Abstract In this paper, we explore how the rise of remote collaboration has shaped the pursuit of new ideas in scientific discovery. To systematically distinguish between disruptive breakthroughs and incremental discoveries, we use citation data for over 10 million research teams—publishing in 11 fields of research from 1961 to 2020. On average, we document a robust and significant negative correlation between remote collaboration and breakthrough discovery. However, beginning in the 2010s, such