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The companion
In 1930 Keynes predicted technology would hand us a 15-hour working week by about now, and yet here we all are, taking emergency mental health walks at 3pm. AI has not made the pod less busy, it has made them better, and better breeds more, because every task you hand to a robot creates room for three new ideas you now feel obliged to have. So the leadership move is not to work less intensely. Rest with the same intensity you bring to everything else, and point AI at the things you have never been able to do rather than the things you already do fine.
1. The expansion test
Kirsty's friend Hannah, a writer with a genuinely beautiful creative soul, put her finger on why so much workplace AI feels tedious: companies keep pointing it at things people already do perfectly well. AI can read your emails. So can you. Most of us get about three. The frustration comes from comparing AI to yourself, and the fun comes from asking a different question entirely: what have I always thought I would love to do, but never could? For Kirsty that was a virtual course companion, built on the Claude API, that lets past students ask "I've got self-doubt today, what should I do?" and get pointed to the exact moment in hours of footage. It once told a user it could not help with ghosts, but could help with bigger fears. Correct on both counts.
“Here is what my team does and what we are known for. Ignore everything we already do well. List ten things we have always wanted to offer our customers or colleagues but never could, because of time, budget or skill, that AI now makes plausible. Rank them by how much delight they would cause.”
Leader's note: if your AI strategy is a list of existing tasks with 'automate' written next to them, you have bought a very expensive mirror. Expansion is where the edge is, replacement is where the resentment is.
2. The one-message presentation
Listener Becky has a big presentation to a brand-new CEO, and Kirsty's advice applies to anyone presenting up. Do not open the slides. Do not go near the template. Pen and paper first: what is my one message? For a new CEO it is probably some version of "I've got this, and here is what my team can do." Then find the moment, incident or story that proves that message and open with it, because senior audiences want light on detail, heavy on story. End with one clear ask. And whatever happens, do not run over your slot. Kirsty would rather you wet yourself than go one minute over.
“My one message for this presentation is: [message]. Here is my draft. Interrogate every slide and line: does it prove the one message, is it story or is it filler, and what would I cut to deliver this in three quarters of the allotted time? Then suggest one closing ask that sets up a future conversation.”
Leader's note: the head wants to open PowerPoint and pour numbers into a blank 16 by 9 rectangle until something sticks. It does not work. One message, one story, one ask.
3. ChatJimmy, a preview of instant AI
Henry's answer to listener Andrew's "most interesting thing in AI right now". Toronto startup Taalas hard-wired Meta's free Llama 3.1 8B model directly into silicon, like the chip in a musical greeting card that can only play one song. The result runs at around 17,000 tokens per second, which is a whole book in about ten seconds, using a fraction of the power of the GPUs currently moonlighting between Call of Duty and ChatGPT. You can try it at chatjimmy.ai. Meanwhile OpenAI has partnered with Cerebras on an Ultrafast tier running at up to 750 tokens per second. The waiting is going away.
Leader's note: half of today's AI working style, set a task, wander off, context switch, lose the thread, exists because AI is slow. Single-purpose chips are fast and dramatically more energy efficient. Plan for the version of your workflow where the answer is instant and the excuse to flit is gone.
1. Get intense about rest
Kirsty's somatic therapist Simon heard “people tell me I'm too intense about work” and declined to fix it. His reframe: maybe you do not need to be less intense with work, just more intense with rest. If your work is purpose-driven and genuinely fulfilling, doing less of it is not the goal, recovering like it matters is. Kirsty used to ask “have I worked enough to earn my rest?”, and after overwork made her ill she flipped it. Have I rested enough to do my work? This week, protect one block of proper, guest-free, of-service-to-nobody rest with the same ferocity you protect a client deadline, and let your team see you do it.
2. Write the rest menu
From Kirsty's friend Briony Gunson: a phenomenally specific menu of the small things that relax you and the small things that energise you. The trap is making rest too big, the hike, the yoga class, the full rigmarole with the walking boots, so it never happens. The menu is for the other 95 percent of the day: one song danced to with headphones on, a cup of tea drunk while actually drinking it, three minutes outside, five deep breaths between calls. The attention span is not shrinking, the noise is growing, so reduce the noise. Write your menu, ten items, half of them under five minutes. Then ask each person on your team for their version in your next one-to-one.
3. The busier-but-better audit
Keynes promised the 15-hour week. Elon promises infinite abundance. Your calendar disagrees with both. The honest pattern from this episode: AI does not shrink the work, it upgrades it, and then invites you to fill the space with new projects, new micro-businesses, new dashboards that require a 3pm mental health walk. So audit it. List everything AI has changed about your work in the last quarter, and sort each item into three columns: genuinely faster, genuinely better, or just more. AI will not give you a shorter week if you keep refilling the hours it frees. Keep the better. Question the more.
Transcript coming soon. It will live right here, in full, for every episode.