Ex-Shopify Leader's Warning - AI Brain Fry: Why Women Are Burning Out Faster

The people struggling at Shopify weren't behind on the tools. They had lost the ability to think clearly.

We're doing more than ever before. But there's a cost. And women are paying it first.

Rachel Garrett spent seven years inside Shopify's AI transformation leading 800 people across 12 countries through one of the most aggressive AI adoptions any company has ever run. What she found changed how she thinks about work entirely.

In this episode, Rachel joins Georgie and Lou to talk about AI Brain Fry, the cognitive burnout that's quietly hitting the highest AI users hardest. Why the judgment layer is now the most valuable skill you have. And why the future belongs not to those with the best tools, but to those with the most humanity.

This is the conversation your organisation isn't having. Yet.

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✨60 Day Bold Move Career Accelerator✨

Learn More here 👉 https://www.georgiehubbard.com/bold-moves

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📚 The Bold Move: https://www.theboldmovebook.com

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Connect with Me:

🔵 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiehubbard/

🟪 Instagram: http://instagram.com/georgielhubbard

♦️Website: https://www.georgiehubbard.com

🌀Pivotr: https://www.pivotr.com

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Connect with Lou Compagnone:

🔵 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loucompagnone/

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Connect with Rachel Garrett:

🔵 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-garrett-38717522/

♦️Website: https://herefortherightreasons.com/

⭕️ AI Level -Up Course - https://skillsbuild.org/ai-level-up

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In Today's Episode:

🟣 Why Anthropic is now hiring people with humanities backgrounds over technical skills, and what that signals about the future of AI careers.

🟣 AI Brain Fry: the new term from BCG describing the mental fatigue, fog, and slower decision-making caused by cognitive overload from excessive AI use.

🟣 Why marketing, HR, IT, and finance professionals are experiencing the highest rates of AI Brain Fry, and what that means for women in those roles.

🟣 The paradox of AI: how it promises to ease our workload but is actually creating burnout at unprecedented rates.

🟣 Why the action layer has been replaced by AI, but the judgment layer must remain sharp, and how that's creating entirely new cognitive demands on senior leaders.

🟣 Why 95% of people think they're self-aware, but only 10–15% actually are, and why that gap is costing organisations billions.

🟣 The business case for humanity: 22% higher revenue and 34% higher profitability from leaders who are self-aware.

🟣 The concept of consciousness hygiene, why social media and AI are hijacking our inner world and what to do about it.

🟣 Rachel's story of how shortening her workdays actually led to promotion after promotion at Shopify, not career stagnation.

🟣 Why 70% of AI transformations fail because of people and process, not technology.

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Timestamps:

00:00 Open — what Shopify's AI transformation really did to people

00:45 Welcome to AI Ready Women — today's theme: Humans First

01:30 Meet Rachel Garrett — 7 years inside Shopify's AI revolution

05:15 How AI showed up inside Shopify — and what nobody expected

07:00 Signal 1 — Anthropic is hiring for humanity, not technical skills

09:10 How leaders should be supporting exhausted teams right now

11:10 The Human.AI framework — the 7 dimensions that actually matter

12:20 Signal 2 — AI Brain Fry and the BCG report changing everything

13:25 The judgment layer — why senior roles just got cognitively harder

15:15 Georgie's honest confession — doing more, resting less

16:10 What actually works for decompressing your brain

19:55 Signal 3 — Is AI hijacking your consciousness?

22:00 The bath house moment — are we too addicted to dopamine?

23:50 The stress stat that reframes everything

25:20 Seasons of work — how to structure for sustained performance

31:15 Practical micro-moments to protect your cognitive performance

35:25 Why stopping work made Rachel get promoted faster

37:25 Rachel's honest AI tool recommendations

40:20 Final thoughts — humans first, always

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Your Next Step:

If this episode resonated with you, reach out to Rachel, Lou, and me on LinkedIn. Let us know your biggest takeaway. Share what you're doing to protect your cognitive performance. Tell us how you're building your human operating system alongside your AI skills.

And if you know an incredible woman working in AI, tech, or digital who should be on this podcast, send us her name. We want to amplify women's voices. We want representation. We want you in the room.

The future belongs to the women who are ready for it.

Let's make sure that's you.

Georgie 💜