According to the Jobstreet Salary Pulse 2026, more than a quarter of Gen Z workers in Malaysia earn under RM2,500 a month, yet they're the generation most likely to say they're happy with their pay, while Gen X, who earns the most, feels the least fairly paid. Nicholas Lam of Jobstreet by SEEK tells us why pay satisfaction isn't just about the number on the payslip, and why having honest, transparent conversations about pay may matter more for retention than matching a competitor's salary.

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Malaysia's labour market is sending mixed signals. Retrenchments jumped 36% between January and May 2026 compared to last year, yet there were about 1.5 job placements for every worker retrenched over the same period. Derek Toh joins us to unpack what's really behind these numbers and whether it reflects a genuine skills mismatch. He also shares how both employers and job seekers can make better use of AI, whether it's finding the right talent or landing the right job.

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Malaysia has around 1,800 government-linked companies with no single law governing how they're run, relying instead on a "patchwork" of statutes and directives. A State-Owned Enterprises Act was flagged last year but never made it into Budget 2026, even as neighbours like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam push ahead with SOE reform. Alissa Rode and Ng Chien Chern of IDEAS tell us why this matters, using the recent RM10 billion Tabung Haji bailout as a case in point, and what it means for the business community.

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AI traffic grew about 30% between January and May 2026, roughly 6.5 times faster than human traffic, and most of it comes from AI crawlers scanning the web for information. Fernando Medrano of Fastly joins us to unpack what this means for business infrastructure and costs, and what companies should be doing now to stay visible in a web increasingly navigated by machines. He also gives tips to multilingual businesses on how to avoid becoming invisible to AI systems.

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AI is making it cost-effective for small businesses and finance teams to build their own tax tools, but even a well-set-up tool can hallucinate, producing confident answers that hide costly errors. Professor Anna tells us about the tax risks businesses face, where AI tax tools tend to go wrong, and what safeguards need to be in place.

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The social media era was largely dominated by American platforms, but the AI race looks more like a US-China contest, with Chinese firms like Alibaba, Tencent, and DeepSeek competing hard on cost rather than raw model supremacy. George Chen joins us to unpack what this shift means for businesses, from hybrid AI strategies that blend frontier and open-source models, to where Malaysia's real opportunity lies beyond just building data centres.

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Southeast Asia's IPO count fell 11% in the first half of 2026, yet funds raised jumped 117%. Meanwhile, Malaysia accounted for 36 of the region's 47 listings. Wong Kar Choon from Deloitte unpacks what’s driving interest in Malaysia’s equity market, the new regulatory guidelines and what a genuinely mature IPO market looks like.

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Social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and vocal stakeholders mean businesses are  operating in full view of employees, customers, and the public, what some call the Naked Economy. Rajeev Peshawaria joins us to unpack how businesses can actually thrive in this environment, what they must get right, which companies have led by example, and what lessons the rest of us can take from them.

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Malaysia is expected to table its first dedicated climate law, the National Climate Change Bill, later this year. Jozsef Acabo of ESGpedia joins us to unpack this law, who's actually impacted (essentially everyone, since any business could be supplying a carbon emitter that gets taxed), and what businesses should be doing now to prepare.

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Building companies that can shape Malaysia's future economy takes more than capital; it takes long-term investment and the right support at the right stage. Kayse Foo joins us to unpack how Dana Impak, part of Khazanah's Advancing Malaysia strategy, backs Malaysian businesses and strategic sectors such as the semiconductor industry. 

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