The Stability Premium... and Should You Use AI to Replace Someone on $40k or Someone on $30m?

Stability Premium

Each year, Accenture produce a landmark annual trend report: the Life Trends. I’ve presented this year’s Life Trends a few times now, and David and I contributed to their development. Katie Burke, Agneta Bjornsjo and the Accenture team have, in my view, done it again: they've captured some essential insights to the zeitgeist of 2026.

As I write, the world has spent a week watching the Greenland drama play out, and its still not formally settled. One of the topics that we elevated is all about the effect of this kind of drama on consumers and business. When we were discussing this in the middle of last year, there was some concern that if everything settled down the Trend would look out of date.

Well it has not. So I’d like in this week of Davos weeks to summarise the key points of the trend that emerged out of this discussion It's called Stability Premium, and it is more relevant than ever.

Life has become a real-time performance on social — and mainstream — media. What used to be discussed and managed behind closed doors now plays out publicly - tariffs, breakthroughs, threats, memes. And all demanding instant attention because they carry ramifications at scale. News, entertainment, and daily life have blurred into one exhausting stream. On top of this there still seems to be both a long term psychological Covid hangover, and real concerns, felt locally by people in many countries, over “affordability”. No wonder people are craving stability: something solid to hold onto, a chance to catch their breath and find clarity.

Key features of this are an always on drama machine, the emotional weight of constant change, and the evolution of personal coping strategies. Those can vary wildly from engagement with “no buy” initiatives or minimalism influencers, or the opposite approach of purchasing small treats or “micro joys”, or a sober stocking up with self sufficiency items in case of the worst (this is a big thing in parts of Europe).

Worth noting that executives are deeply affected too. Leaders are feeling the pressure. In interviews, executives admitted to feeling distracted and fearful of backing the wrong horse. Nearly half have shortened their planning horizons, and two-thirds now run permanent war rooms to handle the constant economic and political turbulence.

Why is this relevant to organisations to care about?

Against this backdrop, stability carries enormous emotional value – yes, a premium. That’s a trust dividend you can earn by offering

• consistency in what you stand for
• clarity in how you show up
• care in how you navigate change.

This of course is true for employees as much as customers. At a time when the world seems to spin at a different pace every day, we all need anchors.

I’m not suggesting we look to a supermarket or chocolate bar for those – but every little helps. This week, along with millions of others, I have been very stressed by the psychodrama of geopolitics, and not in a good way. But life goes on and I’ve had to engage with a UK insurance company over a car broken by potholes on a miserable cold rainy Monday night. Looks like it’s a write off, and they have offered a final (and fair) sum, to be paid shortly. The clear, frequent and helpful communication and action by the insurance company (Admiral Insurance to give fair credit) has made what was a traumatic event – the loss of a much loved car – way less painful at a time when I was anyway in a dark place. That’s stability premium in action.

This is not about purpose. As a fan of Purpose beyond shareholder value, I hate to acknowledge this, but people are tired of activism and pushing back against what they perceive as moral overreach. Across all product categories tested, a majority said they prefer brands to stick to their business rather than demand attention on issues outside their products and services.

I don’t think this means don’t be purposeful, but in a world where chaos feels constant, making sure you deliver and not jumping on bandwagons stand out as down to earth differentiators. Stability doesn't mean standing still. What to do?

• Filter above the daily drama, pausing long enough to see the arc beyond the episode
• Design products and services for emotional relief
• Give people something to hold onto as things change—even if that just means giving them space to breathe.

AI Redundant Leaders

This week, standing in front of the legendary French House pub in Soho, London, an old friend of mine called Tom Jaworski, ex oil company executive who has travelled the world doing complex deals, made a great observation about jobs and AI. We were discussing the possible link between AI and tightness in the job market for young people.

He pointed out that the people who AI should really be replacing are the top execs. If shareholders are interested in where to use AI in their business, they should ask where it can have the greatest effect, and that place is, logically, senior management. After all, failures of senior management have the greatest consequences for shareholders – that’s why they are paid the big bucks right? If someone on  - let’s say - $40,000 -messes up, or is inefficient, or takes poor day to day decisions the consequences are minimised by their scope. Typically the deficiencies are visible pretty quickly too.

Contrast that with a CEO on say - $30m (I researched that). That’s also 750 of those junior entry level roles that are going. The probability of senior management failure is also high. In fact, most business failures are caused by short term thinking driven by personal ambition or poor management systems. Or worse, incompetence or hubris or greed - take your pick. Additionally, the effect of poor leadership decisions can take months if not years to become evident.

Of course external factors, like technology disruption, do massively come into play but are often wheeled out as excuses for incompetent leadership. Many managements fail eventually  - at increasing speed these days. According to EY, the average stay in the S&P 500 is now 15 years (down from 61 years in 1958). Those that survive have culture and management systems that prevent the worst excesses of ego driven underachievers. Custodianship, stewardship – these are undervalued in the age of move fast and break things.

Ironically, The Wall St Journal this week published research that shows business leaders believe AI is saving much more time on the job than their employees say it is. 40% of white collar workers said it saves no time at all, but only 2% of the c-suite say that. In contrast, 43% of execs think it is saving their employees 8+ hours a week. Think about that – it is more than a day. And yet only 5% of their employees see that level of time saving.

Perhaps the C-suite are confusing their own productivity gains and usage of AI with what is happening in their organisations more broadly? If so, then that stiffens the argument that we should expect to see either much better exec performance or significant redundancies at that level.

I know. Neither is going to happen, especially not the second alternative. Big noisy birds don’t vote for Christmas. But perhaps they should stop and think more before evangelising the disappearance of entry level roles. 

Postscript Idea from David Mattin: Leadership, AI and Accountability

This comes straight from a discussion in the Full Moon team Slack!

It will be fascinating to see how the CEO and senior management roles evolve under AI. I suppose the job becomes even more about being the front human for a complex, and now AI-driven, machine. That means being the person/people that take legal responsibility and are accountable. And the charismatic people that evangelise the company and its mission to the world.

I think the CEO and very senior roles eventually in many organisations become something akin to the physician role in an age of AI. Sure, the AI can now interpret an MRI scan. But there still needs to be a human (in this case a doctor) to take legal responsibility for the decision that flows from the scan. Humans get paid, essentially, to be the legal entity — and in the case of the CEO the cultural entity — that takes responsibility and is accountable.