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AI Predictions for 2026: AI Control Planes, Talent Market Shifts, and…a 35-Hour Workweek?

AI Knowhow: Episode

108

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AI Knowhow Episode 108 Overview

  • 2026 Predictions: Courtney, David, and Mohan gaze into the crystal ball for 2026, predicting major shifts in the talent market, the rise of “AI Control Planes,” and a bold call for a 35-hour work week at a Fortune 500 company.
  • The “Manager of Agents”: Pete Buer breaks down the news from KPMG about training new hires to manage AI agents and the potential risks of skipping the “school of hard knocks.”
  • Expert Interview: Chris Willis, Chief Design Officer at Domo, joins the show to discuss why “magical thinking” is hurting AI adoption and why the real barrier isn’t technology, it’s organizational design.

2026 Predictions: From “Slop” to Systemic Change

On this week’s episode of AI Knowhow, the team makes their annual predictions of what the business landscape will look like in 2026 and some of the biggest AI-related impacts we’ll see. David, Courtney, and Mohan make two predictions apiece that we’ll revisit in December ’26 to find out just how prescient the team is. The consensus bets for 2026? We’re moving past the experimental phase into structural, systemic changes.

David’s first prediction is that the talent market will reshape around judgment. He sees a fundamental shift in how talent is hired and valued. As AI handles execution, the premium on “past experience” (doing the thing) will decrease, while the value of judgment and true creativity will skyrocket. We may see a resurgence in demand for humanities majors like philosophers and historians who can exercise critical thinking rather than just technical execution.

Mohan Rao calls the “rise of the AI control plane.” Mohan forecasts the move from isolated AI experiments to robust AI Systems. His key prediction is the adoption of “AI control planes,” infrastructure that allows disparate AI agents to communicate and operate reliably at an enterprise scale. He also sees the emergence of “AI-led delivery pods,” where a single human strategist directs a fleet of agents to execute complex B2B services.

Courtney Baker makes a bold prediction that a Fortune 500 company will shift to a 35-hour work week with no reduction in pay, leveraging AI productivity gains to improve human well-being. She even goes so far as to name which company and its headline-making CEO will be the one to do it. On the flip side, Courtney warns of the “Era of Slop,” where platforms like LinkedIn decline in value and usage due to the overwhelming volume of AI-generated, low-quality content, forcing a return to trusted human voices.

Expert Interview: Chris Willis of Domo

Chris Willis, Chief Design Officer at Domo, brings his perspective to the conversation as well, highlighting the gap between “magical thinking” and enterprise reality. Among the issues executives need to overcome to derive real, lasting value from AI are:

  • The “Integration Slog.” Chris notes that while generating code or content is instant, integration takes weeks. Technology is moving faster than organizational decision-making, creating an “integration slog” where innovations die in the waiting room of governance.
  • Magical Thinking vs. Data Reality. Many executives extrapolate their experience with consumer tools to complex enterprise problems. Chris reminds leaders that “just because an executive gets a dashboard doesn’t mean they are a data-driven organization.” You cannot skip the hard work of getting your data house in order, he advises.

Key Takeaway: AI adoption will fail more than it succeeds in the coming year not because the tech is bad, but because of organizational design and leadership gaps. Companies must shift to become “learning organizations” to survive.

AI News: KPMG and the “Manager of Agents”

Pete Buer unpacks recent reports that KPMG is redesigning the role of junior consultants to be “managers of AI agents” rather than just grunts doing the legwork.

While this sounds progressive, Pete raises a critical question for leaders: If juniors aren’t doing the analysis themselves, do they develop the intuition needed to judge the output?

  • The Risk: Without the “school of hard knocks,” future leaders may lack the foundational knowledge to spot hallucinations or strategic errors.
  • The Opportunity: For buyers of professional services, this is a prompt to probe deeper. Are you paying for human insight or machine output? For sellers, radical transparency about how the work is done is now a non-negotiable.

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Show Notes

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