Feb 20, 2026: AI is already deciding who gets hired, promoted, and fired — and there are almost no rules governing how it does any of that.

In this episode, I'm building those rules. I call them the Five Laws of AI in the Workplace, constructed in the spirit of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics — rigorous enough to pressure-test, honest enough to admit where they fall short.

We cover the Law of Transparency — why 30 million job applicants in 2024 were evaluated by algorithms they never knew existed. The Law of Human Primacy — why a human rubber-stamping an AI decision isn't the same as a human making one. The Law of Honest Attribution — why AI washing is one of the most underreported forms of corporate dishonesty happening right now. The Law of True Cost Accounting — why the real costs of workforce cuts don't disappear, they just move to taxpayers and communities. And the Law of Reversibility — the full Klarna story, and why 31% of companies that made AI-driven layoffs ended up worse off than if they'd never done it.

February 19, 2026: AI is rapidly becoming a career requirement and the workforce is splitting into those who can adapt and those who get squeezed.

In today's episode, I cover 5 stories that reveal what's changing right now:

1. The best AI job risk analysis I've seen: who's exposed, who can adapt, and which roles are most vulnerable

2. Accenture reportedly tying promotions to AI tool adoption—what this signals and why it can backfire

3. Why the "AI will replace you" narrative is dangerous—and how fear distorts leadership decisions

4. Walmart's approach: training 1.6 million workers on AI instead of using AI as a reason to cut headcount

5. Google + Ipsos data: only 5% of workers are AI fluent—and the gap is already linked to raises and promotions

I also share the bigger takeaway: the future isn't just "learn AI." It's building adaptive capacity, creating real mobility pathways, and upgrading people at scale while keeping human judgment and accountability at the center.

If you lead people, culture, or strategy, this episode will help you see what's happening—and what to do next.

The U.S. economy is creating wealth… but not many jobs. At the same time, AI is spreading across the workplace, yet most employees still don't trust it to run without human oversight.

In today's episode of Future Ready Today, I break down the signals behind the "jobless boom," what the Federal Reserve is warning leaders about, why the job-switching pay premium is collapsing, and the rise of AI agents that can literally hire humans to do real-world work.

Stories covered:

• Only 17% trust workplace AI without human oversight

• The shrinking job-hopping premium and the loyalty tax

• The Fed's three AI labor-market scenarios (including a "jobless boom")

• Growth without jobs: investment, output, and the widening GDP–jobs gap

• AI agents hiring humans: the rise of the "Human API" economy

Feb 17, 2026: Today I break down five signals that are quietly reshaping work:

• OpenAI hiring the creator of OpenClaw—a major shift from chatbots that talk to agents that act

• Why "supervisors are disappearing," and how title inflation is quietly breaking the career ladder

• The AI productivity paradox (backed by new NBER research): adoption is real, impact is lagging

• Anthropic's push into "work tools" and the battle to own the workflow layer

• Australia's psychosocial safety rules—and why well-intentioned mandates can spiral into dependency, bureaucracy, and leadership abdication if we don't draw boundaries

Leaders today face a critical AI dilemma: move too quickly and risk producing low-quality "work slop," or move too slowly and sacrifice a crucial competitive edge in innovation. But one global real estate powerhouse, managing 3% of the world's GDP, has successfully navigated this tightrope for nearly three years, offering a proven model for enterprise AI adoption. In this episode, Prologis CHRO Nathaalie Carey reveals how the company solved this dilemma with an "innovation first" strategy, a journey that began by deploying an enterprise version of ChatGPT well ahead of the curve. Prologis achieved this by deliberately empowering its workforce, intentionally prioritizing widespread innovation over premature governance. By providing direct access to tools, supported by strategic training, the company drove 95% adoption rate and sparked over 1,000 crowdsourced custom GPTs. Carey explains how the company built trust by reframing AI as a "bargain" to trade mundane tasks for high-value strategic work. She also details the company's evolution from using AI for basic information gathering to utilizing it for complex decision-making and upcoming "agentic AI" workflows for processes like underwriting and background checks. Carey argues that as AI becomes a "great equalizer" for technical skills, the true competitive advantage lies in balancing technological speed with authentic human connection and the power of human imagination.

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Stop patching problems and start designing an intentional workplace. The 8 Laws of Employee Experience gives you the how. Order your copy: 8EXlaws.com

Feb 13, 2026: Inflation just cooled to 2.4%. Markets are betting on rate cuts. And at the same time, Anthropic raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation.

That's not coincidence — it's transition.

In today's episode, I break down:

• What falling inflation actually means for capital and corporate strategy • Why Anthropic's massive funding round signals intelligence becoming infrastructure • The U.S. Department of Labor's new national AI literacy framework — and what it means for workforce strategy • The "AI scare trade" hitting markets beyond tech • Why IBM is tripling entry-level hiring in the middle of AI disruption

This isn't about hype. It's about capital flows, workforce redesign, and how leadership must evolve as intelligence scales. When the cost of capital falls and the cost of intelligence falls, the cost of standing still rises.

Let's unpack what this moment really means.

Feb 12, 2026: In this episode of Future-Ready Today, I break down four major stories that reveal how the workplace is recalibrating in 2026.

Ford is boosting companywide bonuses to 130% after major quality improvements — a clear signal that performance discipline is back. At the same time, 60% of Gen Z say they plan to pursue skilled trade careers, challenging the long-standing college-to-corporate pipeline.

I also dive into a new Harvard Business Review study showing that AI isn't reducing workloads — it's intensifying them. Employees are working faster, taking on broader responsibilities, and extending their hours, often voluntarily. And as AI adoption accelerates, safety leaders at major AI firms are quitting, raising deeper questions about ethics, speed, and institutional trust.

If you're a leader trying to understand compensation strategy, talent shifts, productivity pressure, and cultural tension in an AI-accelerated world, this episode is for you.

Leaders often try to "brute force" AI adoption, only to find their best people pushing back. The blame often goes to a lack of skill. But this friction is actually caused by a crisis of identity where high performers feel their professional value is being replaced by an algorithm. To overcome this means moving from "enforcement" to "normalization" by focusing on how people actually work. In this episode of Future Ready Today, I break down eight exclusive insights from Uber's CTO, Praveen Neppalli Naga, on why organizational velocity, not just efficiency, is the new competitive divide. Expect a deep dive into why ROI obsession sabotages growth, how to disassemble jobs into tasks, and why the real risk of AI isn't job loss, but the threat of rogue agents. We also unpack why HR and Tech must now operate as a single leadership system to keep culture from becoming purely software-driven.

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Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: 8EXlaws.com

Feb 10, 2026: Today's leaders are buried under an avalanche of trend reports and news cycles, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between genuine structural shifts and mere media noise. This "trend inflation" has created a cycle of reactive decision-making and to move forward, leaders are required to shift from simple awareness to discernment—the ability to separate a true signal from temporary hype. In this episode of Future Ready Today, I give you a practical walkthrough of the STEEPLE framework to help your organization categorize every emerging trend into one of three actions: adapt, pause, or push back. By examining a case study of a manufacturing company evaluating AI for performance reviews, I teach you how to interrogate the context of a trend rather than just copying a headline. We're focusing on using internal data and organizational values to ensure innovation fits the company's unique culture rather than being forced upon it. Not Every Trend Deserves Action.

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Future-ready organizations are built, not hoped for. My latest book, -The 8 Laws of Employee Experience shows how. Order here: 8EXlaws.com

The old playbooks for leadership no longer apply when your top performers might never step foot in a traditional office. It's time to move past the superficial logistics of where people sit and uncover the specific cultural habits that maintain high standards and relentless speed as your organization evolves. In this episode, LJ Brock, Chief People Officer at Coinbase, joins me to explore the high-stakes evolution of leading a remote-first organization that scales without losing its competitive edge. We dive into the practical reality of managing 5,000 global employees, moving beyond the "return to office" debate to discuss Coinbase's "magnet, not mandate" hub strategy and their recent pivot toward mandatory quarterly in-person sessions designed specifically for execution. LJ pulls back the curtain on the unique operating system that powers their culture—including the bold decision to outlaw committees—and shares the specific decision-making frameworks, like the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) and Problem Proposed Solution (PPS) models, that ensure individual accountability remains front and center. From tackling the nuances of performance management and asynchronous collaboration to leveraging AI for future efficiency, this conversation is a must-watch for CHROs who want to build a high-performance culture that prioritizes measurable results over physical proximity.

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: 8EXlaws.com