Future of Work

People don't want AI agents. They want outcomes. That simple distinction may explain why agentic AI excites Silicon Valley while leaving most consumers cold – and it carries an important lesson for organisations too.

A morning at Toyota's heritage collection and talking to the Guild of Motoring Writers about AI and journalism – what the room made of it and what they asked told me quite a lot about where we actually are with all of this.

Billable hours are becoming less useful as a yardstick. McKinsey's clients are demanding outcome-based fees. The same pressure is coming for communicators – sooner than many expect.

AI fluency will matter in the workplace. But as AI-native graduates begin entering organisations in larger numbers, employers are starting to ask a deeper question: what skills become more valuable when technology can generate answers instantly?

Everything was in place – policies, training, guardrails. And still, AI errors slipped through. This isn’t a technology failure but a human one. Perhaps the answer is simple: someone must own verification.

In an AI-enabled environment, the greatest reputational risk isn't AI making mistakes. It's organisations hiding behind AI to avoid responsibility. The answer lies in human-centred AI – and it's where communicators have a distinctive role to play.

A CEO with a personal AI agent might sound like an amusing novelty. It isn’t. As AI begins to brief, prioritise, and answer on behalf of leaders, the question isn’t just about efficiency – it’s about how leadership itself is being reshaped.

Ads in ChatGPT aren’t the real story. Trust is. As OpenAI begins testing advertising, the challenge isn’t revenue or relevance, but whether users continue to believe the system works for them, not just for advertisers.