There's a certain logic to it: if you have access to powerful AI tools that help you think faster, write better, and work more efficiently, why deal with the friction of a team? Just do it yourself. It's cleaner, faster, and you don't have to negotiate with anyone.
The problem is that this logic, while understandable, is quietly dismantling one of the most valuable things about how humans work together.
The MBA experiment that said it all
Scott Dyreng, a dean and professor at Duke, noticed something striking in his MBA program. Students worked in teams throughout the course, with the option to go solo for their final project. Before AI tools became widely available, only about 5% of students chose to break away from their groups. After AI entered the picture? More than half went it alone, according to a piece Dyreng wrote for The Wall Street Journal, as reported by Fast Company.
That's not a small shift. That's a fundamental change in how people perceive the value of collaboration when they feel individually empowered.
Why star players don't equal a star team
It's tempting to think that a room full of talented, AI-assisted people automatically produces great results. But individual brilliance and collective performance are two very different things. High-performing teams aren't just collections of high-performing individuals - they're built on trust, communication, and a kind of creative friction that happens when different perspectives push against each other.
AI can make someone feel capable of doing everything themselves. And sometimes, tactically, they can. But the skills that come from navigating disagreement, building on someone else's half-formed idea, or learning to communicate across different working styles - those don't get developed in a solo sprint with a chatbot.
The bigger picture for workplaces
For anyone managing teams or thinking about how to build better ones, this is worth taking seriously. The instinct to reach for AI and work independently isn't laziness - it often comes from a genuine drive to be effective. But if organizations don't actively design for collaboration, AI could quietly hollow out the relational infrastructure that makes teams worth having in the first place.
The goal shouldn't be to resist AI - it's genuinely useful. The goal is to use it in ways that strengthen what humans do together, not replace it. That means being intentional about when solo AI-assisted work makes sense, and when the messier, slower process of genuine collaboration is actually the point.
Because some things are still worth doing together, even when you technically don't have to.
