Can AI education help level the playing field?

This week on Work Is Weird Now, we’re joined by Anna Cejudo, co-CEO and co-founder of Founderz, to explore one of the most important questions in the age of AI: who actually gets to benefit?

Anna unpacks why traditional education models are struggling to keep up — caught between exclusivity at one end and passive, disconnected online learning at the other — and how Founderz is trying to build something different.

We dive into what it means to learn with AI, not just about it. From always-on AI mentors to personalised, real-time learning experiences, this is a model that shifts education from consumption to interaction.

But access to tools is not the same as capability. Anna shares why so many organisations are getting AI adoption wrong, and why mindset, confidence, and practical application matter far more than simply rolling out licences.

We also explore what this means for the next generation, how AI could reshape learning in schools, and the risk of a new divide emerging — not just between those who have access to technology, but those who know how to use it well.

At its core, this is a conversation about opportunity.

Because if education creates opportunity, then in the age of AI, the real question is: who gets to learn?

Can AI open doors to hidden candidates?

This week on Work Is Weird Now, we’re joined by Hannah Töpler, CEO of Intrare and finalist in the She Shapes AI Awards (Future of Work category).

While companies struggle to fill frontline roles, millions of capable people remain locked out of formal employment — including refugees, migrants, single parents, LGBTQ+ candidates and older workers.

Hannah is building a different kind of hiring system — one that uses AI not to filter people out, but to bring them in.

We explore why traditional recruitment systems are fundamentally biased, how AI has often made this worse, and what it takes to design technology that actively reduces inequality rather than scaling it.

From WhatsApp-based hiring journeys to AI that questions its own decisions, Intrare is rethinking what inclusive hiring looks like at scale — growing from supporting 200 people a year to over 25,000 candidates globally.

But this episode goes beyond one company.

It asks a bigger question:

If AI reflects the world as it is, can we design it to build the world as it should be?

This conversation is for anyone thinking about the future of hiring, AI bias, and who gets access to opportunity in the next era of work.

Can AI make pay fairer?

Most companies know they have a gender pay gap. Very few measure it properly.

In this episode of Work Is Weird Now, Alice Phillips and Dan Emery speak with Barbara Stolorz, co-founder of Levelly AI and a finalist in the She Shapes AI Awards. Barbara shares how her own experience returning from maternity leave and discovering her salary increases had simply been skipped led her to build a tool that helps organisations measure pay equity in seconds.

As the EU Pay Transparency Directive approaches, companies will soon be required to reveal where they stand. Barbara explains how Levelly AI works, why many organisations still resist the data, and what happens when a board sees evidence of a gap and refuses to believe it.

In this episode of Work Is Weird Now Podcast, Alice and Dan sit down with Paul Vezelis, CEO of Traxlo, to explore how pay is evolving as work becomes more fragmented, flexible and outcome-driven.

Paul challenges one of the most embedded assumptions in modern employment: that time is the right unit of value. Instead of paying for hours, Traxlo breaks retail work into measurable tasks and pays people when outcomes are delivered. Clear expectations. Transparent outputs. No fixed shifts.

But this conversation goes deeper than gig economy headlines. We explore why task-based work appeals to women seeking flexible, local income, how people are stacking multiple income streams to create resilience, and whether diversification is becoming the new form of security.

If pay shifts from hours to outcomes, what happens to loyalty, identity and belonging at work?

Work is weird now. And how we pay people may be one of the biggest shifts of all.

Mid-Season Review: Portfolio Careers, AI Anxiety & What’s Next

In this mid-season review of the Work Is Weird Now podcast, hosts Alice & Dan reflect on season five, one year of WIWN, and the ideas that keep resurfacing in the future of work conversation.

From Dan’s early “accidental” portfolio career (four-star McDonald’s badge included) to interviewing at Sainsbury’s after leaving corporate life, the episode explores how identity, income and purpose are becoming less linear and more layered.

The conversation moves from shift-based work platforms across Europe to the psychological freedom of “just doing your shift and walking away.” They also unpack AI’s double edge: creatively liberating, economically unsettling.

With thousands of listeners now tuning in across the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, the hosts reflect on their top-performing episodes this season — including interviews with Ben Legg, 2026 predictions, memes and workwear — and share what’s coming next, including potential mini-series formats and their partnership with the She Shapes AI Awards.

Because work is changing. Identity is changing. And we’re all figuring it out in real time.

In this episode of Work Is Weird Now, we’re joined by Deborah Cohen, journalist, doctor and author of the new book Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health.

We explore why trust in institutions is eroding and why people are increasingly turning to influencers, algorithms and online narratives over qualified experts.

Drawing on examples from healthcare, leadership and workplace culture, Deb unpacks what really breaks trust, from not feeling heard, to overclaiming certainty, to surrounding yourself with yes-people. We also dig into parasocial relationships, the risks of “empathetic” AI, and why honesty about uncertainty is one of the hardest but most powerful leadership moves.

This episode is for anyone leading, managing or working in a low-trust environment and wondering how we rebuild credibility when certainty is no longer an option.

Do work clothes still matter?

In this episode of the Work is Weird Now Podcast, we’re joined by Julietta Dexter, Founder of The Communication Store and Chair of Smart Works, the charity supporting unemployed women with coaching, clothing, and confidence to secure work.

The question sounds simple, but it opens up something much bigger:

Do work clothes still matter?

Julietta’s answer is a clear yes — not because of outdated dress codes or corporate rules, but because what we wear still shapes confidence, identity, comfort, and belonging at work. Especially now, as careers become more flexible, more fragmented, and more uncertain.

We talk about:

• Confidence dressing and first impressions (without dressing for anyone else)
• The unspoken “uniforms” different teams adopt at work
• Who decides what “appropriate” even means — and why it’s political
• The reality of age, fear, AI, and insecurity in today’s job market
• The Smart Works “magic moment” and why clothes can change how someone shows up
• Practical capsule wardrobe advice for real working lives (with a brilliant twist)

This episode is for anyone navigating confidence at work, returning after time out, building a portfolio career, or wondering how to show up in a world where the old rules no longer apply.

Because clothes still matter — just not in the way we were taught.

What if the safest career move right now is… refusing to be one thing?

In this episode, Alice Phillips and Dan Emery are joined by Charlie Rogers, founder of Undefinable Life Design and author of a new book launching this March.

Charlie introduces the idea of the “undefinable” — people whose working lives don’t fit neatly into a single job title, industry, or identity. Not because they’re unfocused, but because they’re layered.

Against a backdrop of AI acceleration, job instability, and the slow collapse of the linear career ladder, Charlie argues that being meaningfully unique across several things is more resilient than being average at one. He calls it the automation of the average — and explains why your edge now lies in synthesis, lived experience, and perspective.

We explore:

• Why traditional career labels are breaking down
• The Undefinable Ascent: a practical framework for designing work that actually holds up
• The case for being “semi-pro” in multiple things, not obsessed with one
• Why energy, not ambition, is the missing piece in most career advice
• What organisations need to learn as careers become less linear and more ecosystem-based

This is a conversation about clarity without confinement — and designing a working life that’s sustainable, human, and genuinely yours.

Are memes the new language of work?

Memes. GIFs. Reels. The things we send without thinking and yet somehow they’ve become one of the clearest ways we communicate how work actually feels.

In this episode of Work Is Weird Now, we’re joined by Martin Kevill, Creative Director at Tangerine Communications, to explore a deceptively big question:

Are memes the new language of work?

We unpack how memes have replaced the office “water cooler” acting as fast, emotionally loaded signals that convey shared reality, opinion, and feeling in a split second. We talk about why memes let people say the unsayable, how they function as pressure release and micro-connection in digitally fragmented workplaces, and what actually makes something a meme in the first place.

We also dig into the risks: where memes can exclude, muddy meaning, or become a proxy for leadership clarity and whether brands and internal comms teams can ever use memes without killing the joy.

We finish by looking ahead. If AI can generate infinite memes on demand, do memes still work without a real human moment behind them?

Playful on the surface. Serious underneath. Because memes might just be part of work’s new emotional infrastructure.

Guest: Martin Kevill, Creative Director, Tangerine Communications

How will work be weird in 2026? | Live episode

We’re back — and for the first time ever, Work Is Weird Now went live on LinkedIn.

In this episode, we’re joined by award-winning journalist and future-of-work commentator Oliver Pickup to unpack the seven big shifts shaping how work will feel in 2026.

From AI readiness gaps and the collapse of the graduate pipeline, to workplace loneliness, resenteeism, and the growing tension between automation and human connection, this conversation explores why 2026 is landing as a pivotal reset year.

We dig into:

• Why many organisations are rushing AI adoption without real workforce readiness
• What happens when entry-level roles disappear — and why it matters to everyone
• The six human skills becoming the real competitive edge
• Loneliness at work as a performance and leadership issue, not just a wellbeing one
• Why “return to office” only works when the office earns its place
• How resenteeism shows up — and how leaders accidentally create it
• Why learning velocity may be the most important skill of all

We close with a question that stopped us (and the audience) in our tracks: If AI gives time back, what do we want to do with it?