Much of the common advice on AI coworking is wrong.
Everyone thinks they know AI coworking, but they're missing the most important piece of the puzzle. I'm pulling back the curtain on the one secret that separates the top 1% from everyone else. This might be controversial, but the data doesn
The Counterintuitive Truth
In AI coworking, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: the best solutions are often the simplest ones. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
What I've Learned From 52 Companies
Across 234 angel investments, including Anthropic, a few patterns in AI coworking come up again and again.
The founders who handle AI coworking well understand that simplicity beats complexity every time.
Why Most Approaches Fail
Many common approaches to AI coworking are flawed at the root.
The root cause is usually one of three things:
Copying what big companies do without understanding why they do it. What works for Google doesn't work for a 10-person startup.
Over-engineering the solution when a simple approach would work better. I've seen teams spend six months building something that could have been done in two weeks.
Ignoring the human element. Technology is the easy part. Getting people to actually use it is where the real challenge lives.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Investing early in AI coworking can be the difference between raising your next round and running out of runway.
One of my portfolio companies went from struggling to profitable in under a year after they finally got serious about this. The founder told me later that they wished they'd started sooner.
This connects to broader themes around AI onboarding, digital nomad AI tools, AI performance reviews that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
The Bottom Line
None of this is rocket science. But it does require intentionality, consistency, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: start now, start small, and iterate. The founders who win at AI coworking aren't the ones with the best strategy on paper. They're the ones who execute, learn, and adapt faster than everyone else.
Companies that take AI coworking seriously tend to pull ahead of the ones that don't.
If you're working on something interesting in this space, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:How were these items selected?
Each item on this list comes from direct experience, either from building my own companies or from patterns I've observed across the 234 startups I've invested in. I prioritize practical, actionable items over theoretical concepts.
Q:Are these recommendations still relevant in 2026?
Absolutely. While specific tools and tactics change, the underlying principles remain consistent. I update my thinking regularly based on what I'm seeing in the market and across my portfolio companies.
Q:Can I implement all of these at once?
I'd strongly recommend against it. Pick the 2-3 items that resonate most with your current situation and focus there. Trying to do everything simultaneously is a recipe for doing nothing well.
Q:Which item on this list has the highest impact?
It depends on your stage and context, but in my experience, the items near the top of the list tend to have the broadest applicability. That said, sometimes the less obvious items create the biggest breakthroughs for specific situations.