What's Left For Humans?
Citrix, Thursday, April 9th, 2026
A Citrix colleague and I were talking about AI's impact on knowledge work. I was droning on (and on and on) about agents doing the work, apps dissolving, and the cognitive stack becoming the new workspace, when she stopped me and said: 'Okay, but if AI is doing all of that, what's actually left for humans?'
Way to get to the point!
My first instinct was to list all things that won't change: accountability, budgets, risk management ... but these are all pretty obvious and covered by umpteen LinkedIn listicles and probably not what she was asking about.
Any answer about what stays the same for humans is a point-in-time snapshot based on the capabilities of AI at that moment. To really understand what's left for humans, we need to look at how the human parts of work will evolve as AI evolves. Here's where that evolution is heading right now.