The Loneliness Economy

We built a world optimized for engagement, not belonging. What happens when AI takes over?

In May 2023, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic. Over years of traveling the country, meeting people across backgrounds, towns, and ages, he heard a common refrain: people felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant.¹

As we head into 2026, I fear not much has changed.

If anything things feel more disconnected. We’ve designed our world around individualism and isolation, often unintentionally. We leave our families and support systems to move to cities where we know no one. It’s hard to make friends as adults, so we default to routines that keep us alone. We’re busier than ever, with little margin for community. Cities sprawl outward, third spaces disappear, public amenities shrink, and everything from shopping to entertainment becomes something you do alone, on your phone, in your home.

As Ezra Klein puts it in a conversation with Sheila Liming, “Loneliness in America isn’t merely the result of inevitable or abstract forces, like technological progress; it’s the product of social structures we’ve chosen, wittingly or unwittingly, to build for ourselves.”

This reality is one of the things that worries me about artificial intelligence. I worry we’re on a path where AI accelerates loneliness, isolation, and digital addiction. When I see funding announcements for AI companions or character-based companies, it feels inevitable they will succeed, because they tap into our deepest human desire: connection. And yet, a future where relationships are outsourced to digital companions is not one I want to live in.

It feels dystopian. Maybe that makes me a bad venture-capitalist. But to me, it’s important to invest in companies that are helping to build, shape and transform the future that I want to live in. I also think there’s another, more positive path for AI.

The hopeful story is that AI becomes a counterweight to loneliness, not an accelerant, and helps us build more connected neighborhoods, resilient communities, and healthier relationships. AI can become infrastructure for belonging, pushing us back into the physical world rather than pulling us out of it.

So, What Is Loneliness?

Loneliness is the absence of meaningful connections. As former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy defines it in Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, loneliness is “a subjective distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connection, where inadequate refers to the discrepancy or unmet need between the individual’s preferred and actual experience.”

You can be married, surrounded by coworkers, active online, or living in a city of millions and still feel profoundly lonely.

The Demographics of Disconnection

The majority of Americans are impacted by loneliness. 58% of U.S. adults report feeling lonely.² But it doesn’t affect all groups equally. Race, age, gender, life-stage, and socioeconomic all shape how (and why) people experience disconnection.

Income is a major driver.

63% of adults earning under $50,000 per year classify themselves as lonely, ten percentage points higher than those earning more.³ Financial strain often limits time, access to transportation, childcare, social events, and emotional bandwidth, all factors that make connection harder.

Age isn’t intuitive either.

According to Harvard’s Making Caring Common (MCC) project, adults between the ages of 30-44 are the loneliness group. 29% report feeling lonely “frequently” or “always”.⁴ These are prime years for career pressure, caregiving, parenting, relocation, and friendship turnover, which all factor in.

Surprisingly, senior citizens, adults aged 65 and older, reported the lowest rate of loneliness. Only 10% reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “always”. Many emphasized have more stable routines, deeper relationships, or embedded community rhythms.

Loneliness is deeply tied to mental health.

81% of adults who identify as lonely also report struggling with anxiety or depression, compared to 29% of those who feel less lonely.⁵

Where you live matters too, but not always how you’d expect.

While cultural narratives focus on urban isolation, new research shows that older adults in rural areas report higher levels of loneliness, despite having larger social networks.⁶ The relationships exist, but the infrastructure to sustain them often doesn’t. In rural communities there are fewer public spaces, longer distances, limited transportation, and less social programs.

Root Causes and Real-World Consequences

There isn’t a single cause of loneliness in the United States. Social connection is shaped by a complex mix of personal, relational, environmental, and cultural forces. The Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, under Dr. Vivek Murthy, outlines four primary categories that influence how connected we feel.

1. Individual Factors

Our personal circumstances shape our capacity to connect. Chronic disease, disability, sensory or mobility impairments, mental health, personality, and life transitions all influence how able we are to build and maintain relationships.

For example, people experiencing chronic illness or depression may have the desire for connection, but not the emotional or physical bandwidth to pursue it.

2. Relationship Factors

The structure, function, and quality of relationships greatly influence our feelings of loneliness. Household composition plays a role. 28% of American households are now single-person households, the highest in U.S. history. ⁷ Emotional support, empathy, communication patterns, and the behaviors of the people around us all shape whether relationships feel meaningful or draining.

3. Community Factors

Our built environment can either enable or inhibit connection. Community design includes: walkability, housing and zoning, outdoor spaces, workplace and schools, civic infrastructure, transportation, local businesses and community organizations.

In 2018, only 16% of Americans report feeling very connected to their local community.⁸ When public spaces shrink, transit is inconvenient, schedules are stretched, and institutions are fragmented, it becomes harder for people to gather consistently and organically.

4. Societal Factors

Technology is also major driver here. Despite promising to connect us, digital platforms have often pulled us apart. Americans spend 6–7 hours online per day, and one in three adults reports being “almost always” online.⁹Among teens with the highest social-media use, 41% report poor or very poor mental health, according to the American Psychological Association.

Broader societal factors, include, declining civic engagement, rising polarization, erosion of democratic norms, economic volatility, and historical inequities also weaken the social fabric. Many of these factors operate as reinforcing loops. As we become less connected to our communities and neighbors, we spend more time on our phones, where algorithms pull us deeper into rabbit holes and intensify polarization. Instead of creating more opportunities for productive discourse, discussion, and healthy disagreement, we spend less time with real people and more time yelling into our curated internet echo chambers.

The effects are not abstract. Loneliness has measurable human and economic costs. Loneliness can increase the risk of, dementia, cardiovascular disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, and pre-mature morbidity. Those suffering from loneliness have a nearly 30% higher risk of early death.

Social isolation among older adults alone leads to an estimated $6.7B in excess Medicare spending each year. Loneliness and disconnection also significantly weakens educational outcomes and reduces productivity. For employers, loneliness is estimated to cost $154B annually through absenteeism, turnover, and reduced performance.

AI as an Accelerant or a Counterweight

Over the last two decades, our digital tools have been optimized for efficiency, , engagement, and infinite consumption. Social media promised connection, but often delivered comparison, isolation, and polarization. Convenience apps made life easier, but also more solitary, and remote work untethered us from proximity but eroded everyday social rhythms.

Being “seen” by a model is not the same same as being known and understood by a person. I’m interested in a future where this technology is used as a logistics layer for connection. A quiet system that nudges us into shared activities with our neighbors; supports caregivers, parents, teachers, and clinicians; identifies isolation early and routes support before people fall through the cracks. AI that helps build community across our workplaces, schools, cities, and senior care.

But technology alone will not be the savior here. If we care about rebuilding belonging, we have to redesign the environments we live in. That means more walkable neighborhoods, more third spaces, more reliable and affordable public transit, less dependence on cars, and more mixed-age, mixed-income communities where people naturally cross paths.

Our work structures also need to change. Many of us spend our days in jobs that leave little time or emotional bandwidth for each other. And when we’re not working, we’re caring for children or aging parents. Paying people a living wage, investing in social infrastructure, and creating community care systems would give people the margin to nurture their hobbies, their health, and their relationships.

We also need sustained investment in the institutions that anchor communal life, like schools, libraries, parks, recreation centers, faith communities, and local organizations.

Loneliness isn’t inevitable. But if we want to change it, we have to intentionally design against it. AI will shape the next decade, and the question is whether it deepens our isolation or helps us find our way back to each other. My hope is that we choose the latter. I’d love to hear what you think.

1. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

2. https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/all-stories?item=446

3. https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/all-stories?item=446

4. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/24/10/what-causing-our-epidemic-loneliness-and-how-can-we-fix-it

5. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/24/10/what-causing-our-epidemic-loneliness-and-how-can-we-fix-it

6. https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/rural-monitor/social-infrastructure

7. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-quarter-all-households-have-one-person.html

8. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/americans-satisfaction-with-and-attachment-to-their-communities/

9. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/