Three wishes for 2026

My favourite podcasters don’t make predictions. Instead, they call them wishes. Predictions are a dime a dozen, mostly similar and already overdone by mid-January. But wishes? They add a touch of rebellion against what’s supposed to be realistic.

Every year, the duo behind The Best One Yet, a sharp and witty daily business podcast by Nick Martell and Jack Crivici Kramer, share three ideas that sound outrageous yet feel perfectly reasonable. Think Starbucks launching libraries to revive its brand, Apple releasing an iToilet, or Disney acquiring an airline. Wild, but oddly believable, and sometimes they even come partially true.

Inspired, I started wondering: if I had a magic lamp, what three wishes would I make for the world of work in 2026?

Well, here they are.

Wish #1: OpenAI University

Towards the end of last year, Sam Altman declared code red at OpenAI. As of early 2026, the company is falling behind in the race with Anthropic and Google, each trying to dominate the generative AI space they helped create.

But here’s my wish: instead of chasing Claude or Gemini feature for feature, Altman steers OpenAI back to its original non‑profit roots.

The biggest fear in the world of work right now is that AGI will transform every single job and push billions out of work. Altman could turn this fear into OpenAI’s strength by launching OpenAI University — a free, global, virtual institution that teaches anyone, from a factory worker to a finance analyst, how to use AI in everyday work. The courses cover everything from building your own GPT assistant to designing an automated website, newsletter or résumé coach. It could be the digital era’s version of the public library, democratizing AI access… and maybe even serving Starbucks coffee on the side.

Sure, everyone is offering AI courses right now. Yet most are either outrageously expensive or oversimplified. In contrast, a legitimate OpenAI University using its vast resources could help millions of people future-proof their skills.

Recent research backs this need. 2025 Microsoft Work Trend Index noted that ‘the ability to work alongside AI is now as fundamental as PC literacy was in the 90s.’ Meanwhile, the Bright Horizons 2025 Education Index found that 42% of the workforce reports feeling underprepared for the changes AI will bring to their roles, even as they face mounting pressure to deliver results faster. This is creating a separation between an “information elite” who leverage agentic AI to command a 56% wage premium, as noted in the PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer, and a shrinking middle class of traditional knowledge workers whose skills are being outpaced by the 66% faster evolution of AI-exposed roles.

With OpenAI resources being the first toolkit students encounter, Altman could turn OpenAI into the most widely adopted platform in the industry. Using the non‑profit arm to fuel the growth of the profit puppy is an opportunity I would hate to see Sam Altman lose to Google or Anthropic.

Sam, I hope you’re listening. Open that university in 2026.

Wish #2: Who Talked for How Long

I have made this wish before, back in 2023, but it still hasn’t come true. So here we go again. Instead of adding pointless features like “where you’re joining from today,” Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet should finally tell us who spoke for how long in every meeting.

If I had to guess, the time I spend talking is inversely proportional to the number of people in the meeting. In smaller one-on-ones, I probably talk too much, in larger forums, not enough. The data would be invaluable not only for personal self-awareness but also for improving inclusion and participation balance.

Even more powerful would be a metric showing how often we interrupt others and whom we interrupt. It was shown in a 2014 study at George Washington University that when men were talking with women, they interrupted 33 percent more often than when they were talking with men. The men interrupted their female conversational partners 2.1 times during a three-minute conversation. That number dropped to 1.8 when they spoke to other men. The women in the study rarely interrupted their male counterparts—an average of once in a three-minute dialogue. Imagine if Teams flagged every time two people overlapped, showing who cut in first. The technology already exists. Overlapping audio detection is built into every video platform. It’s just a matter of translating that signal into meaningful insight.

The tech can get fancy about the “how.” A conference room shouldn’t appear as the top talker, so maybe each participant keeps their camera on and facial recognition tracks lip movement. Or systems could map unique voice signatures to users. I don’t particularly care how it gets done. I just want it done. It’s been long enough.

This isn’t about policing speech; it’s about understanding our communication patterns and showing up more consciously. I, for one, would love fewer “Oh, sorry, I cut you off” moments in 2026.

Wish #3: Reward All Forms of Career Growth

I saved the most important wish for last.

Most organizations still only pay for one kind of growth: promotions. But they constantly tell employees to explore lateral moves to broaden experience, build empathy across functions, and learn how the business actually runs. Easy to say when the pay cheque doesn’t change.

Look at how we groom executive successors. Potential CEOs rotate through multiple business units before taking the top job. That same logic applies to early- and mid-career professionals, yet when they take cross-functional leaps, they’re rarely rewarded. Worse, these transitions often come with pay freezes or even cuts.

If we were to put money where our mouth is, we would be handing out bonuses, incentives, and genuine congratulations to employees who experiment across roles and develop a broader understanding of the business, especially when they are willing to start at the bottom of a new rung. If I am to pursue being a product manager, I don’t want a pay cut. I want to be rewarded for bringing my HR perspective into a different job, adding what I would consider a useful dimension to the product.

It’s time we align compensation with the growth we say we value. In 2026, I hope compensation teams finally start designing “career broadening bonuses” or lateral move incentives. Experimentation and multi-skill development are exactly what future-ready organizations need. Rewarding that courage would make it real.

In Conclusion …

A free university, insight into our communication patterns, and a shift in how we reward growth. Those are my three wishes for 2026.

Do I expect them to come true? Not really.
Do I hope someone in a position to do something about it is listening? Hell, yes.

What about you? What are your three wishes for the world of work this year? Let me know!