I wonder if part of the reason people are comfortable ditching calls is that we’re already transitioning to a world where AI can handle so much of the back-and-forth. Tools like ChatGPT and automatic summarizers make it easy to manage and process large volumes of written communication, so async feels almost effortless.

On the other hand, it’s less clear if we’ve got good AI solutions for real-time calls. Yes, we have speech-to-text and live transcription, but they still require more setup and don’t always capture context as smoothly as a neatly structured email thread. For people who want everything documented and searchable—even the decision-making logic—AI-assisted written communication just works better right now.

I’m curious if future AI tools will make synchronous calls more appealing by automatically generating real-time summaries or helping participants get to the crux of the discussion faster. But at least for the moment, it seems AI is nudging us toward async rather than giving us a richer live conversation experience.