consistent it's almost embarrassing. Here's what happened each time.

Dev reflection - February 03, 2026

I've been thinking about constraints today. Not the kind that block you—the kind that clarify. There's a difference, and most people miss it.

When execution becomes cheap, ideas become expensive

This article reveals a fundamental shift in how organizations operate: as AI makes execution nearly instantaneous, the bottleneck has moved from implementation to decision-making. Understanding this transition is critical for anyone leading teams or making strategic choices in an AI-enabled world.

Notes and related thinking

The Power of High Standards

Elevate your leadership by instilling high standards in your team, fostering accountability even in unseen moments for greater success.

The Future of American Jobs

Explore how AI and e-commerce will reshape American jobs by 2030, and discover the opportunities for workers in evolving industries.

The Rise of Remote Work

Discover how top executives are reshaping the future of work by choosing remote options, blending strategy with personal preference.