Azeem Azhar

They're putting that off.

And this actually, Ben, is super fascinating.

Because a mismatch between expectations and reality can be thought of as exuberance.

And it's that mismatch when we think of stock markets and the stock prices is the exuberance that leads to bubbles.

It leads to the idea of ultimately disappointment and the wrong allocation of capital and resources.

So what I'm hearing from you and sort of drawing a thread out is

If there are these expectations about what AI can do, encouraging companies to take decisions about 2027 and 2028, which is what the hiring of a grad in Q4 2025 is actually about, and those expectations are not met, that is actually a kind of a fundamental problem, not just for the graduate, but actually also for the company.

How do we test and identify that it really is the expectation mismatch hypothesis that you've laid out here?

By that, you mean that I'm a large company, I'm hiring, and I say, must have...

advanced prompts and context engineering on at least two different LLMs as a requirement.

And that is an indicator that you attract.

I mean, we should touch on that point as well, right?

Because of course, Excel showed up 35, 40 years ago and it's created more work than it's taken away.

What would you look out for and where have you been able to see places where AI is enabling more work

through lifting productivity rather than going into this task substitution modality we've been discussing?

So if you're listening to this and wondering, when are they going to tell me what I need to do to get a job in this tough market?

Just hang in there because at the end, Ben and I give some really specific advice.

This point about the adaptive organization is a really, again, it's one that we need to unpack.

So when I go off and talk to C-suite execs, we've had a discussion with our chief human resources officer in a firm with 47,000 employees, so of a reasonable size.

bundles of tasks, units of work that need to be done rather than as single lumpy activities.