Freelancers are moving into virtual offices and cities. Will nothing be real anymore?

More than 53 million freelancers work in the U.S. alone, making up 34 percent of the nation’s workforce, according to the Freelancers Union. This means every third American worker has chosen this way of working. Freelancers log over one billion working hours each week and are estimated to contribute $715 billion in revenue to the U.S. economy.

Freelancing is an inherent feature of today’s economies and is also popular in Europe, where their numbers have grown by 45% since 2013. According to statistics, freelancers are the fastest-growing group in the European Union’s labor market. In the UK, the self-employed sector already accounts for nearly 15% of the entire workforce. The WorkMarket Workforce Productivity Report found that 83% of business leaders consider freelancers more productive than employees.

The future labor market may undergo a radical shift with the rise of freelancers. Consulting firm Accenture predicts that within a decade, the vast majority of the workforce of Fortune 2000 companies will consist of digital nomads, with only managers remaining as employees.

The transformation of the office’s role

Without employees, the role of the corporate office will also change. “The traditional office model is outdated,” said Chantal Robinson, a director at LABS, in a previous statement. Work in small cubicles or open-plan offices has already been proven to harm health and reduce productivity, she added.

However, the change will not be entirely radical, as smart buildings are already addressing light, temperature, air quality, and biophilia as part of wellbeing solutions—making workplaces healthier, more productive, and more comfortable. Flexible workspace design and mobile workstations provide freedom to employees, though this still does not reach the level of freelancers.

Moreover, offices offer community benefits that support productivity, whether through collaboration or other interactions that are essential for people. Community spaces are therefore spreading widely across major cities and startup hubs. It is also a fact that three-quarters of freelancers have never used a community space, as for them even coworking often simply means another kind of office.

Virtual communities, digital nomads

Estimates suggest that around half of digital nomads work from home, where they can naturally adapt their environment to their needs—cook in their kitchens and set up their workstations exactly as they wish. The community connections seen as an advantage in offices are maintained online.

Large social networks host numerous groups where freelancers can discuss matters from home, in a café, or even on the beach, as long as they can connect to the internet. Of course, online interactions are not equal to real-life encounters and cannot replace them.

The workplace of the future: virtual spaces and digital twins

Yet the combined development of online communities and intelligent workplaces—through continuous connectivity, cloud computing, and digital experiences—is creating the virtual office. Photorealistic virtual environments, where employees can log in for a meeting and interact socially and collaboratively as in a real office, while physically being at home or anywhere, may become a viable alternative to traditional workplaces.

Today, the essence of the office is no longer the physical location but its function—the place where companies bring their people together to facilitate organizational operations. The workplace of the future could therefore be a virtual space. And in this virtual space, not only the office but also the office building, the company, and even the city where it operates could exist virtually.

Technology is developing at full speed—just consider BIM (Building Information Modeling), which creates the digital twin of properties, data-driven replicas of buildings and cities. This allows all stakeholders—architects, developers, tenants, or buyers—to virtually walk through interior spaces even before construction begins.

The virtual office is far more flexible than a physical one, as technology makes it easy to adapt, expand, and change according to needs. Virtual offices do not require cleaning or maintenance, have no reception hours, and no parking issues. Technology is clearly steering the world of corporate workspaces in this direction.

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