The Skills Forecast

AI in education is everywhere as a topic — but what does it actually take to embed it into a real school? In this episode of The Skills Forecast, Kerri Buttery sits down with Julian Ridden, Head of AI at the Anglican Schools Corporation, for a practitioner’s honest read: why AI adoption in schools is “uneven” rather than universal, why the tool that promised to be education’s great equaliser has become a new source of inequity, why “it is impossible to detect AI use with a tool” and what to do about assessment instead, and why trust — nottechnology — is what this generation has lost more than any before it.

2026 is shaping up as one of the most complex — and consequential — periods the VET sector has faced in years: persistent skills shortages, fee-free TAFE bedding in as a permanent fixture, and a fundamental rebuild of how training packages themselves are designed. In this episode of The Skills Forecast, Kerri Buttery sits down with Andrew Shea — a VET sector leader with more than 20 years in executive roles across post-secondary education — for a practitioner's verdicton what the sector is getting right, what it's getting badly wrong, and what it will take to be genuinely fit for purpose over the next five years.

The AI conversation in 2026 is loud, contradictory, and often unhelpful. Australian companies are announcing thousands of job cuts and pointing to AI as the cause — but the data tells a more complicated story. In this opening episode of The Skills Forecast, Kerri Buttery sits down with Toby George Jones, founder of Knowello and one of Australia’s most practical voices on AI in education, to cut through the hype and give you the signal you actually need. What is really changing? What do educators and training providers need to respond to? And what can you safely ignore?

00:00 The Skills Forecast – Episode 1: AI and the Future of Work01:20 Introducing Toby Jones04:17 AI Adoption Trends: From Witch Hunt to Workplace Tool06:46 The Job Loss Debate: Scapegoat or Reality?12:52 Customer Service, Chatbots & the Cost of Replacing Humans14:04 AI Transparency & Trust14:28 New Skills: Talking to AI & Language Accessibility18:29 AI in Education: Rethinking Assessment29:18 The Employability Gap: Entry-Level Workers & AI32:38 Keeping Humans in the Loop37:22 Practical Tip: Improve One Process with AI39:10 Scheduled Prompts & AI for Accessibility44:13 Wrap-Up & Next Episode