Wolfram Sauer In 2024, together with many committed partners, we opened a new chapter with the Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival at ORGATEC, creating a stage for perspectives, ideas, and inspiration centred on the future of work. The interplay of exhibition, discussion, and experience generated a special kind of energy that revealed just how vibrant the industry is.
In 2026, we will build on this momentum – with new experiences, new voices, and one clear insight: technology changes not only tools, but also relationships. Anyone speaking about digitalisation and artificial intelligence must also address leadership, trust, and the role of physical spaces.
For me, one thing is certain: the office of the future is not a place of control. It is a marketplace for ideas, encounters, and development. And just as every good marketplace thrives on collaboration, it takes – figuratively speaking – a whole village to make work truly succeed.
From tool to culture: AI as a catalyst, not a substitute
Looking back on decades of office work, it is clear that computers have not only provided us with new tools but have also bound us to them. Emails, documents, spreadsheets – with every new application, our dependence on screens has grown. So too has the misconception that we can accomplish ever more in ever less time. The promise of freedom through digitalisation thus turned into a tightly scheduled, driven daily routine.
AI is now bringing this chapter to an end: it writes, sorts, plans – and relieves us of tedious routines. What remains is what defines us as human beings: deciding, evaluating, connecting.
Yet the true revolution brought about by AI does not lie in the code, but in the cultural questions it raises: how do we uphold ethics, judgement, and responsibility when algorithms have a seat at the table? And how do we shape collaboration when a tireless co-pilot joins the team?
Those who simply call for a “return to the office” have missed something fundamental: what matters is why we come together – for exchange, for development, and for shared learning. The office is becoming a place we want to go to, not one we have to.
The office as a marketplace – and the village behind it
A marketplace thrives on interaction – on spontaneous encounters, conversations, voices, and impressions. This energy can only emerge where people meet. The office becomes the hub of a connected ecosystem in which mobility, learning, health, community, and digital infrastructure are interwoven.
Freelancers, partners, and clients are no longer guests but part of this shared environment. Modern work follows no standard formula – one size fits no one.
The workspaces of the future celebrate diversity – they adapt to tasks, rhythms, and life stages. It is precisely this diversity that is their greatest strength.
Spaces that inspire an enable
A good marketplace has structure – it offers orientation, interaction, and individuality at once. Translated into workspaces, this means: a forum for town halls, a studio for prototypes, a control centre for decisions, focus zones for concentration, spaces for spontaneous exchange, and learning areas for mentoring and knowledge transfer.
It is not only the architecture that matters, but also the culture of interaction: who moderates? What rituals hold things together? How does knowledge flow? Only when these questions are addressed do buildings become catalysts for collaboration – places where energy can be felt.
AI is transforming work and careers
AI is changing how we learn, how we collaborate, and how we grow professionally. It can deliver knowledge in seconds, yet true understanding and experience arise only through shared work. The office becomes a place where people create meaning – together, beyond the algorithm.
Leadership on the marketplace
Leadership, too, is evolving. In an age when knowledge is accessible to everyone, personality counts more than ever – clear in direction, open in engagement. Good leadership fosters psychological safety in a rapidly changing environment, but also welcomes dissent: above all, it encourages people to see mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow.
Culture is not a soft skill, but the lived infrastructure of trust. Four generations in the labour market bring differing expectations, yet each can learn from the other: experience meets digital fluency, strategy meets experimentation. Success becomes evident when teams act autonomously, knowledge flows, and talent stays – regardless of who is in the room.
My invitation to you
If we understand the office as a marketplace and design the village of work around it, technology, culture, and purpose unite to form a new whole.
Together with the international ORGATEC community, our partners, and inspiring thinkers from business, academia, and practice, we aim to develop this perspective further at the Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival, from 27 to 30 October 2026 in Cologne. I warmly invite you to join us.
ORGATEC is the perfect setting for this: a true marketplace of ideas and encounters where the industry shows how the future can be shaped together.
Wolfram Sauer is co-founder of the agency LEADING MINDS , which supports companies in their digital and cultural transformation and connects them with experts for innovative event formats. Previously, he and his team at NEW WORK SE curated the New Work Experience – one of the most significant conferences on the future of work in the German-speaking world – and supported the New Work Award. A qualified lawyer, he was also a member of the German Bundestag’s Enquete Commission on “Internet and Digital Society.” Sauer lives with his family in Berlin and has been dedicated to advancing work, learning, and organisational cultures for more than a decade. Further information: leading-minds.com
Note: The Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival 2026 will once again be a meeting place for forward thinkers, decision-makers and creative minds who want to actively shape the world of work. Curator Robert Thiemann sees it as a stage for experiments and visions of the future—a place where culture, design, technology and entrepreneurship come together. Anyone who wants to experience the work environments of the future should come to Cologne in October—or find out more in advance on the website at www.iba.online/festival.
Cover photo: IBA/Leading Minds
