By 2035, the shift to Tool AI has reshaped daily life in ways that are broadly felt as an improvement over a decade ago. The average person now works around 20–25 paid hours a week, supported by a mix of wages, basic income, and revenue from shared ownership in automated systems.1Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D., & Syverson, C. (2023). The Productivity J-Curve. NBER Working Paper No. 25148. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25148 2Banerjee, A., Niehaus, P., & Suri, T. (2020). Universal Basic Income in Developing Countries. World Development. Physically demanding or hazardous jobs, heavy manufacturing, deep-sea fishing, large-scale construction, are now almost entirely handled by robotics. This has not eliminated all unpleasant work, but it has shifted the burden away from the most dangerous and exhausting tasks. In regions where adoption has been slower, people still perform more of this labor, but even there, safety standards and tools have improved.
Work is more flexible, with many people contributing to multiple projects or organizations over time, but it is not the anonymous gig work of the early 2020s. Long-term relationships, institutional knowledge, and deep expertise still matter, and workers often choose roles where their judgment, creativity, or interpersonal skills make a difference. The combination of a stable income floor and reduced hours means more people can be selective, investing in contexts they value rather than taking whatever is available. This has also shifted cultural norms: job titles carry less weight in defining status, and people are more likely to measure themselves by skills, or personal milestones outside the workplace.
With less time spent in paid work, most adults have roughly doubled their free time compared to 2025. This has changed the rhythm of everyday life: more hours for leisure, learning, caregiving, and community engagement. Many people have rediscovered hobbies or skills they once abandoned for lack of time, playing music, growing food, joining sports teams, volunteering. Households and communities lean more on shared spaces and resources, and lifelong learning is more common as education is pursued throughout adulthood rather than concentrated in early years. The everyday pace feels slower in many places, even as the broader technological environment moves quickly.
Health outcomes are measurably better. Personalized prevention plans and early-warning systems are widespread, supported by voluntary health-data sharing that has made public health models more accurate and responsive. Chronic diseases are caught earlier, and mental health care is integrated into primary care systems. While privacy concerns and gaps in access remain, the population-level trend is toward longer healthy lifespans and fewer preventable conditions. Outside of clinics, AI integration is part of daily life, helping to plan meals, monitor home safety, coordinate travel, and maintain public infrastructure, making many routines simpler and freeing more time for human activities.
With work no longer the primary anchor of identity, more people are defining themselves through personal goals, relationships, and contributions outside the market. This brings new freedoms, but also new challenges: the abundance of options can be overwhelming, and some struggle to choose or sustain a direction. Still, surveys consistently show higher life satisfaction than a decade ago, especially in communities where the benefits of automation are broadly shared.
In 2025, the prospect of automation displacing work was often framed as a threat. By 2035, in much of the world, it is seen as a trade worth making. The combination of reduced hours, safer work, better health, and more time for human pursuits has made life better for most, though not all. The remaining gaps, between well-resourced regions and those left behind, are now one of the central challenges of the coming decade.
- 1Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D., & Syverson, C. (2023). The Productivity J-Curve. NBER Working Paper No. 25148. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25148
- 2Banerjee, A., Niehaus, P., & Suri, T. (2020). Universal Basic Income in Developing Countries. World Development.