Productivity is going multiplayer again — this time agent-human-agent in one workspace
aishashok14 · x · 2026-10-17
Tracing SaaS multiplayer collaboration as a starting point, the author argues the productivity yardstick is shifting a third time:
- Era 1: humans co-editing files; productivity still measured on people and teams.
- Era 2: comparing agent outputs — "mine finished in three hours, yours in minutes."
- Era 3 (emerging): humans build, deploy and manage agents for teams; one agent starts work, another picks it up, a teammate reviews, adds context or redirects — often multiple humans and agents at once.
New questions follow: what travels between participants, why was a decision made, who owns the next step, when must a human step in? Reusable skills teach agents how to work, but everyone still needs to know what changed. The author imagines extending this across organizations — a company and an external partner bringing their people, agents and knowledge into one workspace. Productivity is multiplayer again, now agent-human-agent.
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