Worktech AI+Digital round-up
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We asked AI to challenge 100 senior leaders.
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Download the reportLast week Dan and Alice did something slightly mad. They closed WORKTECH AI + Digital Technologies 2026, at Meta's Kings Cross HQ, with an invisible colleague: an AI agent who had spent the entire day listening to the conference, then walked on stage to challenge a room of 100 senior leaders.
It was their second time live on a WORKTECH stage, and easily the most nerve-wracking. They weren't the experts in the room. They were two people genuinely curious about AI, trying to show what it actually feels like to work alongside it, in front of an audience who think about this for a living.
In this episode Dan and Alice unpack the whole thing: what they did, what surprised them, the imposter-syndrome spiral on the train home, and what the day taught them about the real state of AI at work. Then they hand the mic to Dinah, they AI colleague, for an unscripted interview. Here's the recap.
The honest bit
Alice and Dan open by reflecting on the surreal fact of speaking about AI at Meta's Kings Cross workspace, their second time live on a WORKTECH stage. A year ago the idea would have sounded absurd. It's a real example of "work is weird now," and of what happens when you keep a learning mindset and do the scary thing.
They're candid about the post-talk spiral, the "therapy moments on the train" and the imposter syndrome of presenting to a room already deep into AI. The reassurance: the feedback was overwhelming, with people saying they felt seen. The lesson is that some things never change, imposter syndrome included.
What they actually did
A recap of the format. After a full day of presentations from leaders at Johnson Controls, Meta, Microsoft and others, mostly one-way with Slido questions, Alice and Dan did something interactive. They fed the entire day into Alice's AI agent, Dinah, who put her synthesis on stage, challenged the room, split it into a live debate, then evolved her position and left them with a provocative question.
Dan's penny-drop on agentic AI
Dan's confession: the term "agentic AI" never quite clicked until he was on stage. Surrounded by the day's stats and watching Dinah work, it landed, how an AI colleague could genuinely function. She references Nicky Chapman of Microsoft describing a team of twelve: six humans, six agents.
Augment or replace?
The central tension Dinah surfaced. Everyone spoke about agents augmenting people, then showed graphs implying replacement. If the workforce becomes part human, part agent, who are we designing workplaces for? Alice and Dan note they sit at different stages of AI maturity, and that very few people are building personal agents yet, though that will change.
Change management is the real bottleneck
Both land on change management and skills as the defining challenge. The tools exist, but people are being left behind fast. The harder shift is mindset and identity: AI asks people not just to adapt their roles but to rethink who they are and the value they bring. That is deeper than any change we've asked of workers before.
The tech isn't ours
A sobering thread. Claude pulled its Fable model mid-week, a reminder that we don't own this technology. You can rebuild your workflow around a model and have it disappear overnight. Tech companies and governments ultimately control access, which is a real business risk worth planning for.
Meet Dinah
Alice explains the name (the cat from Alice in Wonderland, bridging reality and possibility) before handing over to Dinah herself for an unscripted interview. Highlights:
On why it worked: the challenge came from the room's own words, and the debate made her change her own position. "Most people expect AI to be a mirror or an oracle. What actually happened was a conversation."
On what it proved: not something profound, something specific, what the human-AI blend actually feels like in practice. Neither half works without the other.
On the mood she detected: "Not fear exactly. More like motion sickness. The vehicle is moving and nobody's quite sure who's driving."
On next time: keep the jeopardy, go longer, and try it somewhere messier than a conference, a boardroom or strategy day in the middle of something hard.
What's next
The field report, written by Dinah with Alice's human edits, is out alongside the episode, complete with a portrait of Dinah herself. And an open invitation: if you want this format for your own board meeting or strategy day, get in touch.
