00:00: Introduction
00:29: Introducing three squiggly career trends for 2026
03:21: Trend one: AI agents
11:08: Trend 2: Connection versus disconnection
18:12: Trend 3: Employee Influencers
Sarah Ellis: Hi, I’m Sarah.
Helen Tupper: And I’m Helen.
Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance and turn that curiosity into actions that we hope support you with your confidence, clarity, to really accelerate your Squiggly career. And the next two episodes are going to feel a bit different. So Helen and I have got our predictor futurist hats on. Quite like it. You might not want to take it too seriously, I think is probably the caveat at the start. We are going to do two episodes, a kind of part one and a part two, exploring six squiggly career trends for 2026. So what we have tried to do is pick things that we think are going to be important for all of us in our careers, no matter what stage you’re at or what industry you’re in, we’re going to talk a bit about what they are, but then probably most importantly, like, what they mean for us. So how do you get curious? How can you learn more? How can you make sure that you are being kind of really creating rather than waiting? I always think you don’t want to watch trends happen to you. You want to take initiative and you want to be really intentional about them. And it’s not that we are amazing at all, or even any of these, I think it’s fair to say, but I suppose they are things that are on both of our minds. So maybe that’s a better word than trends, to be honest. Trends might feel a bit lofty. I know.
Helen Tupper: I feel like we’ve both done, like, roles with trends and they both unrealistic, you know, like the hoverboard is coming or something like that. But so I think are actually realistic things that we believe are very likely to be part of people’s work in 2026. So maybe trends are. I think they’re just changes to what you’re working on and the way you’re working that we want people to be aware of so that they can be ready for them and able to respond. I think that’s what we’re trying to. Trying to help you with.
Sarah Ellis: I suppose it’s more about anticipating different scenarios rather than going, will the AI hype cycle end? I don’t think we’re. I don’t think we’re quite at that level. I think we have thought more about what do we expect and anticipate in the short term might influence how you’re working today and your career. So let’s try and get on top of it being realistic.
Helen Tupper: I think let’s be positive. I feel like with all this stuff, like, I think we’ve chosen things that we think are likely to happen and we’ve chosen actions that will give you a bit back, a bit more control. And I say that in the context of a two hour podcast I listened to yesterday that I’ve not told you about yet.
Sarah Ellis: Oh, yeah, what, that wasn’t optimistic or that was. Well, no.
Helen Tupper: So it was my husband’s birthday yesterday and we had a day together and what?
Sarah Ellis: So you listened to a podcast for two hours together?
Helen Tupper: So I said to him, I was like, oh, there’s a Stephen Bartlett podcast on how AI is going to kill humanity. It’s about two hours long. We can listen to an hour there and an hour on the way back.
Sarah Ellis: It’s a joyful listen for your birthday. Birthday treat, treat time.
Helen Tupper: It was like on the way back, it was about halfway through the second half. So we’re 90 minutes in and he’s like, can we just listen to some music, Helen? It was a bit like, basically it was a bit doom, doom and disaster. And so this is not doom, gloom and disaster. This is things like to happen and actions you can take to take control of your development. It is a more positive way of approaching 2026.
Sarah Ellis: I hope it is, but we haven’t avoided some of the tough stuff. So actually some of the things that we are going to talk about are hard things, but we’re going to try and talk about them, hopefully in a helpful way. So should we go to the first one? I feel like you chose the first one. Let’s do the AI first.
Helen Tupper: Get AI out of the way. You can’t talk about what’s happening at work and careers next year without talking about AI. So the trend that we think is going to affect all of our careers next year is the increased use of AI agents. And so you’ll hear people talk about like, agentic AI, you know, like all these, like, terms that I feel like can make people feel less intimidating, intimidating, less confident at what it means. Now this is my very basic, very basic way of thinking about this.
Sarah Ellis: It made sense to me, though. You described it to me earlier and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I can, I can get on board with that.
Helen Tupper: Agentic AI or these AI agents are basically little AI activities that we set up on platforms like ChatGPT or Perplexity or whatever it is that you want to do this on. And they operate alongside us. So you don’t need to be there, like at the moment, for example, when I’m using AI. Most of the time I’m just typing it, I’m typing in a prompt, I wait for it to respond to my prompt and then I go, oh, not that, a bit more like this. And it’s very. I am very actively engaged in whatever I’m asking the AI thing to do.
Sarah Ellis: Agentic AI is you, like you set.
Helen Tupper: It up and then it works alongside you in parallel. So you can go into a meeting and it will keep doing the, the thing that you have asked it to do. And I think people are talking about this a lot and I think it will go from chat that where people are like, I don’t really know what that means. I’m too scared to ask to. I think in 12 months time, most people who’d be listening to this podcast, I think will have either experimented with or actively have an AI agent alongside their job. And I went and looked at, okay, well, let’s make this more real. What sort of AI agents could we set up? For example, so you could have an inbox agent. So this would be a little AI agent that sort thoughts, prioritises and draughts replies to messages. I think quite a lot of people may already have a bit of that going on, but I think you could set it up more specifically, like in your tone. Which emails?
Sarah Ellis: Is that what you’ve been using when I start getting emails that are from you but not from you?
Helen Tupper: Well, I, Well, I, I would say I’m using superhuman AI, which has been one of my wins of the year for my inbox. But that’s. I think an AI agent would be more me saying, these are the emails that I want to prioritise. So always put Sarah Ellis’s emails to.
Sarah Ellis: The top or the bottom.
Helen Tupper: Do that inbox when I’m replying to Sarah, make it sound like this, you know, be less polite, more direct when I’m replying to these people.
Sarah Ellis: So it’d be nicer.
Helen Tupper: Yeah. And it would, it would like triage and do that based on some specific rules that you’ve set. Your little AI agent. You can have an energy agent. I like this idea. So it’ll review tasks and your calendar to optimise focus and energy. So you might say my highest energy moments are this makes, you know, proactively block out time for me to do those things. So you’re not having to do it yourself. It sort of takes that instruction and does it for you. You could have a learning agent, so you could say, these are things I want to learn about this year proactively. Look for articles and resources that reference this and send me them when they come. So you’ve got this like automatic sort of learning researcher that would mean that you’re not having to spend time looking, you could actually spend more time learning.
Sarah Ellis: I wonder if you could put in a learning goal that you’ve got. So you know, my learning goal for the first three months of 2026 is to learn more about Agentic AI, for example. And then I assume it could then say it would then send you. Well, this is a really good. And I suppose what you might say is assume no knowledge or I’m starting from scratch. So share with me learning which is easy, simple and is going to help me to kind of really understand the basics.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, well, you could say I’m going to put a learning hour in every Friday morning and I want you to look for learning on this topic automatically create me an agenda in that hour in my diary. So every Friday you go in and your learning agenda is already set. Like that’s for you calls thing is put a time against each one that you could do. So yeah, that would be your learning agent and people might be thinking, well how. How on earth do I get started with this? Honestly, I think YouTube is your friend here. There are so many relatively short like create your own AI agent for most people that use Copilot as well on Copilot. I’ll put a link to this on the show. Notes Copilot has got like a simple like build your own agent within like Microsoft things. And there are quite a lot of simple things to get started and I think if you just set maximum an hour aside to watch an experiment just on your own to begin with, I think you’d go quite far from. I don’t even know this agentik AI things sounds quite scary to. Oh, I see a simple way I could use it.
Sarah Ellis: It’s a bit like. It reminds me of the learning curve, you know, just actually Even just using GPTs kind of. If I think about this conversation this time last year I didn’t know how to write a good prompt and I’m. I might not be perfect, but I’m much better than I was before. And I have created a couple of GPTs and realised it’s not that scary and it’s fine, you know, like you can. Everyone can have a go at that. And so I wonder if that’s. This is like the next. You need to take that same attitude and mindset and apply that now to. To kind of creating your own agent and it’s Funny, when you talked about the first two examples, I feel quite uncomfortable and that’s because I don’t want an AI to run my life for me. So I can imagine you and I having a really different reaction to this because I think you really love the idea of an AI making you more efficient and faster. And even if I look at your response to Superhuman, you were like, this is life changing. Whereas I look at those that I think, I don’t want someone to write, try and write like me and I don’t want someone to tell me what gives me energy.
Helen Tupper: Well, I think it’s like where I want to spend my time. Like, do I want to spend time replying to loads of emails? Absolutely not. Do I want to spend time reading books, generating ideas, like, sharing them with people in creative ways?
Sarah Ellis: Absolutely.
Helen Tupper: So if I can save the six hours I was spending triaging and replying to emails, and I spent three hours last night just doing that because. But. And I would much rather something save that time so I could spend my brain on things that I think are much more enjoyable to me and useful for people that I work with. It’s not that I love AI doing it, it’s that I love AI doing that more than me doing it.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, yeah. It’s just interesting, isn’t it, when you were like going through, as soon as you got to the learning one, I was like, oh, yeah, that’s fine, I’ve got a.
Helen Tupper: Maybe I have to find a thing, just one other thing on it. I do think that AI is a democratizer for career development, as in the people who have confidence and competence in using AI tools, I think will accelerate their career regardless of level tenure and all the traditional things that resulted in people, you know, progressing in game promotion, all that kind of stuff. I think this, this, this kind of AI ability helps people leapfrog from some of those things.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah. I think it’s certainly in the short term. I’m sure at some point it will be more universal. But if you’re thinking like next year, what could help me stand out in my squiggly career? What could I do that maybe not other people are doing? I still don’t know that many people who are building their own agents or creating their own GPTs or who are really experimenting and sharing, but those people I do know who are doing it, I’m always like, oh, that’s really impressive. And look at all the initiative they’re taking. And it’s not like what they’re building is always amazing. It’s more Just the approach they’re taking. And so I think that is within all of our gift. And I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it for the learning goal one, and then I’m going to ask it to tell me what to learn and how to learn and put time aside exactly as you described. And I will let listeners know, like, how I get on. I’m going to commit to doing that early.
Helen Tupper: Jan, what’s next on our trends for 2026?
Sarah Ellis: Trends? I do think we probably need to stop using that word. So the next one is I think, a mixture maybe of optimism and pessimism, but we’re calling this connection and disconnection. And there continues to be quite a lot of evidence that people are feeling more lonely at work. So we’ve, there’s some good research on that you can read that we’ll put a link to. And people just don’t feel as connected to like each other or to the work that they’re doing now. Really important point here is I think then everybody leaps to, oh, that’s because we’re not in the office. And actually when you read the research, the there is no relationship between where you spend your time and how lonely you feel. So the answer isn’t get everybody back in the office to this. The answer is actually being more thoughtful about how you connect together as a team. Like, really. And also probably like taking that seriously. And I wonder, or my hypothesis is that when everyone did work in the office that you could almost be quite lazy about connection. So if I think about my time working in offices every single day at the same desk where everybody was present, this wasn’t on the agenda because you just thought, well, I don’t need to connect with my team because they’re all right there and we’re in meetings all day and I can see everybody and you’re making a cup of tea and everyone is there all of the time. Whereas I don’t think we’ve almost adapted to reflect the fact that now pretty much everybody works, at least in some sort of hybrid way, whether that’s a bit hybrid or a lot hybrid. And so you know, where you’re using old models to kind of. And I think people default back to things that they’ve done before, which is why often you go, well, you just need to get everybody back face to face. And it reminds me of that difference that we actually talk about this in Learn Like a Lobster. We talk about the difference between flexibility and adaptability. And I think what happens here is flexibility is you just sort of go, oh, we need to do something a bit different. And so the way that they describe this, a lady called Heather McGowan, and she says it’s like going, I don’t need a hammer from the toolbox anymore, I need a screwdriver. And so you’re like, you’re still working within the same toolbox, but adaptability is recognising. Oh, actually, we need a new way. So I feel like we need new ways to connect together, new ways to spend time as a team and also to be quite playful in what that looks like and to figure out how you’re going to prioritise it. Because everybody’s challenge to this would be, I’ve got too much to do. You know, like, it feels like a nice to do, not a must do. Probably quite hard to write the business case for connection. And so what everybody ends up doing is being more head down, work my way through my tasks and my to dos. But then you probably miss out on, you know, the whole being bigger than some of the parts that we’ve talked about this year. Like, how do you make your team more than just sort of individual superstars?
Helen Tupper: Yeah. Many thoughts, many thoughts. I was trying to think of. I was just thinking practically, when have I felt connected, disconnected?
Sarah Ellis: What’s helped me.
Helen Tupper: There’s some of the things that were going through my head on your. When you were talking. I think sometimes you and I have a when are we better together things. That’s a very practical, you know, you talk about what’s the business case for connection.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I.
Helen Tupper: We definitely have when are we better together? And we’re clear about those moments. And I think there are. It’s less of an emotional thing, it’s more about business value thing. There are moments when we’re just better together. So it could be a useful conversation. I also think that one of the times I felt most connected, actually it was with people outside of Amazing if. But it really helped me was last year. I didn’t do it this year, but last year I had that little accountability partner, WhatsApp, and it really helped me feel connected. And it started with a vision board. So everybody. It was only three, three of us in that group, but we all shared our vision board. And then every week we just kind of shared what we’d. What progress we’d made on the things that were on our vision board. And sometimes you just go, oh, that’s brilliant. Like, so proud of you. I know that was really important. And sometimes you’ve got a. Oh, that’s the third time you’ve mentioned you’ve not moved that thing forward, like what’s, what’s getting in your way. And I just felt very connected. And you could do that with work people or, you know, that was with two friends. Actually. They were friends, but do you know, when we started it, we weren’t super close friends, but we became really close by the end of the year and actually only did it for that year because I didn’t, I didn’t, didn’t feel right to just do it forever. But that really helped me feel connected. What helps you? I’m just thinking, giving people some practical things.
Sarah Ellis: What helps me is being connected with people connected to work, but not in my day job. So, you know, the making time and space for curious conversations and actually whether they are online or in person, I don’t mind. I do prefer them in person. But I have probably just as many online as well. And I actually had one yesterday because I was thinking the moment I felt most connected yesterday was when I had a conversation with a lady called Lindsay who had just got in touch with us on LinkedIn and said she really liked our work and she definitely used a bit of our work for the work that she does. She’s based over in the US and she was also volunteering to help with Learn like a lobster out in the US and it was just a curious conversation. So it was agenda less. It wasn’t like we must get through all these things in this order. It wasn’t like a decision discussion agenda which definitely have their purpose and their place. And she just like told me a bit about her and her work and like what was happening and sort of, I did the same and it felt quite meandering. And then at certain points we got to practically she was like, would you like an introduction to this person? I was like, oh yeah, that would be great. But it just felt like a moment of two people just sort of sharing, connecting, you know, you’re finding points of commonality and getting to know somebody for the first time. And so I think sometimes you connect with people in a different way when it’s less task focused, I suppose is my observation. And actually I see the same with our team. So when I spend time with our team and it’s very task focused, you’re not connecting with that person. I’m just like, let’s get stuff done and that’s okay. And also sometimes I find it can feel a bit disingenuous to try and connect with someone for like one minute where then 29 minutes. You’ve got to spend a lot of time being very kind of transactional or a bit more transactional. And so again, sometimes having conversations with the team where you have got a bit more space to explore or to like just hear a bit, you know, like window into their world. Yeah. How they feeling, what they’re working on, what they’re finding frustrating. It’s those kind of moments, I think, that are more free form, where I feel more connected with people. Yeah, I think that’s probably, you know.
Helen Tupper: When do you feel most and least connected are probably useful reflections of people. So how. Because again, what we need is different, I think. But then you can maybe dial up some of more of those. Like you could dial up curious conversations. I could maybe bring back my accountability. WhatsApp for 2026, that kind of a thing. So our final idea for this episode, and don’t forget this is a part one and part two. So the final one for part one is I’m going to say theme because I feel like I’m triggering you with the words trend. So the final theme for 2026, I think it’s more.
Sarah Ellis: I’m starting to really question my own credibility of using the word trend.
Helen Tupper: Theme is the employee influencer.
Sarah Ellis: And we’ve not had a really good.
Helen Tupper: Chat about this, so it’ll be interesting to get your perspective. But the idea that we have seen emerging is the fact that employers are recognising the value of employees posting about where they work, what they working on and becoming a very visible advocate for the organisation. And I think employee advocacy isn’t a new thing. However, what is new is people are now being remunerated for it. So there are some people that actually have it as a specific job. And also I was chatting to someone recently.
Sarah Ellis: Is this your dream job? I was thinking about this and I was like, is this Helen’s dream job in a big company?
Helen Tupper: If I was. If I was in Microsoft and I was at Microsoft’s, like, I mean, I would have quite liked it.
Sarah Ellis: Yeah.
Helen Tupper: Imagine going around Microsoft and being like, let me tell you about the amazing things that we do in Microsoft and why, like, everyone should care about that.
Sarah Ellis: I mean, I definitely don’t want to do this job, but I could really imagine you doing it.
Helen Tupper: I mean, I would quite like to do that job. I’m quite happy with this job. But like, if I was given.
Sarah Ellis: Last week we went to see our book be printed and you turned up with like a vlogging camera thing and literally didn’t let it go for Two hours. I was like, you are basically already this. But just for us, which is alongside about 25 other things. But I was like, oh, I bet you Helen would have quite. You know, in a different world, in a different life, I could imagine this being you.
Helen Tupper: A bit of job crafting. I’ve taken this. I feel like you have theme and I’ve already. I’ve already adopted it, but. Yeah, so some people are being paid now for posting, which I’m not. I’m. It was interesting, isn’t it? But I think it is a new. Whether you’re paid directly for it or just valued indirectly for it. I think it is a new source of influence you can have in an organisation if you build your external profile on a platform like LinkedIn, or maybe if you’re speaking at events and you use that profile to shine a spotlight on the products, services, culture, the company you work for. Interesting.
Sarah Ellis: I have a few worries about it. Share your worries, inevitably. Well, I wonder whether it sort of places a value on extrovert behaviours, because as somebody who is more introverted, I would never do this. Like, I. I struggle. It is sort of part of our job to spend time on LinkedIn and I. And I. I don’t think I’m as introverted as some people and I even find that hard, as in, I find it hard to, like, post things. I overthink it. Like, this would be. This is not a job I ever want to do. And so if you are someone who just doesn’t, you know, like, it’s a very externalised. You’re like, I’m going to share everything. Um, and it’s quite like out there, isn’t it? And you have to be a certain sort of person to be able to do this and to do this well. And I was like the one. Watch out. I think just in my head was, if companies are going to start doing this, you know, making sure that you don’t go for everyone who’s the same. So, for example, if everyone is a Helen in every company, obviously, obviously Helen is incredible. But there are lots of ways to lead and there are lots of ways to be successful. And so I think if I was setting this up in a company now, so if I was back in Sainsbury’s and thinking about this, I would really want to make sure whether you’re paying people or not, but that there was a range of voices that people could also do this in different ways. So, you know, some people are better at writing than they are at speaking. Like, you’re Actually very good at both. Some people are so good at. If I think about, like, some of the teams I’ve worked in, they’re so good at snappy, short, funny, content, you know, puns. Like, I remember working for one boss, she was like, incredible at that. And so I suppose you just want to find ways so it feels inclusive, because I think there is a danger that it could feel exclusive. Like you have to be a certain kind of person for this to be a thing. So I feel like this could actually be a really helpful thing for organisations and actually for individuals. You know, when you’re thinking about different ways to progress, practising new skills, like learning from lots of different people. So I can see lots of good things and lots of upsides. I think as long as it is done thoughtfully and actually really making sure that it is for everyone. You know, we talk about, we want to make squiggly careers better for everyone. I always think there’s just this just look out for anything you might do that makes, you know that people could feel a bit alienated or. Or kind of opt out of. Doesn’t mean everyone has to be an influencer. But I just feel like you don’t want all of the voices to be like an echo chamber and to look and sound the same.
Helen Tupper: Also, I think there’s someone I follow who is. Has a brilliant role at Marks and Spencer’s, who I often see will post about products like, you know, on Instagram.
Sarah Ellis: Oh, I follow her too.
Helen Tupper: Yes.
Sarah Ellis: Sherry. Yeah, Sherry’s amazing. Yeah, Sherry’s amazing. I love her.
Helen Tupper: She won an award recently at an event that I was like, I thought it was brilliant.
Sarah Ellis: She’s a good example.
Helen Tupper: Yeah, she’s a great example. This is what. So I was thinking, oh, if you were at Sainsbury’s, you’d have done a Sherry, which is what. Sherry will spotlight amazing products. So she’ll do her like. Like Marks and Spencer’s Advent calendar of, like, amazing products that you need to get. And it’s so authentic. And you would have done that at Sainsbury’s. You’d have been like, this mince pie.
Sarah Ellis: Is the best mince pie you’re ever gonna have.
Helen Tupper: Or this crisp needs to be on your Christmas table. Like, this is the Christmas crisp. You would have done that. Whereas I would probably do more, like, I don’t know, events or people or.
Sarah Ellis: So I.
Helen Tupper: So I think finding if you. If this is something you want to do, and obviously this is all a choice, like creating AI agents and having curious conversations, all a choice. It’s just if it’s something that you choose to do in this kind of employee influence theme that is emerging, I think finding a way to do it that you actually enjoy. Like, you love the product. I remember when you were at Sainsbury’s and you would always, like, tell me about the products and the taste testing and you. And you just loved, loved that part of the job.
Sarah Ellis: Well, one of the reasons I went to work there is I love food. And that’s true now. And it was true then. If anything, I would have had more food in those jobs. But I. Yeah, I loved. I loved that. So let us know. We hope these feel. These trends, slash themes feel useful. And as a little teaser for what we’ve got coming up in part two, we’re going to be talking about. This is more cheery than it sounds. Restructures and redundancy. Because we think it’s happens to all of us and maybe that’s helpful to just think a bit about that. Autonomy times accountability. So two words that we are hearing a lot. So, like, what does that mean for us? And then we’re basically making one up that we want to happen, which is forcing this one. Yeah. We have written this, so we are going to make it a trend. We want learning that gets recognised and rewarded and we’re going to talk about what that might look like. So that’s what’s coming up next. But that’s everything for this episode. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you come back for part two. Bye for now.
Helen Tupper: Bye, everyone.
Sarah Ellis: I just need to.
Helen Tupper: LAUGHS why? Because. Wait. Noise, noise.
Sarah Ellis: Wait a minute. I mean, literally just appeared. Oh, it’s gonna be really hot. Did you see. Did you see him washing the windows?
Helen Tupper: I mean, he’s. He’s massively outside the window. Yeah.
Sarah Ellis: Did you see?
Helen Tupper: That is the definition of a peeping tomorrow.