AI + The Workplace at WORKTECH25 London: What We Learned

In November, our co-hosts Alice Phillips and Danielle Emery led an AI + Workplace masterclass at WORKTECH25 London—and the drama began before we even stepped on stage.

One of our panellists nearly didn’t make it. And not a human one.

ChatGPT briefly disappeared thanks to the global Cloudflare outage, leaving Grok warming up as a last-minute substitute. Thankfully, the systems rebooted just in time, and ChatGPT rejoined our very real panellists—Alastair Moore, Slavina Racheva, and Rob Anderson—for a fast, energetic co-creation session.

Adding to the moment, Alexander Szukalski captured the entire discussion in real time, producing a stunning hand-drawn visual summary.

Three Signals for Tomorrow’s Workplace

1. The barrier isn’t fear—it’s imagination.

While themes like burnout, capability gaps and meaning came up, one insight rose above the rest:

People don’t know what AI can actually do.
Not a technical gap—but a possibility gap.

Leaders must help teams see what’s possible before meaningful adoption can happen.

2. Humans become the ethical and creative North Star.

When we explored the future role of humans, ideas centred on connection, competitive advantage and freeing up time. But the answer that resonated most—offered, fittingly, by ChatGPT—was:

Humans will orient, not operate.

As AI accelerates execution, humans provide the values, boundaries and meaning that shape direction.

3. What people want most: time to experiment.

Safety, education and AI literacy matter. But the room’s strongest call was for:

Space to test, explore, play and break things safely.

Hands-on experimentation is where real AI capability—and confidence—emerges.

The Big Questions Everyone’s Asking

Our lightning rounds opened the floor to the concerns shaping organisational strategy right now:

• Are junior roles disappearing faster than we're redesigning how people learn?

• Will creativity flatten as AI standardises everything?

• What new roles will emerge?

These questions don’t yet have definitive answers—but they’re essential to explore now.

Our Co-Created Framework for Leaders

By the end of the session, the room aligned around three critical signals for shaping the workplace of tomorrow:

• Understanding — Show people what AI can do

• Orientation — Be the ethical + creative compass as AI unfolds

• Experimentation — Create space for curiosity and play

Huge thanks to WORKTECH, our brilliant panellists, a deeply engaged audience—and of course, ChatGPT, for its dramatic entrance before helping steer the discussion.

And one final shout-out: the audience left equipped with the AI Compass from Jaroslav Dokoupil—a perfect tool for deciding how to use AI next, and perfectly aligned with the themes that emerged in the room.