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I’m kind of surprised by 23% tbh - I think it is far less than this, as I suspect none of us are making this decision right now and we’re being led by AI is able to do rather than making intentional decisions on it…amirite??
The Employer Branding Reckoning: Automation vs Authenticity - this is the topic of Brainfood Live this Friday 7th August, 2pm BST. AI is turning into a double edged sword in every use case, and building EB is one of those. It’s increasing our content output but also creating more noise for already attention deficit job candidates. How do we strike the balance between Automation vs Authenticity - register here!
Another week, another banger from Revelio Labs. This is a monthly tracker on the impact of AI on the labour market, something which I suspect a lot of us reading this newsletter are going to want to bookmark. AI acting as a suppressant of hiring demand is formally recognised here - a less dramatic but no less significant impact than direct replacement on overall headcount levels. Must read folks.
AI
How are UK employers using staffing agencies in 2026? An interesting question (as ever) posed by brainfooder Emma Mirrington and her team at The Talent Labs. 97% of survey responders said that partnering with recruitment agencies was strategically significant, a welcome sentiment for the staffing side of the market, which has endured a torrid 3 and half years. Specialist agencies are going to do ok - ‘lean TA’ teams are never going to build pipeline for non-repeat roles. Interesting report, have a read.
ECONOMY
Brainfooder Jan Tegze is one of the must follow accounts on LinkedIn, mainly for posts like this - original writing, on primary research. We’re all interested in getting more reach on LinkedIn, so how do the most success content creators do it? Kind of timely in an intended way, as LinkedIn VP of Product Hari Srinivasan makes a move to curtail the prevalence of AI Slop, though enrolling users to ‘mark as slop’ is surely going to be egregiously abused. As Steven Rothberg said, LinkedIn encourages users to create content with AI, then penalises people for creating content with AI. H/T to brainfooder Srini Gundelli for the share in the online community.
CONTENT MARKETING
GLM 5.2 from Z.ai in June, Kimi K3 in last month, and now DeepSeek V4 Flash only a few days ago, Chinese AI is on a roll in 2026. From 80% as good for 20% of the cost, the latest models are becoming more like 95% as good for 5% of the cost - equations which are forcing US frontier labs to postpone IPO’s, take yet more investment and respond with immediate price cuts: all good news for everyone apart from those two frontier labs.
This might be a good moment to review a very interesting post from ML Researcher Nathan Lambert, who toured several of these upstart labs when in China earlier this year. It segues uncomfortably close to stereotype at times, but its hugely valuable to have earnest and unguarded anthropological exercises like this on company culture.
CULTURE
Great post by brainfooder Andrew Stetsenko who vibe codes 5 tools for recruiting and shares what his vibe is about them, which is mainly that they can useful tools for the individual but need not be industry disrupting tools for the masses. We might be settling in for single use, single user app era. Similar stuff from brainfooder Ben Phillips who provides (mainly TA / EB related) Practical Tools you can use.
TALENT OPERATIONS
It’s fair to say that Richard Baldwin is becoming one of my favourite follows - a. cheerful, wry yet iconoclastic labour market and trade economist. Here he takes on the narrative that AI is killing offshoring, and seems to show that the opposite is instead happening. His caveat in the end may be more important than it’s position implies though - the value of the service may have gone up (hasn’t the cost of everything?) but that does not mean employment has gone up. Anyways, very readable stuff.
ECONOMY
We’re not going to be able to verify the providence of this account, but taken on face value, this interview assessment for what has to be one of the most in-demand jobs around right now is pretty wild. What do tech recruiters think of this - what level of EB does your employer have to have in order ask candidates to do this?
ASSESSMENT
The diffusion of AI across society is leading to an exponential growth of cool apps like this. This presents an interesting challenge for brand managers trying to keep track on how their company is being discussed, as they no longer have just Glassdoor to worry about. Could be that you can just go hands-free though? As more apps get built, the more difficult it will be for each one to gain traction, maybe leading to the rise of ephemeral apps. Anyways, we should do a better job of getting back to job candidates, especially ones who have attended interview. H/T to brainfooder Zichuan Lim for the share
EMPLOYER BRANDING
Chris Hoyt and the fantastic community at CareerXRoads are doing everybody a great service by pooling practitioner knowledge and scrutinising terms of service updates from the big beast of recruitment tech. Important we all read this one, especially if Chris’s interpretation is correct - the offload of liability from the vendor to the operator is significant. Must read
ASSESSMENT
More on the state of the labour market, but it is H2 now so timely for all of us to take a bit of time to absorb what the numbers look like around us. Thanks to brainfooder Lana Shumyn of Aspen Tech Labs for sharing both the UK and US job market pulse with us.
ECONOMY
Great interview by Chris Rainey, who chats with Barbara Matthews, Chief People Officer at Remote, appropriately enough on the topic of remote work cultures. Most important takeaway for me: don’t waste your 1-2-1 time on operational updates which can be done asynch; use that time instead to really get to know your people. We should really play games here, or have a pint, as we did back on the old days.
REMOTE WORKING
Founder of ChatPRD, Claire Vo talks about vibe coding the AI Chief Product Manager, bootstrapping and dogfooding her way to a multi-million dollar business. Still without any full time human employees, this is a fascinating interview with one of next generation of entrepreneurs who caught the moment with exactly the right response.
FUTURE OF WORK
Viral image of the week was a photo of US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessant’s handwritten reminder to himself to buy $10 Billion of Japanese Yen, a rare intervention in a foreign currency market. US needs to stop Japanese repatriation of wealth, most of which is invested in US T-bills and the US stock market. No good choice ahead, nor it seems any good outcomes. Good video to learn about the Yen Carry Trade and why its cessation may lead to the next big financial crisis.
ECONOMY
LinkedIn’s introduction of the ‘report as AI slop’ option doesn’t sit too well with me, as I can’t see how it won’t be weaponised, in the same way brigading for downvotes was on Reddit. One of those where I understand the problem but disagree with the fix. Probably I’m in the minority tho, as I never report (and actually don’t really mind) spam either. What about you - how would you fix AI slop on LinkedIn?
That’s it - thanks for reading
Have a great week everybody
Hung
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