Annie Dean at GCUC NY
Annie Dean & Liz Elam at GCUC NY 2026
Back at home with my kiddo after a phenomenal week in NYC for GCUC - Global Coworking Unconference Community.
I want to write a full write up but for now, my most looked forward to session, Liz Elam, Founder of GCUC in conversation with the remarkable Annie Dean, Global Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Experience at CBRE was the highlight for me.
Annie’s a workplace futurist and organisational architect. She sees the same future I do: more people working for themselves, more solopreneurs running lean with small teams, more companies that look like 40 people rather than 40,000.
She made a point that’s stayed with me. When flexibility entered the workforce, 70% of women who had left said they would have stayed if they’d had access to it. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a structural failure we’ve been slowly correcting for decades.
The shift is accelerating now. AI will do the coordination work that once required large teams. Which means more people will find themselves building something of their own, whether they planned to or not. Some will be energised by it. Some will find it scary. All of them will need community.
Annie’s an introvert. She loved remote work, thrived on Zoom, never felt lonely. But now she spends her days working with AI and she misses people. If it’s hitting introverts, it’s hitting everyone.
Because human intelligence is embodied. It’s the physical experience of moving through the world, being in a room with other people, feeling seen. That’s something machine intelligence simply cannot replicate. And as AI handles more of our daily interactions, being with an actual human becomes rarer and more meaningful. Authenticity and human presence will be things people actively seek out.
That’s where coworking, meeting & event venues, members clubs and third spaces, come in. Not as just a place to work but as a place to belong. A space that offers the chance to meet, innovate, collaborate, privacy for people talking to their devices, and genuine community for people who are otherwise running entirely solo.
The future Annie’s describing?
I think it’s already here in patches.
And I’m genuinely excited about what it means for spaces like ours.
