Episode 332 · 1 September 2026 · 50:21
Things We Got Wrong: 4 Years of Terrible Workplace Predictions, Summer Sessions #6
Things We Got Wrong: 4 Years of Terrible Workplace Predictions, Summer Sessions #6
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2023 Predictions: Talent Shortage and Skills-Based Hiring
2023 Predictions: AI as Personal Coach and Hybrid Working
2023 Predictions: AI for Burnout Prevention (and the Evil Side)
2024 Predictions: Retention and Transparency
2025 Predictions: Empathy as Leadership Skill and AI Agents
2026 Predictions: Human+AI Combination and Outcome-Based Productivity
other#human-ai-collaboration#productivity#outcome-based-work
Looking Ahead: AI Bubble, SaaS Disruption, and 2027 Predictions
Show notes
332. Things We Got Wrong: 4 Years of Terrible Workplace Predictions, Summer Sessions #6
Summer Sessions finale — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) are back from the future to face the music. Four years ago, they started making annual workplace predictions. Now, in the last episode of their Summer Sessions, they're revisiting every single one — from 2023's talent shortage calls to 2026's AI agent bets — and rating themselves with green ticks, ambers, and the occasional red.
Spoiler: there's a lot of green. And at least one very confident prediction that still hasn't happened.
🎯 The Verdicts
Al and Leanne score every prediction as Green (nailed it), Amber (on the right lines), or Red (still waiting). Highlights include:
- Green — Hybrid work is here to stay. Around 28% of UK employees now work hybrid (ONS data).
- Green — AI agents becoming mainstream. From Hermes Agent to Slack DMs, the agentic era arrived.
- Green — Empathy as a defining leadership skill of the AI era.
- Amber — The talent shortage prediction. Skills-based hiring is a priority for 2/3 of recruiters, but the shift is slower than hoped.
- Red-ish — Wearables and preventative wellbeing data. The tech exists and is being used, just... not in the nice way Al predicted.
Plus a bonus 2027 teaser: an AI bubble, vibe coding, and why Al is "heading towards an AI bust."
🧠 What We Learned
- The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. If you're a leader and you haven't started building internal talent pipelines, the second-best time is now.
- We're just too optimistic about tech people. The technology for preventative wellbeing exists — it's just being used for surveillance instead.
- Being early is not the same as being wrong. Some predictions were green, some were "a little too early." The pattern? Al is usually ahead of his time.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the last of our Truth, Lies and Work Summer Sessions. Throughout summer, we have been taking a little break from workplace news and bringing you some lighter episodes.
Al ElliottBut next week we're back with the usual This Week in Work episode, but we might be trying some new things, so do look out. Now, regular listeners will know every New Year's Eve we record our annual predictions episode. We confidently tell you What's going to happen in the workplace over the next 12 months and then spend the next year hoping that nobody actually remembers anything we said.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Unfortunately for us though, those podcast episodes still exist in the world. So today we're going to look back at 3 years of— no, I think it's actually 4 years of predictions to find out whether we were insightful or whether we were just making it all up. Yeah, we'll see after the break.
Al ElliottDoes your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident, and is completely flipping useless. Well, that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm. But you know what does know something about your business?
Al ElliottHubSpot?
Leanne ElliottHubSpot's AI. It works with your actual customer data, every interaction, every signal your team has generated over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Who are they, Al?
Al ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Leanne ElliottYes, they are. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name's Al. I'm a business owner. And normally we'd be helping you build amazing workplace cultures, but today we're destroying our own credibility more so than normal, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah. We're going to revisit every prediction we've made over the past 4 years. And just remind ourselves what we actually said, for one, because I can't remember.
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottAnd decide whether we're going to rate it, whether it's like a green tick, we nailed it, amber, like we were kind of there, or maybe we were just a bit early, um, not bad basically, or just a big fat red cross, we were completely wrong, talking absolute nonsense. And along the way as well, I thought it'd be fun if we look at what really happened in the workplace, where we got it right, where we got it wrong, and also what was happening in the world, Al. 2022 seems such a long way away.
Al ElliottGod, we were so young.
Leanne ElliottI know.
Al ElliottYoung, and we didn't have a clue, did we, that we were going to be doing 2 episodes a week back then?
Leanne ElliottI think our first predictions episode that was recorded in December 2022 predicting 2023 was episode 18.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottI know.
Al ElliottWow. Well, we are on 332 or something now. But before we get into our predictions, let's just remind ourselves what happened in 2023. So in the world, huge year of change. Queen Elizabeth II had died just a few months earlier. 2023 would see the coronation of King Charles III.
Leanne ElliottSo high inflation all started, wasn't it? When it all started to get bad.
Al ElliottYeah, rising interest rates, cost of living crisis. Taylor Swift's tour, I don't remember what it was called.
Leanne ElliottThe Eras Tour.
Al ElliottEras?
Leanne ElliottYeah, that became a thing, didn't it? And then we had Barbie and Oppenheimer. That was a whole Thing that summer as well. Who won? I think, I think Oppenheimer, right?
Al ElliottI fell asleep during that.
Leanne ElliottYou did? Have you seen Barbie?
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottThat's quite good. It's quite good.
Al ElliottI'll still probably fall asleep with it. Oh, that was the year also Elon Musk took a sink into Twitter, bought Twitter and rebranded it as X.
Leanne ElliottBoom.
Al ElliottYeah. And towards the end of the year, then OpenAI CEO, evil, evil genius Sam Altman was dramatically fired and then reinstated just 5 days later.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it was, it was quite the year. I think it was that year where everyone was trying to still find their feet after the pandemic. We were seeing lots of return to office policies. Quiet quitting was still one of the kind of the big workplace buzzwords of the time. We had the whole kind of talent war things, higher salaries. ChatGPT arrived.
Al ElliottWas that '22?
Leanne ElliottIt was November 2022. And look at where we are now. Um, so yeah, it's, it was, it was, I think 2023, looking back, was kind of that year that everything started to really fricking change.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah, absolutely. So do we want to go into predictions then?
Leanne ElliottYeah. So, um, do you want to, do you want to do mine first?
Al ElliottYeah. So I'll do my, I'll do yours and you do mine. Yeah. Okay. So you said talent shortage wasn't going away. You said that employers would realize they couldn't keep simply throwing more money at recruitment. You also said organisations would become far more deliberate about how they hired, and they put greater emphasis on competencies, transferable skills, and structured assessment rather than degrees, CVs, and years of experience. Finally, you said that businesses need a sustainable hiring strategy, so they shouldn't just compete purely on salary and benefits. They should focus on identifying the behaviours, skills, and potential that actually predicted success in the role. I think I've got a quote here for you. The fight for talent will continue, but I think the strategy will shift to a way that is more sustainable and competency-based.
Leanne ElliottLOL.
Al ElliottThat's dramatic.
Leanne ElliottI mean, it should have happened.
Al ElliottStill waiting, aren't we?
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah. I mean, was it just a few weeks ago that, that we were kind of talking about how like 46% of new hires fail, like either during the recruitment process or within like 3 months of Of starting the role. So clearly we're not getting it right. Although I, I, yeah, I, I did a little bit of research and LinkedIn apparently reported a 21% increase in job adverts using skills-first language.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottUm, and about 2/3 of recruiters said that skills-based hiring was a priority for their organization. I wonder whether they're starting to talk about it more through the lens of AI and the skills that are needed both for AI and to to deal with AI in the workplace. So I don't know. I don't, I don't, I think, I don't think that was right.
Al ElliottI think as an Amber, I think you're being harsh on yourself because, as you say, if, if people are, you didn't know that AI was going to be like a big thing that year. And so I think the skill thing, there wasn't, there's not enough time for a degree to be put in place and then someone to go through a degree. There probably are degrees now, degree courses now about AI, but at the time there wasn't. So Yeah, it was accidentally, you're right. So I'm going to say amber, I think. I think that's probably an amber.
Leanne ElliottYeah. I mean, I think what I'd want to say as well to any kind of leaders or business owners listening is, is developing this type of recruitment strategy always drops down the priority list because you just feel like you need to get bums on seats. If you'd have invested in this like I suggested back in 2023, man, imagine what you'd be like now in terms of recruitment. It'd be easy. You never have to think about it. It would just happen itself and you'd find perfect people every time. So yeah, I'm not sure I was right, but I think I should have been.
Al ElliottI don't want to get all Confucius on you, listener, but the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is tomorrow. So if you are genuinely, and this is not really, I'm not trying to shill Leanne here, but if this resonates with you, then you need to speak to Leanne because Leanne has got so much experience in building these competency-based interview and selection techniques. You need it. You need it because otherwise in 3 years' time, you'll be looking back going, Bugger, I wish I'd done it back then. I went all southern and posh then.
Leanne ElliottYou did.
Al ElliottBugger.
Leanne ElliottYou swear in posh.
Al ElliottI do swear in posh. It's true.
Leanne ElliottIt's the only time I notice that you're actually southern.
Al ElliottIt's so satisfying. Fuck. Anyway, yes, we were trying not to be— I was trying to make this swear-free because we've been swearing recently. But anyway, I think I feel like it's my turn, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYes. So this is— remember, this is 2022 going into 2023. So, Al, you argued that AI wouldn't simply automate repetitive work. Instead, you believed it would become a personal coach for employees. So rather than immediately speaking to a manager or mentor, you imagine employees first going to AI to prepare for difficult conversations, think through leadership challenges, write performance reviews, practice presentations, or work through wellbeing concerns. You saw AI becoming an always-available thinking partner rather than simply another workplace tool. You said, quote, AI coaches will become the first line of defence for employee wellbeing and burnout.
Al ElliottOh, well, that sounds quite fancy and sounds like I wasn't a million miles away.
Leanne ElliottI think you were spot on.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSpot on. Do you not think?
Al ElliottYeah. Although I'm not sure it's necessarily panned out. I mean, I think I was putting emphasis on it actually being a coach. Like there'd be a, you know, a bit of software that was a coach rather than just being your chat interface on OpenAI or Anthropic or the LLMs that are available.
Leanne ElliottI think you were right. I think you were bang on because I think actually a lot of people do use chat for those types of things. Rightly or more than likely wrongly, particularly if it's bordering on kind of counselling or therapy. But we've also spoke to kind of professional coaches who use ChatGPT or equivalents as a coaching partner, don't they? When they've got an upcoming session almost to help them prepare. So I think you were right. I think that's a green. Have you still got your button?
Al ElliottI'm not sure.
Leanne ElliottOh, boo.
Al ElliottDing! Ding. We'll put it in post. Okay, right. Well, I'm quite smug about that. I think you should be. I'm quite pleased about that.
Leanne ElliottYou should be.
Al ElliottWell, let's go on to prediction number 3. This is yours, Leanne. And you said that there's going to be lots and lots of pressure from employers, the RTO, bringing people back into the office. But you predicted that hybrid and flexible working weren't temporary pandemic experiments. Instead, you said they represented a permanent shift in how knowledge work would be organised. And I've got written down here, you believe the debate would gradually move away from whether hybrid worked and towards how organisations could Lead, collaborate, and build culture successfully in hybrid environment. A direct quote is, hybrid working and flexible working is here to stay. Lee, I think that you were right about that one, weren't you?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think, I think I can claim that one. I know we've seen lots of RTO mandates and lots of shifts to much more, yes, hybrid models, but more time in the office. But I think the majority of people still have some type of hybrid working arrangements, don't they?
Al ElliottYeah, well, I've got some stats here. So around 28% of UK employees now work hybrid. That's according to the ONS. And also, flexible working consistently ranks among the top 3 factors candidates look for when choosing a job. Obviously means that lots and lots of organisations are making hybrid working a permanent part of their employment offer. So that's a ding green.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Hey.
Al ElliottBrilliant. Okay, on to prediction number 4. Uh-oh, this is me again.
Leanne ElliottUm, so what was this then? You, you believed organisations would begin using AI, behavioural data, and digital signals to identify burnout before employees reach crisis point. Ah, so I think this is where you kind of built on your earlier predictions. I think your first prediction was like it's around coaching, and then you said it's also going to be used, um, to support burnout.
Al ElliottOh, I think I said something about wearables, didn't I? At that point I was saying that Your watch will be connected and someone will be like, oh my goodness, no, Al's on the burnout track.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. I think you said rather than kind of waiting for someone to resign or go off sick, you thought the technology would help employees detect patterns such as too high workloads, declining engagement, changes in communications, unusual working hours, that type of stuff. What do you think?
Al ElliottI think that has happened, but not in the preventative kind of way. I don't think it's happened in a nice way. They go, we're really worried about these guys, so we're just going to track and see how they're getting on. I think especially like the news coming out of Meta is not good for Meta employees.
Leanne ElliottWhy? What's Meta checking out these days?
Al ElliottIt's just there's always something new. They always seem to manage it. Zuck always seems to manage to get himself in the shit no matter what happens.
Leanne ElliottThat's because he's a psychopath.
Al ElliottBut now, like, apparently he's looking at signals in emails. He's looking at signals in instant messaging. All that kind of stuff, trying to find ways in which he can cut out the human, it appears. Now, just so you know, that's my opinion, not something that's been published, but that's, that's what I'm seeing from it.
Leanne ElliottSo what you're saying is the technology exists and the technology is being used in the way you predicted, just for evil rather than good.
Al ElliottYes, for the opposite way.
Leanne ElliottWe're just too optimistic, aren't we, that these tech people are gonna do something good for the world?
Al ElliottSome of them do.
Leanne ElliottWho? Name one.
Al ElliottOh man, I don't know. I don't know. I feel, uh, right, the guy who started Patreon.
Leanne ElliottOh yeah.
Al ElliottHe's got, he's got a, he's got a band called Pamplemousse and he's just the happiest guy in the world.
Leanne ElliottNo, shut up.
Al ElliottIs that—
Leanne Elliottthey connected?
Al ElliottYeah, he's—
Leanne ElliottI love Pamplemousse. I follow them on the YouTube.
Al ElliottYeah, me too.
Leanne ElliottMe too. They do great covers, man.
Al ElliottBrilliant covers, mashups and all that kind of stuff. And it's— and the lead singer, the blonde one, is his wife.
Leanne ElliottNo way!
Al ElliottYeah. So basically he started Patreon. Um, and, uh, he did, did a really nice bit of, bit of software. I don't know whether he's exited it or not. I don't think he's still got it. Um, and basically now he's like, do you know what? I just wanna spend all day in my, in my out, outbuilding recording with my friends. Um, so I think he's done—
Leanne ElliottWell, I wouldn't, yeah.
Al ElliottUm, he's also done something kind of— there was— I'll put a link in the show notes. My brother, hello Andy, Professor Andy. Um, he sent me something the other day where he was talking about it. He's saying all these big tech companies, they need to be doing this, that, and the other. He says, I'm totally aware that this is Irony, because I, I also have a tech company. But I will— I can't remember exactly. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what it is, but it was the guy from Patreon talking about this. Well, my brother wasn't on YouTube. It was just a guy from— you're looking around for a piece of paper?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottShe's had a thought. She's had a thought. I will just read out quickly some of the stats while she's writing down her important thoughts.
Leanne ElliottNo, I'm keeping score.
Al ElliottOh, are you? So Microsoft Work Trend Index found employees were primarily using AI for writing, summarizing meetings, analyzing information rather than wellbeing. Burnout unfortunately remains one of the leading causes of sickness absence globally. That's going to make Kate very, very unhappy. And a very, very few organizations have adopted AI specifically to predict employee burnout or mental health risk. And the subtext is they've done it to protect themselves again. So I think this is, I think it's a red. I don't think it's, I don't think it came true. I think it happened, but not in the way that I wanted it to happen.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottOkay. So what, what are we saying then? How did you get 3 greens and 1 red then?
Al ElliottSure. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottDo we care who won? No, no. Listen, you decide, you decide and let us know.
Al ElliottTo quote Danny Wareham from the last couple of episodes, we're all losers here. Don't worry.
Leanne ElliottYeah, true that.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottWell, I, yeah, I mean, oh, it's funny looking back, isn't it? It makes me, it makes me a little bit anxious, to be honest.
Al ElliottYes. But look, Leanne and I, I don't know whether Leanne's gonna maybe take this out, but we had a conversation over a glass of wine the other night. I'm going, We're genuinely a little bit terrified about AI. Like, what's left? What's left to do? Like, is our job, like, podcasting? Really obvious.
Leanne ElliottScrewed. Done.
Al ElliottYeah. Anyone can put a podcast together and also anyone can just record and put it up to AI and get it—
Leanne ElliottAnd make it sound like us.
Al ElliottWell, they can make it sound like us. Yep, exactly. Um, they could, they could be fake guests. They go, we got Elon Musk on the thing and they've got, put Elon Musk's voice. It's, um—
Leanne ElliottSaw a lot of that during the World Cup, didn't we?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottLike interviews of footballers that were AI-generated, and it wasn't— it obviously wasn't convincing, but it wasn't far off.
Al ElliottNo, no. And it's the way it's going. So, yeah, if you're a bit despondent, then join us for a glass of wine and a bit of a moan.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think we're thinking what we'll do is just like build us some kind of commune in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottLive off the land.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottRaise chickens.
Al ElliottRaise chickens.
Leanne ElliottMaybe get some goats.
Al ElliottWe get some goats milk.
Leanne ElliottThe cute ones, the little ones.
Al ElliottWhich ones? The kids?
Leanne ElliottJust the small ones.
Al ElliottYou know, they grow up to be bigger, don't you?
Leanne ElliottCan you not get mini goats?
Al ElliottYeah, you can get pygmy goats.
Leanne ElliottThere you go.
Al ElliottOne of them. We'll get a few pygmy goats. Anyway, Le, we should fast forward into 2024, I think.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So these were predictions we made in December 2023 for what was to come in 2024. 2024, man. Oh God. If I could erase one year from history, it'd probably be 2024. Actually, probably 2020, wouldn't it? Let's be honest.
Al ElliottOr 2016 when Brexit happened.
Leanne ElliottOh yeah, the last 10 years, man. Exhausting. 2024 saw, of course, the biggest election in a long time. Yeah, more than half of the population eligible to vote did. And Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris to become US president once again. We thought that was behind us, didn't we?
Al ElliottIt reminds me of that meme. You know, that meme goes, I haven't heard that name for a very long time.
Leanne ElliottLike Kamala Harris. Could you imagine the world we'd live in if Kamala Harris would have got Would have won. Well, could you imagine?
Al ElliottStatistically, 50% of our listeners are imagining it being really bad.
Leanne ElliottWell, I doubt we'd be at war with Iran.
Al ElliottTo be fair, we do skew, I think, more Dem than Rep, don't we? But yeah. Anyway, sorry. What else happened?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I'm not sure any— I'm not sure you'd be listening. What else happened? Summer Olympics. That was nice in Paris with Simone Biles. She came back from kind of a semi-retirement, didn't she? A French swimmer called Leon Marchand became the—
Al ElliottNice accent.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Kind of nation's hero. I'm not sure if this would have registered with you, Al, but do you remember Bratz Summer?
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottNo? So that was Charli XCX album. No. Okay.
Al ElliottHer real name, Charli XCX?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think so.
Al ElliottShe was born like that?
Leanne ElliottI don't know. I think it might be a stage name.
Al ElliottOh, right.
Leanne ElliottOkay. Yeah.
Al ElliottIt feels like a typo on the birth certificate, doesn't it? Like someone put their coffee down and spilt it and they were like, Oh well, it's printed now, so sorry, go on.
Leanne ElliottUm, and then kind of another news, uh, Nvidia briefly overtook Apple and Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, what else happened? AI cracked on. Microsoft launched Copilot. Google expanded Gemini. That was the new Clippy, wasn't it?
Al ElliottWhat? Copilot was the new Clippy.
Leanne ElliottI've never used Microsoft Copilot.
Al ElliottOh, I know, it's just like, it just makes me think like Clippy used to be the shittest thing in the world. Those people who don't know what I'm talking about, about 15 years ago, Microsoft included— got a little animated paperclip called Clippy. And whenever you're writing a document, it would pop up and go, I see you're writing a letter of resignation. Would you like some help with that? And it was just really shit. But anyway, right. So Copilot, what else happened?
Leanne ElliottYeah, AI in general. So Microsoft Work Trend Index found 75% of knowledge workers were already using AI at work. Gallup continued to report employee engagement was kind of Rubbish, around 23% globally. And return to office mandates continued to increase. So yeah, 2024, what a year, eh?
Al ElliottWhat a year. Well, I tell you what, I'm going to leave you in suspense because we're going to take a very short break and then we're going to find out what we said in 2024 and whether we were right. I— we probably weren't. See you in a second.
Leanne ElliottWelcome to the break.
Al ElliottYes, my favourite part of the show. These, these 2 idiots have stopped talking.
Leanne ElliottYes, I want to tell you about my new No, that's a lie. It's my old favourite podcast.
Al ElliottI've been on this for a while. Didn't know where that was going. Didn't know where that was going.
Leanne ElliottIt is called I Digress. It is hosted by Troy Sandage, and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottYes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes, and I Digress helps eliminate complexity, complications, and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what That's they say. what it says here.
Leanne ElliottAnd if you do want to hear a really personal story, go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, killing hustle culture, and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention.
Al ElliottListen to I Digress wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottThat concludes the break.
Al ElliottLet's return to the scheduled programming.
Leanne ElliottBack to the studio.
Al ElliottWelcome back. Welcome back. Yes, we promised you 2024. We've, we've rewound time. We're back in 2024. Promised you'd tell you what our predictions were and whether they came true. Leanne, you were first. You predicted that organizations would stop obsessing over recruitment and start focusing more seriously on retention. So this is, uh, I'm just gonna have a little look and see what you said here. So, uh, you were saying basically rather than constantly trying to replace people who left, businesses would recognize that keeping good employees was significantly cheaper and more effective than continually hiring new ones. Well, duh, of course. You also expected leaders to invest more in employee experience, career development, internal mobility. Thoughts?
Leanne ElliottI think a little bit. I think we definitely saw a swing back from that kind of 2022-23 where the kind of the fight for talent was still quite, quite fierce, wasn't it, in terms of like the salary war. So I think we definitely saw a little swing away from that, um, but I, again, I think I've been really optimistic, to be honest.
Al ElliottWell, I've got some stats here, and I think you're being a bit hard on yourself because according to Gallup, Gallup estimates replacing an employee typically costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary. But internal mobility, which is defined as what, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottDeveloping recruiting from within, basically.
Al ElliottIt became one of LinkedIn's fastest-growing HR priorities. And organisations increasingly shifted investment towards learning, development, and career pathways. So I think that's a green, Leanne. I think you've got that right. You think so?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we saw more of it, maybe not as much as I would have liked to have seen, or maybe not tackled in a way that is particularly effective. I think there's still, there was still at that time a lot of focus on perks and benefits and What's the word I'm looking for? When it's like a fad rather than actually changing the work design and work environment to actually help retain people. So I think maybe the intention was there, but the execution maybe not. But yeah, I don't know. Yeah, ish, ish.
Al ElliottI think it's, it's greenish.
Leanne ElliottGreenish. Yeah, yeah, it's greenish. Um, what did you say? You said— I think you're bang on with this one— So you predicted that organisations would become more transparent. So you said that leaders would increasingly share financial information, explain business decisions more openly, and you believed transparency would become a competitive advantage because employees demanded authenticity rather than corporate spin.
Al ElliottAren't I a clever, clever—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah, man. Yes.
Leanne ElliottI think you've got that bang on.
Al ElliottI, do you know what? I think I have. Do you have any notes on what actually happened?
Leanne ElliottUm, well, apparently there was an Eldermans Trust barometer continuing to rank employers as the world's most trusted institutions ahead of governments and media. CEO visibility on LinkedIn significantly increased in 2024, didn't it? I feel like 2024 was a year that, that LinkedIn started to become a thing again. Um, and I also think as well, there's a lot more transparency starting to happen around the use of AI, around environmental impacts. I think the Gen Z are kind of demanding that as well, aren't they?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd I think, to be fair, I think it's skewed much more towards the sort of SMEs, the founder-led. I think the founder-led have gone, yeah, this is a great, this is a great idea. I'm not sure it's necessarily gone quite as far as MFD, Megan French Dunbar, predicted or wants to happen, which is basically open books. So everyone in the company knows exactly how much money is coming in, going out, what everyone else earns. I don't think it's, and I'm not sure, sorry MFD, but I'm not sure that it's ever going to get to that utopian heights of that sort of transparency. But certainly I think with founders, they're being a lot more transparent and Yeah, I think that's just a good thing. It's a really good thing. And stop, stop trying to pretend and keep, you know, gatekeep data and gatekeep money. If everybody knows how much money you make, you know, the company's making, even if you don't share salaries, if everyone knows how much money the company's making, then they can see what impact they're having on that actual number. So I think I'm very bullish on that, on that idea.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I agree. I agree. And it all makes sense as well from a trust perspective as well, doesn't it, in terms of what's What's going on in the organisation and relatively, you know, how good things like pay and benefits are. You know, if you're making a huge amount of profit, but you're, you know, the people that work for you are really still struggling with the cost of living crisis and can't afford to buy food, then you're doing it wrong, aren't you?
Al ElliottYeah, totally agree. Totally agree. Okay, shall we fast forward to 2025? So this is the predictions were made in December 2024. Just to set the scene.
Leanne ElliottAt this point, are you like, how long have we been doing this podcast, man? What do you mean we've done 4 years worth of predictions?
Al ElliottIs it really 4 years?
Leanne Elliott2022 was our first year.
Al ElliottIn fact, I think our first episode, because there was a little gap between episode 1 and episode 2, and I think that might have been recorded and released around this time of year.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think it was August time, wasn't it?
Al ElliottIt was August. So, so we're probably almost exactly on our 4-year And also my birthday next year in May, we're going to be somewhere in the mid-400s, I think, of episodes.
Leanne ElliottOoh.
Al ElliottI know. Anyway, that's a prediction that I'm making based on ChatGPT calculating it for me. So predictions. I'm such a sad and lonely old man. I sit out there this morning and all, rather than looking at interesting things, I was like, I wonder what episode number is going to be my birthday. So just setting the scene. So this was, we remember we said this in 2024, but in 2022, 2025 was the year where AI embedded itself into everyday life. And I'm gonna say AI quietly embedded itself because that's what AI always said. This is when the AI-generated video— God, I remember we could generate images and I was blown away. I was using Midjourney via Discord. And if you don't know—
Leanne ElliottMidjourney, do you remember that? Does anyone still use that anymore?
Al ElliottI don't know, but— and I was— and you had to go on Discord and like have a chat when it was just so like, oh, horrible to use. But, um, but yeah, no, it became mainstream.
Leanne ElliottI feel like deepfakes started then, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, it was weird.
Al ElliottBut Now, yeah, of course we've got, um, uh, we've got stuff and it's, and to be fair, some of the footage, in fact, most of the footage, I think it's Sono, which is the, am I saying, maybe it's Sono? Sono? No, I think it's Sono. Anyway, one model, uh, you can barely distinguish theirs from real footage.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, then of course what happened is everyone got excited about it and then the government went, wait a minute, this is going to be a little bit of a problem. This is problematic. They're worried about trust, misinformation, and authenticity. So they got involved in regulation.
Leanne ElliottI love that it took them that long to think. They were like, wait a minute, so somebody could release a video of like the Prime Minister speaking, but it's not really the Prime Minister, and then everyone believed them?
Al ElliottYep, exactly.
Leanne ElliottWell, we need to regulate this. You should have fricking done that 10 years ago, friend.
Al ElliottThere's a guy in the UK called money-saving expert Martin Lewis, and unfortunately a lot of people lost some money because people did deepfakes of him saying you should go and invest in this, and they lost their money. So very, very sad. And finally, in terms of the economy, though, that was a little bit more positive. Started to stabilize after a few turbulent years. I think people still, organizations still remained a little bit cautious about hiring, but the workplace conversation changed dramatically. So leaders stopped asking, should we ask AI? And started asking, how do we use it safely and effectively? A couple of stats here for you. Workplace AI adoption almost doubled in 2 years. LinkedIn identified communication as one of the most in-demand professional skills. Gartner predicts that AI agents will become a standard part of enterprise software over the coming years. That is happening right now. I am excited about Jack Dorsey's Buzz. Um, it's a, it's, it's, it's a, like, it's like Slack, but you, instead of having people on it, you have your agents on it.
Leanne ElliottOh, nice.
Al ElliottAnd you just chat to your agents. It's, it's one of the— if I could be nerdy for a second, there's lots of surfaces and harnesses, which is basically how you use the AI, but no one's really developed something which is how we used to talk. They're all going, oh, look, it's great. Like, remember the Discord thing I was saying? You had to go into Discord to create an image. Now you go into chat things, but you don't go into a chat thing to talk to someone. You have Slack and things like Buzz are gonna be, are gonna be, I think it's gonna be a big thing. Never, never back against or never back, never not back Jack Dorsey, whatever the word is. Anyway, right, Leanne, let's get on to what you said. So I've got written down here.
Leanne ElliottJust to remind everyone, if it's getting confusing, this is predictions we made for the year of 2025. What was gonna happen in 2025?
Al ElliottYes. So you predicted that empathy would become one of the defining leadership skills of the AI era. This is what it's got written down. Your argument wasn't that empathy was becoming more important because employees suddenly wanted kinder managers. It was because as AI became increasingly capable of handling routine work, the unique human parts of leadership, which are listening, coaching, judgment, trust, and emotional intelligence, would become significantly more valuable. Leanne.
Leanne ElliottNailed it.
Al ElliottYou did nail it.
Leanne ElliottYou absolutely nailed it. I mean, is, is anyone actually developing those skills? Probably not as many as you know, organisations that should be. What was it? The World Economic Forum Future Jobs Report published at some point in 2025 that absolutely named empathy as one of the key skills to be developed over the next 5 years, given the increasing use of AI in the workplace. So I think, I think I nailed that one.
Al ElliottI think you did. I think you did. And that's, and to be fair, if you are thinking about being AI-proof, then these sort of human skills are stuff which AI, I don't think will ever be able to do that because they can fake empathy. They're like, That they're like the biggest psychopaths ever, that they understand, they understand, have I got this right? They understand, what's the word for emotion, but they can't display it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. Danny Warram's got a whole thing on this, isn't he? He actually does some work into it that basically AI just represents the dark triad of personalized traits. So they're narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic. And you're right, they don't They can fake emotion, but they're not feeling it. They tell you what you want to hear to manipulate you to do things. And, and they think they're ace, don't they?
Al ElliottOpen the pod doors. I'm afraid I can't do that. That's a really weird reference from a film I haven't actually seen. So a couple of stats here. LinkedIn identified communication as one of the fastest growing and most in-demand workplace skills in 2025. We also saw that coaching and leadership development remain among the fastest growing of all Fasting— fastest growing areas, should do an address reversal, of organisational learning investment. So I'm gonna say this is 100% correct. Green, ding, ding, ding. Well done.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Thank you so much. And I think you have also nailed your prediction. So you predicted that AI agents would become one of the biggest workplace stories of the year. And specifically, rather than helping employees complete individual tasks, you believed AI would take ownership of entire workflows, coordinating work across systems and acting like a digital colleague. I think you nailed that one.
Al ElliottYeah. And I'm sorry, I've realised now that all of mine are around AI, aren't they? But that's kind of like my hobby.
Leanne ElliottThat's your world, isn't it?
Al ElliottYes, my world. I do love it. I do love it. And yes. So if you've, if you've never heard of Hermes Agent, nothing to do with the luxury brand, or OpenClaw, formerly ClaudeBot, formerly MaltBot, formerly Claude something. Basically, they are environments where you can build these agents and the agents can work on you, work, you know, do tasks, workflows, end-to-end workflows. That is something which the nerds like me are into. We've just, we've just installed Hermes for, for Oblong. And that's something that, again, Jack Dorsey's Buzz. There's so much. There's Goose AI, which is quite funny to say. There's so many different things coming up. By Christmas, by Christmas, you will be talking to an AI agent in the way over email.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOver Slack. It'll be sending you DMs. It's probably gonna be available via WhatsApp. This is what's happening. So yeah.
Leanne ElliottI mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because it moves so quickly. I'm sure people now listening going, well, yeah, of course, you know, agentic AI is a thing, isn't it? It wasn't in the end of 2024. No, it absolutely wasn't. And what's really, I think, interesting is if you look at what's happened, unsurprisingly, AI adoption continues to accelerate each year. But now every major productivity platform offers AI assistance or agent-based functionality. And Gartner predicts that agentic AI will become the most defining enterprise technology of the next decade.
Al ElliottYes. Yes. Totally agree.
Leanne ElliottYeah. You nailed that one. Nailed it.
Al ElliottYes, I did. Thank you very much.
Leanne ElliottWell done.
Al ElliottThank you. Yeah, I think we're in for an interesting, an interesting next 6 to 12 months. Very, very interesting.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, I think we are.
Al ElliottShall we fast forward to 2026? Well, we can't because we are in 2026.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, we can maybe, maybe go remind ourselves what we said because I can't remember.
Al ElliottNo, I can't. Just for context, usually what we do is we go back to the UK for a couple of weeks in December. So often we record like 3 or 4 episodes in one week and then schedule them. So that's the one for predictions and stuff. So not only was it a long time ago, but also We did like 4 or 5 episodes in like 2 days.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo I don't remember what I said.
Leanne ElliottI do find that happens to me a lot though. If I'm talking to someone, they go, oh my God, I was listening to your podcast where you're talking about X. And I was like, hmm, right, nice.
Al ElliottYeah, cool. Danny Wareham. Danny's getting a lot of airtime. Danny Wareham said I said something about— I did a dad joke and I said Danny did that. And then Danny said on LinkedIn the other day, I was cleaning my pant cream. And I was like, what the hell are you talking about?
Leanne ElliottHow did you get to the bottom of that?
Al ElliottYeah, apparently. And I did listen to the episode again and I did, I said, oh, Danny is going to be creaming his pants or something. It's a horrible phrase. I apologize for his— for Al from before, but that's what I actually said. So, yeah. Yeah.
Leanne Elliott2 episodes a week, man. That's a lot of words.
Al Elliott300. Yeah. 330-odd hours. Yeah. Okay. So 2020s. So we can't say what happened in 2026 because it's not finished, but just, just set the scene so far, just in case anyone's been under a rock for the last 8 months.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So I think, you know, AI is now firmly, firmly a thing. thing. Lots of people are using it. And I think a lot more people now are starting to play with agentic AI as well, aren't they? I hear lots of people using Claude, Copilot, and the likes. Economically, it's been a shit show, continues to be. Oh, just stop. Just stop starting on people. You know who I'm talking to. Just stop it.
Al ElliottWhy can't we all just get along?
Leanne ElliottI know, I know. So yeah, I mean, Yeah, we thought the economic picture at the beginning of the year was looking more stable, but actually it's not looking as good as we hoped. In terms of workplaces, I mean, I think we're starting to maybe see a little bit of a shift of, I hope, just in terms of conversation maybe rather than action, is whether AI should replace jobs rather than will they replace jobs. But we're still seeing lots of layoffs. But I think we are seeing more forward-thinking organisations, and I think again, smaller owner-entrepreneur-led businesses that start to treat AI as a member of the team and something that can support workflows rather than completely replacing people or just being another piece of software. I was talking to a business leader not so long ago who was explaining to me how they've integrated AI now into all of their workflows to genuinely give value-added time back to employees, and as part of that process, they only Um, had to let go one member of staff, which of course is still devastating. But, you know, when you're seeing organisations lay off thousands or, you know, 50% of their workforce, and I think that was, you know, probably maybe like 5%. So, so yeah, I think we're seeing that in 2026. I also think we're seeing a bit more anxiety around it, but, you know, we'll see how it all goes. But I think it's also fair to say that leadership capability is being talked about now as one of the biggest barriers to successful implementation of AI in terms of managing change, in terms of buying and getting employee buy-in. And I think this is what I talked about as part of the empathy prediction, was that these human skills, or being able to engage humans in a really effective way, is going to be so much more important when we're dealing with AI. It's almost like the, the human skills become even more important. Um, so yes, that's where we are. Anyway, should we go on to our predictions?
Al ElliottYes. So we'll start off with you. And so what you said was you predicted that AI wouldn't make people less important at work. It would make the uniquely human aspects of work even more valuable. I've got written down here, you argued organizations which thrive wouldn't necessarily be those with the best technology, but those that best understand how to combine human strengths with AI capability. I think this is bang on. I think it's exactly what— well, this isn't bang on for the big companies who are getting rid of people, because there's always going to be— to be fair, if you are a publicly traded company, you have a fiduciary duty to, to, to maximize your profit— profitability. Wow. That was some big words for our way, wasn't it? So you have that.
Leanne ElliottFiduciary. I didn't even know you knew that word.
Al ElliottI put the douche in fiduciary. But, but so I think that they like, they almost like have to get rid of people if they, if there's an opportunity. But we saw Ford, didn't we, recently rehiring a lot of people who they let go because they tried to replace with AI and then realized that AI didn't have a fucking clue what was going on. Whereas these, these old people like me were like, well, I know exactly how to do this because I've done it wrong 9 times out of 10 and I spent the last 20 years doing it. So yeah, I definitely think that we are moving towards that. I think this is bang on, Lee. I'm—
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think it's on the right lines, isn't it? I think it might be a bit too early to tell. And I think, I think there's conversations about it, but it's actually happening. I think it's maybe in smaller pockets, but I'm much more encouraged by the conversations happening around integrating Human and AI, do you think?
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. I've got down here a couple of, a couple of points. So leadership and communication remain among the fastest growing areas of organizational development. Employers increasingly describe AI as a tool to augment rather than replace employees, and human judgment continues to be viewed as essential for high-stakes decisions. Yeah, I start to see the tide turning on On the last one, I start to see it more as a taste and judgment call rather than an actual, we're making a factual call. I can see AI putting together all of the pros and cons, whatever. We had Eoin Fitzpatrick on recently, Inner Propaganda is his book. Definitely go out and buy it. It should be released now, actually. And he was talking about a lot of this, of like, you sort of like your beliefs and how facts aren't really that important. Important to most people is just what they actually believe. So go back and listen to that. Um, I believe that was episode 323. Definitely worth listening to. Anyway, sorry, Lee.
Leanne ElliottYeah, well, we'll go on to your final prediction, shall we? Um, so you predict that organizations would gradually stop measuring productivity by activity and begin focusing much more on outcomes. And you link this to AI as well. So as AI automated, uh, more routine work, you thought that traditional measures Such as working hours, how many emails sent, meetings attended would be increasingly meaningless, less important. Instead, organisations would need to rethink how they defined and measured performance.
Al ElliottYeah, and I stand 100% behind this because we've all been in the situation 5 years ago. Someone said, you're either— you've got 2 options. Either you're like, what the hell did I say to that person about that thing? So you end up searching Gmail, you spend so long looking for the actual email. Email you send and you still can't find it. Whereas fast forward to now, Hermes, for example, Hermes Agent— I'm being— I know I'm being nerdy, but you've got agent environments which can— which go through all your emails and then essentially create a little mini wiki. And then you go to them and say, did I ever say this to Leanne? And they'll come back, go, yes, on email, this, this, this. Here's the link. Here's the link. So you're moving away from that sort of thing. The other thing which I think is really— what I've started to see this happen in the last few weeks is that employees who aren't developers, for example, will start creating mini apps for their customers. So for example, imagine that you had to do a report every week for, for a customer.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottThen what they do is they vibe code. It's called vibe coding. When you just— I know you know this, just in case anyone doesn't know what it is. Vibe coding is basically getting ChatGPT or Claude to build it for you. They'll go into Claude Code and they'll go, I want to build this interactive dashboard that will pull the latest information in. I don't ever have to put this spreadsheet again together again. It'll just bring it up and they can ask questions on it and you can vibe code that. Other things marketers— I've seen a lot of marketers' employees go, wouldn't it be nice if someone could do a pricing calculator based on this? So rather than waiting 3 weeks for the development team to get time to go and build it and add it to the website, they vibe code it, throw it on a domain. So I see that what I'm really enjoying is that employees are getting started to get a bit more Ownership a little bit more. I can't think of the word in my head, but they've got agency. Is that the right word? Agency to make changes that otherwise would have had to go through weeks and weeks of development or weeks and weeks of decisions or whatever. And they can just do this little MVP, minimum viable product, and just throw it up there. So I'm enjoying that very much.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Again, I think that's the— this is kind of this whole— I'm not sure what the right word would be, whether it's like a paradox or irony or But it seems to be that the more AI we have, we start to actually finally rethink what humans need in the workplace to do their best work.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd we've actually been studying this since like the 1920s, but it just feels that, that this is maybe accelerating businesses actually doing something about it. Because I think, as you were saying, Al, like, if AI can complete a task in just a few minutes that normally or previously would have taken you know, a human half a day, then it, it completely changes how organisations need to look at what it means when humans are productive or effective or impactful, because it's no longer necessarily about time, is it? It's more about quality and, and like you said, outcomes. Um, so yeah, I, I think you're right. I, I, I have a sneaky feeling that I'm looking back through all your predictions. I don't think we've included them all. So if you want to hear all of our predictions, go back and listen to 4 years' worth of predictions if you've got the time and the Who cares?
Al ElliottIf your basket is not empty.
Leanne ElliottYes, because the pattern I see with yours is that you're just a little bit too early.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottI think—
Al ElliottNot the first time a woman said that to me.
Leanne ElliottLol. Yeah, I think you're just a bit ahead of your time. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, no, very good. So there you go. We're going to do the same this year. We always do. We'll have predictions in for 2026 that we'll record for 2027. Oh my gosh.
Al ElliottOh no, it can't be.
Leanne Elliott2027.
Al ElliottThat is the year I turn 50 years old.
Leanne ElliottYeah, big year. I predict it's going to be a good year.
Al ElliottI think it's going to be a really good year because I think that we are now getting to the point where it's starting to settle down a bit on AI. There's not many people in the sort of developing world who, who don't know about it and haven't used it. They, a lot of people are getting an idea of what it can and can't do. Um, I do worry for SaaS companies. Now when I say SaaS, just in case you don't know, that is software as a service. Uh, so it'll be anything, most of the software you've got is a SaaS. So like Notion, uh, you know, anything online that you pay a subscription for.
Leanne ElliottYep.
Al ElliottI do worry about that because I'm seeing more and more people who are non-developers or even just hobbyists building their own version and saying, well, why am I paying for Photoshop when I can get, you know, Claude Fable can build it for me in 5 days and it'll cost me 300 quid in credits and then I can cancel it, uh, the Photoshop. So I, I do worry about that, especially the ones which are kind of thin wrappers. So they're essentially, they just do, oh, we just schedule your posts. Like, um, Yeah. I'm not gonna say, I'm not gonna say the company because there's a company who we both know about and we both know someone who used to work there and I don't wanna shit on them. But that worries me greatly. I'd be very worried about that.
Leanne ElliottYeah, like you say, it's going to start to shake out, isn't it? And I think ultimately other things will be needed, won't there? Other demands. It's just the same cycle, isn't it? It's like how we used to all go down to Blockbuster on a Friday night. Now it's laughable, the thought of paying like £50 a month for Like you say, Photoshop might sound ridiculous in 10 years' time. Something else will replace it.
Al ElliottIt also made me laugh. I can't remember where I saw this, whether I read it or someone told me this, saying that back in the days when it was Blockbuster, you basically go down and go, I can't watch this movie because someone else is watching it. Can you imagine in today, like saying to some kid who's like 12 going, you can't, I'm sorry, you can't watch that movie because someone else is watching it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, you used to have to like, like get there like on the dot it opened if there was a new film out and you wanted to watch it. Like you had, because they only had so many, so many VHS tapes.
Al ElliottI remember that in our newsagent's.
Leanne ElliottOr you'd reserve it. You'd put your name on a waiting list.
Al ElliottWe had a little sticky note and you could write your name at the bottom of it.
Leanne ElliottAnd yeah. Mad madness, isn't it? It was the same with the libraries. I remember when I was doing my degree, Like having to wait for somebody else in my year to return the book that I needed to do my assignment on.
Al ElliottNuts, isn't it? Yeah.
Leanne ElliottOh, how times change. Yeah. What's the world?
Al ElliottAlso, I think I'm going to come back to this prediction in December, but I think we're heading towards an AI bubble. You remember the—
Leanne Elliottyeah.
Al ElliottDo you remember the dot-com bubble of the 2000s?
Leanne ElliottNot personally, but I know of it.
Al ElliottYou'd be about 3 years old. But yeah, so basically a load of people would invest in all these new websites like pet.com, pets.com, and all this kind of thing. And then they would just collapse because they went and bought slides for the office and spent all their money. I think that's happening with AI now.
Leanne ElliottI agree. There's too many AI companies, isn't there? Just doing stuff.
Al ElliottAnd the other thing, which not that many people know, is that Anthropic and OpenAI, which are Claude and ChatGPT respectively, They massively, massively discount their tokens. So if you were to go through the API, it genuinely costs like 5 or 6 times more for each token. And so as soon as they go public, which they're both going to do this year, I think, then I reckon a lot of people are going to be like, what? Why is my limits reduced down? Why is it costing me more money? Why am I now paying £100 a month, not £20 a month to get the same amount of usage?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo maybe, but you know what, that maybe that's a point where someone goes, you know what, we can get a contractor in to do this for about the same price and actually give somebody a job.
Al ElliottYes, I like that. I like that a lot. Subsidising, by the way, listeners, is what the word I was looking for. And I know you were shouting it out. Leanne, shall we sum things up? Do we— did we keep score?
Leanne ElliottNo, couldn't be bothered. I think we were right on. I think, as I said, I'd sum it up by, I don't think any of my predictions were particularly groundbreaking that nobody else saw coming. I think a lot of people would have said human skills would be more important as AI continues. So yeah, yeah, I think mine were kind of predictable predictions. And I think you were actually good at making genuine predictions.
Al ElliottI see. Now, that's, that's lovely of you to say. But to be fair, I do spend a lot of time on X reading very, very clever people, people far cleverer than me. And all of mine were around AI, which I'll be honest was, I wish I didn't have to say this, but I think it was kind of obvious where it was going. So yeah, yeah. Anyway, well, Leanne, I think that you are You are beautifully optimistic, and I want you to continue to be so, because if, if these— if your predictions come true, then the world will be a better place. And the world is already a better place with you in it.
Leanne ElliottOh, what do you want? What are you putting me up for?
Al ElliottWe're gonna get some lunch in a minute. I want, I want a decent lunch. By the way, it's not misogynistic. Leanne does the lunch and I do laundry.
Leanne ElliottI enjoy cooking.
Al ElliottYeah, Leanne's— yeah, and I do laundry and cleaning and whatever. So, um, yeah, just, just in case we're About to get canceled for me being a— being what's the manosphere, is it? Is that what I was gonna—
Leanne ElliottYeah, my trad wife. Is that what you're saying?
Al ElliottWhat's a trad wife?
Leanne ElliottExactly.
Al ElliottTraditional wife.
Leanne ElliottYeah, traditional wife.
Al ElliottYeah, when I think of trad wife, uh, wife, I think of like headscarves and 1900s housecoats.
Leanne ElliottAmish.
Al ElliottI did, I did. So there you have it, final episode of our summer sessions are complete. Welcome to September, guys. I hope in some parts of the world it is raining because it needs it, I think. But if you don't want it to rain, I hope that—
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah. Back to school this week. Good luck, everybody. Godspeed. I'm sure there's parents going, yeah, finally, get out my house. So congratulations to you. And also, fun fact, today, the 1st of September, is our anniversary. It is our 14th wedding anniversary today, my love.
Al ElliottYes, it is. I remembered that. I definitely remember that.
Leanne ElliottHonestly, the jewellery I got this morning—
Al ElliottThe thing is, I've got to go and pick it up. It wasn't quite ready in time, so I've got to go and pick it up this afternoon. Shit.
Leanne ElliottYeah, no, it's all fine. We'll be back next Tuesday with the usual, back to our normal programming. This Week in Work, our news roundup, our Truth or Lie, our Surgery, and we have so many great guests lined up for you over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for that.
Al ElliottYeah, thank you for keeping us company over summer. We've had some best time. And thank you again to all our Summer Session guests, including Georgia Hodgkinson, Megan French Dunbar, Danny Wareham, Dr. Jake Tuber, and of course the awesome Emma Jamil. Emma. And then also our guests Tom Emery, Owen Fitzpatrick, Chris Lovett with the hair, the funniest guy in the world, he's brilliant, Chris Lovett, uh, Dr. Rachel Morris. And then of course thank you to Kate and to MFD for letting us steal their, um, still their episode, episode, and having a little bit of a lighter day for those days.
Leanne ElliottIndeed. Yeah. So if you've enjoyed our summer sessions as much as we have, we would love you to take the time, leave us a review, get in touch with the show, head over to LinkedIn, all the good stuff. All the links, as always, are in the show notes.
Al ElliottSay goodbye, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottBye, Leanne.
Al ElliottBye, guys. Bye-bye.
Leanne ElliottBye-bye. Went really deep then.
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