Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

February 24, 2026: Five major stories broke in the last 24 hours at the intersection of AI and the future of work — and they're all in conversation with each other. Anthropic launched Claude directly inside Excel, PowerPoint, and Slack, making its biggest move yet into everyday knowledge work. A Federal Reserve governor said on the record that if AI drives unemployment, interest rate cuts — the government's go-to economic tool — may not be able to fix it. Goldman Sachs revealed that despite hundreds of billions in AI investment, it may have contributed almost nothing to U.S. economic growth last year. Yale's Budget Lab pushed back on the AI productivity revolution narrative, saying the data simply doesn't support it yet. And a financial research firm's fictional scenario set in 2028 went so viral it triggered a major market selloff.

Many companies try to solve low morale with simple perks like wellness apps, but workers often care more about real pay and career growth. The big challenge today is keeping frontline employees happy while the world worries about AI impact and high turnover. What could be the most substantial, meaningful investments leaders can make that truly build real loyalty? In this episode, Paul Marchand, EVP and CHRO of Charter Communications, more popularly known as Spectrum, discusses how to invest in people to create a better customer experience. He explains the strategy behind helping a 95,000-person workforce through absorbing rising benefit costs and programs like frictionless, prepaid tuition reimbursement and a unique employee stock purchase plan designed to build an owner mindset. Paul shares how "open mic" sessions at Charter improve their employee retention, and the way Spectrum GPT is being used to make HR more efficient. We also explore the 'high school pathways' initiative, upcoming M&A integration with Cox Communications, and how HR role evolution is turning leaders into Chief Future of Work Officers, going far beyond traditional employee management. This episode shows CHROs how to use a people-first strategy to build a resilient and competitive workforce. ---------- 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

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: The best AI job risk analysis I've seen: who's exposed, who can adapt, and which roles are most vulnerable Accenture reportedly tying promotions to AI tool adoption—what this signals and why it can backfire Why the "AI will replace you" narrative is dangerous—and how fear distorts leadership decisions Walmart's approach: training 1.6 million workers on AI instead of using AI as a reason to cut headcount 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. ---------- 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. ---------- 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. ---------- 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. ---------- 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

Feb 6, 2026: Artificial intelligence is hitting a tipping point — and it's showing up everywhere at once. In today's episode of Future-Ready Today, I break down a wave of stories that all landed at the same time: Big Tech's plan to spend roughly $650 billion on AI infrastructure, a trillion-dollar selloff in software stocks, healthcare workers protesting the use of AI on the front lines, and a new wave of state AI laws set to reshape how employers use technology at work. Taken together, these stories reveal how AI is no longer just a technology trend — it's becoming a force reshaping markets, labor, and regulation simultaneously.

Feb 5, 2026: Are software vendors in trouble? Why are employees suddenly complying with return-to-office mandates? And what happens when leaders are afraid to ask their own teams for feedback? In today's episode of Future-Ready Today, we unpack five stories that together reveal a major reset happening inside organizations: Why Workday is cutting jobs — and what falling enterprise software stocks (including ServiceNow) signal about how AI is disrupting traditional SaaS business models. New data showing workers backing down on return-to-office demands as employers reclaim leverage. A leadership study revealing that senior executives want feedback — but fear appearing weak if they ask. Layoffs surging to the highest January level since 2009, driven in part by restructuring at UPS following shifts in volume from Amazon. And research from Bain & Company showing a massive disconnect between leaders who think change is working and employees who say it isn't.

Feb 4, 2026: In this episode of Future-Ready Today, I explore a fundamental shift in the workplace: the transition from a task economy to a trust economy. As artificial intelligence moves from "future tech" to "daily tool," the basic mechanics of how we hire, manage, and let go of people are under intense pressure. We aren't just dealing with new software; we're dealing with a breakdown in identity and accountability. I dive deep into five stories shaping this week's headlines: The Deepfake Candidate: Why identity verification is becoming the most critical new skill in HR. California's Algorithmic Guardrails: The new legislative push to ensure humans—not code—remain responsible for firing decisions. The "Job Apocalypse" Debate: Analyzing Ben Horowitz's take on why new work emerges even as old categories vanish. The $818 Billion Admin Tax: How poorly designed organizations are drowning in emails, and why AI might be the only way out. The AI Layoff Script: Why "technology made us do it" is becoming the new corporate excuse, and how leaders can maintain credibility during transitions. The Bottom Line: The future of work won't be won by the companies with the most AI. It will be won by the companies that use technology to remove "administrative garbage" while doubling down on human accountability.

Feb 3, 2026: We start with the rise of "résumé Botox," where experienced professionals are removing years of experience just to get past hiring filters. Then we look at new data showing how Americans are rethinking what "safe jobs" look like in an AI-driven economy, with growing confidence in hands-on and blue-collar work. From there, we explore the next phase of automation as AI moves beyond screens and into the physical world — with robots learning to operate in messy, real-world environments. We also go inside Google's Project EAT to understand how one of the world's largest companies is turning AI from a personal productivity tool into a standardized operating model. Finally, we examine why the construction labor gap is shrinking — and why that may say more about slowing demand and capital cycles than a true solution to labor shortages. Each story stands on its own, but together they point to a bigger shift in how experience, skills, and job security are being redefined.

What happens when activist investors call your multi-billion dollar acquisition the "single worst deal of the decade"? Most leadership teams would panic, but NRG Energy did the opposite: they doubled down on their people. While most large-scale acquisitions look great on a spreadsheet, they often fail because leadership loses sight of the human energy behind the numbers. In this episode, Peter Johnson, SVP and Head of Talent and Culture at NRG, reveals how his team navigated the acquisition of Vivint—a deal that tripled their workforce to 16,000 employees and was publicly condemned by activist investors as the "single worst deal" in the sector. While the announcement triggered a 25% stock crash, their leadership's commitment to a strategic "North Star" and a "don't crush the butterfly" cultural philosophy eventually drove a staggering 420% stock recovery. Peter explores the raw challenges of an 18-month integration, from the technical hurdles of migrating 16,000 employees between competing HR systems to the deeply emotional task of harmonizing job titles across disparate industries. By prioritizing the "why" behind the change and fostering a unified "One NRG" identity, the company successfully blended traditional corporate discipline with tech-forward innovation, nearly doubling employee engagement and proving that human-centric leadership is a massive financial win. If you're a CHRO, this episode shows what real value creation looks like when people come first. ---------- 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—preorder a copy here: 8EXlaws.com

January 30, 2026: The future of work is accelerating—and for many leaders, it feels overwhelming. Political shifts, new laws, rapid advances in AI, rising ethical expectations, and changing employee demands are all converging at once. The volume of change can make it feel like you're stuck on a treadmill that keeps getting faster. But here's the reality: not every trend deserves your attention. In this episode, I walk through how external forces—political, legal, and ethical—are reshaping the employee experience, from pay transparency and AI governance to data privacy, workplace monitoring, and evolving expectations of leadership. I also explain why compliance is no longer just an HR or legal responsibility—it's becoming a shared leadership mandate. More importantly, I share why trends aren't truths. Just because something is happening doesn't mean you should chase it.

January 29, 2026: Today a series of stories made it impossible to ignore how fast work is changing. Meta says AI now allows one employee to do the work of entire teams. Engineers at Anthropic and OpenAI say AI writes nearly 100% of their code. Amazon and Dow announced thousands of job cuts as they restructure for efficiency. And at the same time, companies are hiring storytellers to help cut through the growing flood of AI-generated content. In this episode of Future Ready Today, I connect the dots across these developments and explain what they reveal about shrinking teams, disappearing roles, changing career paths, and the rising importance of human skills in an AI-driven world. These aren't isolated headlines — they're signals of a deeper shift in how companies are redesigning work right now. I break down what's actually happening inside organizations, share the data behind these changes, and offer a futurist lens on what this all means for leaders, employees, and anyone trying to stay future ready.

January 28, 2026: In today's episode, I zoom out to help you see what's really shaping the future of work. Before we talk about AI, leadership, or organizational strategy, we need to understand the forces happening outside our companies. Because work doesn't evolve in isolation—it's shaped by powerful external trends in technology, society, economics, and more. That's why I walk through the STEEPLE framework: a futurist tool designed to help leaders move from reacting to predicting—and from predicting to designing. STEEPLE stands for Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical forces. Together, these seven domains explain how work is changing and what leaders need to prepare for over the next five-plus years, especially in an AI-driven world. We explore how AI is becoming the central nervous system of organizations, why skills are replacing job titles, how identity and purpose are reshaping careers, and why the economic contract between employers and employees is being rewritten in real time. I also share why the future of work isn't something organizations "deliver" to employees—it's something that's co-created, requiring accountability on both sides. If you're trying to make sense of rapid technological change, shifting employee expectations, and what leadership really means in the age of AI, this episode gives you a practical framework to understand what's coming—and how to design for it.