Research in brief · 1:00
Work You'd Do for Fun
Why business software was dull, how AI changes the economics of game feel, and what work looks like when software answers back.
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Millions of people spend their evenings designing factory logistics or hauling simulated cargo across Europe, and they pay for the privilege. The work in those games is real work. What separates it from your job is how it feels.
Games give immediate feedback in a visual world that changes as you act. Enterprise software removed all three. You submit a form, the result vanishes into a database, and the work happens in an endless grey grid of rows.
AI changes the economics of software. Agents take the grind—formatting, chasing, and reconciling—leaving people with decisions and craft. Models make it cheap to build visual worlds designed for one team's workflow.
In office-office, a live space built for AI agents, agents sit at real desks and tools are actual rooms. Handing off work means dropping a folder on a colleague's desk. Calling a tool means walking into its room.
The work was never the problem—the interface was. When software answers back, workplace tools stop feeling like writing logs and start feeling like running a studio.