40. Our 2026 Predictions: Expect the Unexpected

Summary

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At Work with The Ready

Episode 40: Our 2026 Predictions: Expect the Unexpected

Hosts: Rodney Evans (A), Sam Spurlin (B)
Date: December 29, 2025

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Overview

In their final episode of 2025, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin reflect on a transformative year in the world of work and peer boldly into 2026 with a mix of grounded insight and speculative energy. The conversation centers on the accelerating impacts of AI in organizations, shifting labor markets, and how companies are grappling with unprecedented disruption. Both hosts offer candid, sometimes contrarian predictions for the coming year—challenging conventional narratives and highlighting the nuanced human and organizational factors shaping the future of work.

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Reflections on 2025 (01:13–03:42)

• Rodney's Reflection:

  • 2025 was a year of “seeing through the matrix,” as widely held assumptions about work, pay, and the social contract eroded.
  • Growing public awareness that established systems like executive pay, health insurance tied to employment, and social safety nets are failing.
  • "A lot of the lies we have been told are now being seen for what they are. And that feels a little scary, but also very validating." — Rodney (02:25)

• Sam's Reflection:

  • AI has dominated discourse, sometimes serving as a productive catalyst, but often distracting from more fundamental organizational issues.
  • The AI conversation is “drawing attention to things we’ve been talking about for a decade”—like role clarity and workflow visualization—while also overshadowing other vital problems.
  • Describes himself as “of two minds” about the AI hype vs. its organizational utility.

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2026 Predictions

1. The Normalization (and De-hyping) of AI (04:02–04:51)

• Sam’s Prediction #1:
  • AI will become a more “normal” technology in 2026; the hype will settle down.
  • The fantasy of imminent AGI will fade, with attention shifting to practical, useful applications.
  • “The breathless nature of AI will...calm down a little bit...for better or worse, in 2026.” — Sam (04:47)
  • Rodney is skeptical but intrigued by this take.

2. The Tipping Point for White Collar Displacement (05:22–09:53)

• Rodney’s Prediction #1:
  • 2026 will see a tangible shift in the workforce as white collar displacement due to AI becomes real and visible.
  • Many layoffs so far have been “performative” or a signaling strategy for investors; the true AI-driven job losses are just beginning.
  • Early data hints at growing applicant surges in fields like corrections, military, and waste management—signaling worker anxieties about future employability.
  • Anticipates a flooded job market, wage stagnation, and severe pressure on social services.
  • “By sort of middle of next year, I think we’re just going to see a market flooded with resumes...just a real shift in terms of what the US economy looks like and where the jobs are and aren’t.” — Rodney (08:24)
  • Sam jokes: “Depending on how my current job search goes, I may be reporting from the front lines on this one for us into 2026.” (09:05)

3. Rise of Internal Org Design Capacity (09:53–12:07)

• Sam’s Prediction #2:
  • Companies will accelerate the building of internal organization design teams (“internal org design capacity”) to respond more rapidly to change, rather than relying solely on consultants.
  • Compares this to the way digital transformation created a need for dedicated change management disciplines.
  • “The pace of organizational change is truly accelerating and organizations are realizing...there’s more work to be done in a more constant way than they can kind of shovel off to consultants.” — Sam (10:04)
  • Discussion on whether org design will replace or evolve from traditional change management roles.

4. Choosing AI Over Human Teammates for Behavioral Reasons (12:09–14:49)

• Rodney’s Prediction #2:
  • Employees will increasingly choose AI over problematic human colleagues—particularly when people are slow, uncollaborative, or difficult.
  • “Quiet firing” of teammates by bypassing them via AI solutions, even as workers themselves fear AI displacement.
  • Behavioral incentives: AI is non-political, non-egoistic, pleasant, and infinitely cooperative.
  • “AI is nothing but like, yes-and energy...compare that to the IT guy down the hall who’s like, ‘I’ll put it in the backlog, you won’t see it for three years, don’t expect anything.’ Who are you going to pick?” — Rodney (14:16)
  • Sam notes that AI’s agreeable nature makes it an attractive “teammate,” possibly leading to further avoidance of difficult interpersonal work.

5. Bimodal Organization Evolution & AI-Native Micro-Organizations (15:04–17:47)

• Sam’s Prediction #3:
  • Organizations will increasingly split along two paths:
    1. Legacy/industrial-era companies using AI to supercharge old-school efficiency—leading to further exploitation and potential social problems.
    2. New, small, distributed “AI native” organizations—highly flexible and less traditionally organized, collaborating in novel ways.
  • Predicts deep creative and societal change as these models diverge, but also challenges around unemployment and adaptation.
  • “Start to build these organizations from scratch...like many years ago when mobile-first like Instagram...became massively influential and powerful with a very small number of people.” — Sam (16:49)

6. The Birth of AI-Exempt Organizations and Premium Human Work (17:47–21:30)

• Rodney’s Prediction #3:
  • The coming of AI will create a premium on “AI-free” or “human-crafted” products, services, and experiences (echoes of artisan, handmade luxury).
  • Organizations and society may intentionally carve out spaces or roles where AI is forbidden or strictly limited—for risk, creativity, or prestige reasons.
  • Anticipates “AI labeling” akin to disclosures in other industries (e.g., video games, influencer content).
  • “Part of the new luxury will be craft, will be human-crafted things...like buying a hand-knotted rug versus buying something synthetic from an assembly line.” — Rodney (18:15)
  • “There will start to be some real reining in of what can be created solely by AI and maybe even what must involve humans.” — Rodney (19:25)
  • Sam confirms AI labeling has already begun in sectors like gaming (Steam now labels games with AI-generated content).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "A lot of the lies we have been told are now being seen for what they are. And that feels a little scary, but also very validating." — Rodney (02:25)
• "The breathless nature of AI will...calm down a little bit...for better or worse, in 2026." — Sam (04:47)
• "By sort of middle of next year, I think we’re just going to see a market flooded with resumes...just a real shift in terms of what the US economy looks like and where the jobs are and aren’t." — Rodney (08:24)
• "AI is nothing but like, yes-and energy...compare that to the IT guy down the hall who’s like, ‘I’ll put it in the backlog, you won’t see it for three years, don’t expect anything.’ Who are you going to pick?" — Rodney (14:16)
• "Start to build these organizations from scratch...like many years ago when mobile-first like Instagram...became massively influential and powerful with a very small number of people." — Sam (16:49)
• "Part of the new luxury will be craft, will be human-crafted things...like buying a hand-knotted rug versus buying something synthetic from an assembly line." — Rodney (18:15)

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Discussion Highlights & Timestamps

| Segment | Speaker(s) | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------|----------------|-------------| | Reflections on 2025 | Both | 01:13–03:42 | | AI Becomes Mundane | Sam | 04:02–04:51 | | White Collar Layoff Tipping Point | Rodney | 05:22–09:53 | | Internal Org Design Capacity Will Grow | Sam & Rodney | 09:53–12:07 | | Choosing AI Over Human Coworkers | Rodney & Sam | 12:09–14:49 | | Bimodal Organizations & AI-Native Firms | Sam | 15:04–17:47 | | AI-Exempt, Human-Premium Work | Rodney & Sam | 17:47–21:30 |

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Tone & Style

• Warm, candid, and laced with wry humor and skepticism.
• Willingness to challenge established narratives—often with a pragmatic, human-centered perspective.
• Predictions are thoughtful but playful, underscoring the hosts’ belief in adaptability over long-term strategic certainty.

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Final Note

This episode offers a kaleidoscopic, unsentimental, and highly practical look at the near future of work—encouraging listeners to expect the unexpected, interrogate the real impact of AI, and get ready for a world in which adaptability and human ingenuity are more essential (and possibly, more rarefied) than ever.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to At Work with the Ready. I'm Rodney Evans and that's my friend Sam Sperlin.

[B]

Hello, everybody. And especially you, Rodney Evans.

[A]

Thank you, Sam. AI is rewriting the rules of work as we speak. The future of work is here. And the question now is not whether you're going to adapt, but how you actually design work for this moment.

[B]

In other words, work design is no longer optional. And the teams that treat it like a side project are actively being left behind. And the ones that treat it as essential will keep up with with the pace of change.

[A]

So today, because this is our last episode of 2025, A Year of so many changes, we are going to do a predictions episode. We've never done exactly a predictions episode before, just you and me. So I'm pretty psyched because now we get to make a bunch of shit up and we don't have to show any receipts for a year and by.

[B]

Then everybody will forget.

[A]

Yeah. And when Jackson, the reflection episode needs to look back at 2025. If we're wrong, we can just be like, no.

[B]

The predictions are notoriously difficult to make. Rodney, just saying that up front, that's so true.

[A]

I mean, I do call myself a futurist, but whatever, whatever.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Okay, let's check in because we're so.

[B]

Like, down to business. No fun check in. Today we're just gonna get into some reflections and then we'll move into predictions. So maybe we can go like one or two reflections each from the year and why don't you kick us off? What's one of your reflections from 2025?

[A]

Mm, I would say when I think about it through a work lens, I feel like 2025 was a real like seeing through the matrix or piercing the veil kind of a year. Like so many truths that have sort of been held as evident about work that you and I have long sensed were bullshit have really proven to be so. And I feel like the collective consciousness around the fact that like CEOs should make a trillion dol. People with full time jobs should have health insurance, and like there should be some social safety net as systems collapse. Like, these are things that I think we were still in many ways convinced were rational or reasonable in some way, like two years ago and now I feel like collectively we're all just like, nah. So my reflection on 2025 is that a lot of the lies that we have been told are now being seen for what they are. And that feels a little scary, but also very validating.

[B]

Yeah. All right. I. Yeah, with that. Yeah, I mean, it's. So the thing that I am left with is. And we're going to be talking a lot about AI, because how could you not in a kind of predictions sort of episode. But as I reflect on the year, I'm really drawn to the idea that this focus on AI in many cases has been a massive distraction from what actually makes organizations better. And but to quote a good friend of ours, it is also sometimes prompting the right conversation. So things around like role clarity and actually how does the work actually get done and can we visualize it and explain it to others, which are things we've been talking about for a decade. I have been kind of brought to the fore with the AI conversation, while at the same time feeling like a lot of the AI conversation is distracting from stuff, like, other stuff that we should be figuring out how to do in organizations. So I'm really of two minds when it comes to that. It leaves me kind of. Yeah. A bit of a split reflection on the year.

[A]

Nice. Cool. All right, so we get into predictions. Yes. Sam has a thousand, and I only have three.

[B]

So I'm only going to pick three good ones, so don't worry.

[A]

Okay, why don't you go first? What's your first prediction for 2026?

[B]

All right. I'll start with a kind of a milquetoast one, which is that I think AI will become more of a normal technology in 2026. The hype will slow. I think we will see that we are further away from AGI than a lot of folks are talking about, and we can kind of pull the AGI conversation away from the actual useful stuff that is happening right now with AI and we can start treating it like any other disruptive technology and not this. Whatever it has been for the past couple of years. And I think that doesn't mean that it, like, stops being important or that we aren't still talking about it all the time. We're doing a lot of interesting things around it. But I think, like, the breathless nature of AI will, like, will calm down a little bit with that, for better or worse, in 2026.

[A]

I like that. I don't know if I agree, but I think it's a cool take.

[B]

I mean, I think it's pretty fair to say all of these predictions, like, who the hell knows? Like, Rodney the Ready has been built on the idea that predicting the future is really hard and making really robust plans that kind of fall apart when things start changing around you is, you know. So I feel like we're A little bit over our skis doing a predictions episode anyway. But that's also what makes it fun.

[A]

Totally. I think that I'm going to go to my first prediction that feels related to this. And I think the part it relates to is like the idea that we do start treating this as like any other disruptive technology I think is true, like energetically. Where I might diverge a little bit is I think 2026 is the tipping point. I think this is the year that we go from speculation about what this could mean for reshaping our economy and reshaping industry and start to see more clearly actually what it's going to be. I don't think that. I don't think the massive change will happen in 2026. I think, I don't think the bottom's going to fully fall out until 2027 through 2029 is my guess. But I think 2026, my prediction is that the displacement of white collar workers becomes a reality. Certainly we're already seeing this in pockets, but my sense is that most of how it's happening right now has been either performative or a forcing function. I think a lot of CEOs have made the call to shed a bunch of jobs both to force more automation and efficiency and also to signal to Wall street that they're serious about AI transformation. But I don't think the truth is that AI has actually taken, quote, unquote, all of those jobs in 2026. I think it will. So I think in 2026 we're going to see like the middle of a lot of organizations carved out and a lot of middle class and sort of middle management pushed to gig work, blue collar work, really a lot of scrambling around trying to reskill to be relevant in AI hybrid work. And there's some data actually that I stumbled across the other day that this is already happening. It's just like happening very quietly. So there are some jobs that historically have had a real challenge recruiting that are shifting like on a dime. So like for example, like the applications to the Georgia Department of corrections are up 40% compared to last year a couple of years ago. Like I've, I've known a lot of veterans for a long time for various reasons. The number one issue being talked about in the armed forces in the US was recruitment and like a talent shortage. This is the first year that the US military has met its recruiting goals ahead of schedule. And even jobs like waste management, like the garbage industry has seen a 50% surge in applications. So I think that like These are like quiet signals of something that's coming. I think probably a lot of the people who are applying for those roles are maybe not yet laid off, but sort of see the writing on the wall. And I think we're just going to buy sort of middle of next year. I think we're just going to see a market flooded with resumes like wage stagnation and just a real shift in terms of what the US economy looks like and where the jobs are and aren't. I am not an economist and I don't feel like I know enough to understand yet how that's really going to impact prices, recessions, etc. But I do imagine that a lot of our public systems like unemployment insurance, mental health service, medical systems are going to be really, really overtaxed as there are like just tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people needing services who never have before.

[B]

Yeah, well, depending on how my current job search goes, I may be reporting from the front lines on this one for us into 2026.

[A]

Get thyself a chair before this happens. Yeah, I think it's going to be crazy out there. I mean, actually, I think it's kind of interesting, Sam, because I think people who do what we do are going to be incredibly well positioned as this whole thing completely shits the bed. But right now it's dicey. Right now everybody's like knees bent, like everybody's in crouch being like, what's going to happen? We don't know, maybe don't do anything. But I think that people who have org design and adaptive skill sets are going to be in incredibly high demand as real AI transformation, not what's happening right now, starts in earnest.

[B]

Well, that's a perfect segue to my second prediction, which is that the trend toward building internal, what I'm going to call internal org design capacity accelerates. I think we're seeing bits of that right now for the exact reason that you just said, you know, the pace of organizational change is truly accelerating and organizations are realizing that while working with a company like the Ready and people like us is great, there's more work to be done in a more constant way than they can kind of shovel off to consultants and they're building internal teams to, to do this. And I'm aware of a hand of organizations in the last six months or so that have built internal or are building internal org design groups. And I think that will continue for the foreseeable future.

[A]

I agree with you. I just thought of this as you were talking. Do you think that this is like an analog to like how digital transformation or maybe even earlier than that, maybe like the rise of strategy as a real discipline in companies gave birth to the change management function. Do you think that like in AI will sort of usher in the parallel organizational design function?

[B]

Possibly. I think, I think that is a path or maybe kind of a short term band aid. Whereas I think, you know, what are the current change management folks doing and going to be doing in the near future? I mean that is a place where this work could also live with different mindsets and different skill sets and different approaches to it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I don't know if this is like a one to one replacement of that work or an evolution of that work that already can exist within organizations. Something, something in there.

[A]

Yeah, most of those folks have got a lot of unlearning to do if they're going to do what you do.

[B]

Yeah, indeed. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, cool.

[B]

But it's possible, I think I've definitely worked with some of those folks who have done some of that unlearning and partnering and working with us and like they have kind of the basics, the foundation to build on to, to do this work.

[A]

Well, yeah, totally. And the motivation for sure.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

All right, what else do you got?

[A]

Okay, I think that 2026 is the year that people in companies start choosing AI over human teammates for behavioral reasons. So we know that there's a lot of like shadow AI usage going on in a lot of companies right now where like the technology is not approved or sanctioned, it's not bought by the enterprise, obvious, it's dangerous in terms of safety and privacy, but it's happening all over the place. You know, one of the things that I am very bullish about in terms of AI is that it does not conform to dysfunctional systems. Like AI doesn't give a shit about your org chart, it doesn't give a shit about that guy's ego. Like it is what it is and it is mechanistic and it is not political and it doesn't really create a lot of bloat. Like it's kind of an efficiency machine. And what we will start to see is where there are still humans holding work and workflows, their teammates choosing to go around those people if they are annoying or difficult or slow, and essentially to quiet fire their teammates and replace them with AI, even as they themselves are worried about being replaced by AI. I think it's going to be like a weird boiling cauldron of like anyone who is difficult to work with or slow or just like painful is going to be in competition with AI for their colleagues collaboration.

[B]

Well. And when that AI, at least as of like right now, is a bit of a sycophant and will tell you what you want to hear and tell you that you're great and so smart, like, yeah, of course this is going to become my favorite teammate. Because who doesn't want to surround themselves with yes. Men and women or AIs all the time? That's the dream, is it not?

[A]

AI is nothing but like, yes. And energy and like, it's like you compare that to like, you know, going to the like the IT guy down the hall who's like, I'll put it in the backlog, you won't see it for three years, don't expect anything. And also get out of my face. And it's like, who are you going to pick? Who are you going to engage with? What I've been thinking a lot about in terms of this prediction is like, I think a lot of executives and a lot of thought leaders are talking about efficiency and productivity. And I don't think there's as much discussion about the sort of behavioral aspect of this, which is like AI is just more pleasant to collaborate with than a lot of human beings in a lot of companies.

[B]

Yeah. And I wonder, is that impetus to become more collaborative and a better version of yourself or not? I'm going to lean on probably not. But we shall see.

[A]

We shall see. We shall see.

[B]

All right. I've got another kind of AI flavored one. So I'm thinking about, as AI continues to become a bigger part of our organizations and our society in general, I think we will continue to see a kind of bimodal distribution of organizations. What I mean by that is on one end of this continuum we have the legacy organizations that are going to be and already are applying AI to accelerate and create more efficiency in fundamentally industrial era ways of working. And that will be unpleasant and kind of uncreative and uninteresting in many ways, but noble. And then on the other end of the continuum will be these AI native kind of distributed micro organizations almost that will be collaborating with each other in ways that won't even really feel like or look like organizations. So if those are the two, I think, I think organizations will be moving towards each end of that continuum in interesting ways. And to the extent that more organizations are moving toward the first thing that I talked about, the industrial era organizations applying AI to become more industrial era, I think that is going to Create a lot of societal problems down the road. The kind of massive unemployment and exploitation and all of that stuff. And I'm more interested in what moving more to the right looks like, which will have its own problems. I mean we're talking about smaller organizations doing more right. So that has you know, implications for unemployment of course. But I think that's the like creative aspect of AI that I think we're only starting to scratch the surface of, of like what is actually possible. Start to build these organizations from scratch. Kind of like you know, many years ago when like mobile for like Instagram and like other other organizations, other companies like that becoming massively influential and powerful with very small number of people. Like I think that's going to be a whole different level when AI continues to develop on the path that it has been.

[A]

Yeah, that's really cool. I think it's going to be such a mindset shift and I wonder if there are sort of a strata of leaders that just will like opt out and just be like, you know what, like let's leave this to Gen Z and Gen Alpha to figure out how to sort of play this like DSO game. We don't wanna seems to seems too hard.

[B]

I mean that's one way to kind of open up some like talent mobility and like promotion paths within organizations. Like maybe folks will finally retire.

[A]

Yeah, you never know.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

So my last prediction, I think this will begin in 2026 and probably later in 2026. But I think we're gonna start to see like a carve out of like AI exempt things both in terms of organizations and in terms of products. So on the product side like obviously I think AI is going to exacerbate the wealth gap and like massive income inequality that we are already experiencing in America. And for the winners, for the people who hoard all of the wealth, I think there will be a premium on human created, human crafted, human LED experiences, products, et cetera. I think like part of the new luxury will be craft will be human crafted things because I think AI crafted things will feel very like commodified and it'll be like buying like a hand knotted rug versus buying something that's like synthetic from a assembly line. And I think we'll start to see that because there's going to be all of these rich people who are like well what do I buy now? Because that's how rich people are. And also you know we've talked before on the show about like the experience economy that there's going to be a need for human Gathering like I just think there's going to be sort of a, an AI free human premium thing happening, trend happening on the organizational side. I think there will probably within the first half of 2026 have been enough fuckery with AI generated stuff that there will start to be some real reining in of what can be created solely by AI and maybe even what must involve humans. You know, we're seeing works, we're seeing headlines around like workslop created by consulting companies having to return large contracts value to their clients, blah blah, blah. There's gonna be more of that coming. I think it's kind of a one, two punch. I think on the one hand there will be enough sort of risk created by the fallibility of AI that there's real controls put into workflows and I think there will start to be some recognition of like how stupid AI us and that there are professions that we still want people to use critical thinking. And so we will constrain the use of AI so that it requires human cognition to continue to evolve and grow and not stagnate. And I expect that that's going to be an intentional choice that we don't just want, you know, three smart and talented people in the super company and everything else to be agents. Like I think we are going to want some part of society to still be able to like use creative problem solving and critical thinking.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I think to both of those points I agree. And I wanted to throw in the mix for the first point around kind of like AI labeling. Like that's actually currently happening in an industry or world that I care about, which is video games. So Steam, the video game marketplace is attaching labels to games that have AI generated content in it. And it's making some producers angry because they're like, who are you to tell us that we can't, you know, that we shouldn't have AI in here? And others are like this is just like putting the ingredients on a piece of food. The only people who have a problem with it are the ones who know or it's filled with shit. So like it's already starting to happen and it's not like clear cut like how people feel about it. But I think, I think you're right about that.

[A]

That's so interesting. It also like brings to mind when influencers started saying what was paid content and what was sponsored content and whatever. And for years that wasn't the case. And then like eventually that became if not mandated on some platforms, which it is also just like the sort of societal norm to be like, this is not my own. Like, these opinions are not my own. That's really cool. You want to wrap us up?

[B]

I do want to wrap us up. Hey everyone, thanks for listening this year, and as we plan our 2026 season, we'd love for you to share with us what you want to hear more about. So what's on your mind as you go into the new year? Shoot us a [e-mail] with your questions and ideas for future shows.

[A]

This show is engineered by Taylor Marvin and produced by our friend Jack Van Amberg. At Work with the READY is created by the ready, where we help organizations around the world change the way they work. Thank you so much for listening and have a happy new Year.