Jeff and the team at PepsiCo asked Matthew to work with them on a new five-year Learning and Development (L&D) strategy, to be rolled out across the whole PepsiCo organisation. He rates it as one of the most progressive and future-proof L&D programmes he has seen, driven by a team with an appetite to explore everything the future holds, warts and all. Many organisations say hiring and retaining the right talent is one of their biggest problems; Matthew's view is that it can be solved with enough foresight and the right L&D strategy and company support.
The backdrop is a work revolution not unlike the first Industrial Age. AI is upending blue-collar work through increasingly sophisticated robots, such as humanoids, and white-collar work by automating cognitive tasks. Many forecasters, including the WEF, expect AI to partially or fully automate up to 80% of jobs by the end of the decade, while Sam Altman of OpenAI says AI will in time automate 100% of jobs and describes AGI as an AI that ‘is capable of outperforming all humans at all economically valuable work’.
"Today we are facing a work revolution not unlike the one we witnessed during the first Industrial Age, as technologies such as AI upend both blue collar and white collar work."Matthew Griffin, United States, March 2025
In the workshop Matthew examined the technology itself, then focused on how to minimise the downsides for the workforce, how to use AI to lift everyone up, and how to adapt successfully to the new paradigm. He also explored how it could change company structures for good.
He closed with his Future of Jobs and Work framework, built to identify the human jobs of the future, those that cannot be fully or successfully automated, the skills they need, and the highest-paid jobs to come.
