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Fiona Fung, engineering leader at Anthropic, said that increased use of Claude Code (an AI agent tool) made her team's work feel solitary. Anthropic responded by starting hackathons and pair programming lunches to keep employees collaborating. An Anthropic spokesperson framed this as an evolution of pair programming, where engineers now learn from watching how colleagues use AI tools differently.
Why it matters
Tech industry morale is under strain from multiple sources. There have been about 120,000 tech layoffs in 2026 so far, nearly equaling 2025's total, with companies like Meta citing AI as the reason. Beyond layoffs, tech workers on the platform Blind report low morale, anxiety about job security, and difficulty staying motivated. At Meta, the chief technology officer admitted the company's communication around AI division restructuring was 'atrocious,' saying management had 'undermined the trust' employees have in their own value and career growth. A Stanford professor noted the tech industry has long said people are its most important asset but has not acted that way.
What to watch
Engineers designing AI face a specific tension: while building powerful AI tools, they worry these same tools will replace them. A Gallup report found that among U.S. tech workers using AI at least monthly, the likelihood of layoff is about 6%, but it triples to 18% among those who use AI less frequently. One Anthropic employee expressed this anxiety directly: 'On days where everything works well, I can't help but think nothing I do matters, everything is automated and better and faster than I ever will be.'
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