The language of artificial colleagues encourages the wrong comparison. It asks software to perform personality, initiative, and companionship when most working environments need something simpler: dependable assistance with legible boundaries.
A good tool can be responsive without pretending to be a person. It can preserve context without manufacturing intimacy, and offer useful suggestions without staging autonomy.
The distinction matters because honest interfaces produce better expectations. Software becomes useful company when people understand what it can carry—not when they are invited to forget what it is.