This Is Zombie Work
When busy work is not work work.
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Friends,
To the occasional chagrin of my family, I spend too much time thinking about where the world is going and what I want to say about it. I spend about the same amount of time every week writing this newsletter but last week’s post on the unbundling of work hit a nerve. To those just joining, thanks for stepping into this conversation. And thank you to those who replied, even the tough messages. If something here strikes a chord, pass it on. Post it. Text it to someone in your Slack or WhatsApp group chat.
This week, I want to talk about something more insidious. It’s what happens after automation and unbundling. This is Zombie Work. Zombie Work doesn’t fire you. It makes you irrelevant while you watch. This is how the pursuit of efficiency hollowed out our agency and why reclaiming meaning is now urgent.
Your screen hums. Tasks ping. Calendars refill. Every minute accounted for, every workflow optimised. Yet in the noise of constant activity, something fundamental is slipping away. You’re not idle. But are you in control?
This is Zombie Work.
At first, it appears to be productivity. Then you realise what’s gone. You’re answering emails with stock answers. Signing off documents. Joining stand-ups. But your role has shifted. Slowly, silently. From making decisions to approving them. From shaping the work to shepherding what algorithms generate. From agency to admin. The job still looks like work, but it isn’t. When busy work becomes the only work, something gets lost.
Zombie Work emerges not when machines replace humans, but when they displace the parts of our work that matter, while still demanding we stay present. It re-architects roles around efficiency, hollowing out judgement and creativity. It keeps us in the loop, but not in the lead. We stayed in the room. But we have left the work.
I have a friend. Let’s call her Emma, a journalist with fifteen years of experience. She once shaped debate with original reporting. Her notebooks were filled with interviews. Her desk was stacked with drafts. Now, she edits AI-generated articles, tweaking them to sound more authentic while retaining the core structure created by the machine. She pauses over the keyboard. Edits a word. The cursor blinks back. Her byline shows up on the piece. But it doesn’t feel like hers anymore.
This isn’t some bug in the system. It’s how the system was built to behave. But just because the machine can do it doesn’t mean we’re obligated to let it. We still get to choose what’s worth doing.
Historically, technology displaced physical labour and elevated cognitive work. But this time, it’s hitting something deeper. It goes after what made our work meaningful: our judgement, our insight, our edge. Our thinking, intuition, and nuance are outsourced to systems optimised for pattern recognition, not wisdom. And we let it happen. Out of convenience. Out of habit. We made the trade silently: agency for ease, ownership for compliance. It’s not the machine that’s the problem. It’s what we gave up to use it.
The pattern keeps repeating, no matter the field. Doctors validate algorithmic outputs. Editors check machine-written content. Marketers review AI-generated campaigns. Developers supervise generative code. Teachers approve the platform feedback. Retail managers accept algorithm-driven schedules. In hospitality, guest experiences are shaped by seating models, not people.
I was talking to a friend who works in supply chain, one of those people in the guts of those next-level fulfilment centres that get your Amazon order out in hours. He described how the job had changed - fewer people, more systems, less judgement. He described one supervisor in particular. Let’s call him Liam. He used to train the floor team, spotting faults by feel. He had hard hands. Real skin-in-the-game experience. Excuse the pun. Now? He has a smaller team and his judgement is reduced to a digital signature. Or as he joked, “I’ve become a factory Autopen.”
Magda, a freelance designer, followed a similar arc. She began her career by building bespoke kitchens, utilising hand-drawn sketches and engaging in lengthy client conversations. Now, she edits AI-generated brand templates for companies she has never met. Recently, she pitched a campaign rooted in a founder’s story, with original illustrations and cultural nuance. The client told her it was the first one that felt genuinely human.
I spoke to a new graduate who had started their training scheme at a big consultancy, and they said they’re not sure what they’re actually learning anymore - “It’s like I’m training to supervise software, not develop judgement.”
As I research my upcoming book, SuperSkills, I’ve been speaking with everyone from technologists to teachers. The message is clear: in an AI-powered world, we need more human depth, not less. Our meta-skills like creativity, clarity, judgement and connection are what make the difference.
A 2024 World Economic Forum survey found 60% of knowledge workers believe their roles have become less meaningful due to automation. McKinsey found that companies over-relying on automation see a 20% drop in innovation within two years. We chased scale, and now we can no longer remember what good looks like.
We still pretend someone’s in charge. But it’s an illusion. Agency has been outsourced. We’re babysitting the systems. Pretending we’re essential while quietly hoping no one notices we stopped making the call a long time ago.
You don’t notice it at first. Then one day, you realise you haven’t had a real idea in months. And with it goes something harder to name: our sense of identity. When our judgement is no longer needed, we don’t just feel less useful – we feel less ourselves. There’s grief in that. Not from being replaced, but from being slowly rewritten. Confidence doesn’t collapse. It recedes. Not from failure, but from irrelevance.
If we fail to name it, we normalise it. And organisations that normalise “Zombie Work” don’t just lose morale, they lose momentum. The advantage, once built on human thinking, quietly migrates to competitors who redesign for meaning, not just efficiency.
This is the cognitive version of the Industrial Revolution. But this isn’t new. It’s the same one in a cleaner interface. Back then we standardised hands. Now we’re flattening minds. We’re optimising ourselves into irrelevance, all while pretending it’s progress.
The only way out is to begin. Here’s how.
Try this:
Interrogate your influence. Am I shaping outcomes or rubber-stamping them? When did my judgement last redirect something meaningful?
Master your tools. Learn the logic of the systems that shape your output. A doctor might study diagnostic algorithms to challenge bias. A product lead might audit decision models embedded in their stack.
Lead with what can’t be copied. We can build workflows around what machines can’t replicate: story, trust, clarity, connection. You don’t need permission to do the same.
Reject passive oversight. A teacher might insist on reviewing AI feedback for vulnerable students. An editor might pause to add context, not just correct grammar.
Act with others. A manager might convene their team to redesign how meetings, approvals, or deliverables are run. If one person changes the room, a team can change the system.
Everyone can reclaim their agency. Emma reclaimed authorship. Liam brought touch back to quality. Magda turned templates into art. Each refused to become a zombie.
When did you last make a decision that needed your human creativity? If you can’t remember, Zombie Work is already here.
The future of work will not be lost to machines. It will be lost to us walking into silence. To capable people allowing their roles to be emptied from within, without protest, because everything looked the same on the surface.
This is Zombie Work.
The only antidote is agency.
Not just claimed individually, but demanded collectively. Because what’s at stake isn’t just the quality of our work lives. It’s whether work itself remains a domain where being human continues to matter.
If you resonate with this, share it. Restack it. Mention it. Send it to someone stuck in meetings they don’t shape, the ones where you just want to send your AI note taker. Send it to your secret banter group on Slack. Drop it in a WhatsApp group. Post it to LinkedIn. Mention it on Twitter. Bring it up at your next offsite.
Zombie Work has crept into our world.
We still have agency.
It’s ours if we’re brave enough to take it.
We don’t need better and faster machines. We need more human work worth being seen for.
Stay Curious - and don’t forget to be amazing,
Here are my recommendations for this week:
One of the best tools to provide excellent reading and articles for your week is Refind. It’s a great tool for keeping ahead with “brain food” relevant to you and providing serendipity for some excellent articles that you may have missed. You can dip in and sign up for weekly, daily or something in between - what’s guaranteed is that the algorithm sends you only the best articles in your chosen area. It’s also free. Highly recommended. Sign up.
Now
Mary Meeker’s AI Trends Report - I broke down the 5 slides no one’s talking about from the Mary Meeker deck. and what they mean for your job. You should also read the full report - with a critical lens on what it means for you. Must Read
Global Cities Index 2025 - Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the world's 1,000 largest urban economies. Went straight to the Quality of Life Index and made sense that London is nowhere near the top. Overall top 3. NY, London, Paris.
For Some Recent Graduates, the A.I. Job Apocalypse May Already Be Here
The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has jumped as companies try to replace entry-level workers with artificial intelligence. Also, why are we lying to young people about work?
Why climbing the stairs can boost your body and brain - because you spread it out throughout the day, it seems that people enjoy it a little bit more than if they do it in one single session.
The 30 Best Nonfiction Books I've Read in the Past 10 Years - From someone who has read 700+ NF books.
Next
It’s gonna get weird and terrible - Semi-sentient, AI written view of the world. Must Read. some swearing.
Two paths for AI - The technology is complicated, but our choices are simple: we can remain passive, or assert control. Must Read
Mark Zuckerberg Finally Found a Use for His Metaverse: War
Meta is crossing a former hard red line in Silicon Valley to develop tech for military uses.
How I Set Up My ChatGPT Properly In Less Than 10 Minutes - just in case you don't do this yet…
AI won’t take your job....but…
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Honestly, I think we need to move beyond the debate about where jobs will or won’t be (which is largely speculative) and start focusing on how we can use these systems to enable better talent distribution. It’s something I’ve been deeply obsessed with lately and wondering what you think.