The Brain in the Age of AI

The Brain in the Age of AI

Are you using AI - or is it using you? Every time you hand a thinking task to AI without noticing, you're making a quiet choice about which mental muscles to keep training and which to let go quiet. Most people never make that choice consciously. This episode is about what happens when you do. Dr. Pauldy Otermans is a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist who helped build one of the first AI-powered teachers in the world, and has spent years since asking a question research hasn't caught up with yet: what is AI actually doing to the human brain? In this conversation, Virginia and Pauldy trace why a fluent AI answer feels true even when it isn't, what happens to memory and thinking when we consistently offload cognitive effort, and why the skills AI can't automate - creativity, communication, critical thinking - are the ones leaders now have to protect on purpose. This isn't a conversation about EdTech, and it isn't a feature on Pauldy's company. It's a conversation about the brain at a genuine turning point - from someone honest enough to sit inside a question she doesn't yet have the full answer to. You'll learn: * Why fluent, well-structured AI text feels more credible than it actually is * What cognitive offloading does to memory, and why "use it or lose it" is literally true * The Three C's: the human skills AI can't replace, and how to keep training them * Why neurodiversity is the real stress test for whether personalised learning works * What quietly changes in your thinking when a habit forms without you noticing If you've ever caught yourself trusting an AI answer a little too fast - this episode explains exactly what's happening in your brain when you do. About Dr. Pauldy Otermans Dr. Pauldy Otermans is a female tech leader in the UK. She is a neuroscientist and psychologist by academic background and a female leader of AI technology. She was awarded as the inspirational womxn in the Tech Industry by Hustle Awards, was named one of the ‘22 most influential women in the UK of 2022’ by Start-Up Magazine, and has been awarded by the UK Prime Minister in 2021, and globally for her work. Pauldy helped build the first digital human teachers powered by AI in 2021 called OIAI. The language model developed for OIAI is now also used to power Teddy AI which provides a conversational AI study buddy for all children aged 3-7 years. She was Topic Editor for Frontiers in AI and publishes regularly in peer-reviewed journals on AI in Education. She was named as one of Tech 100 women by KPMG in October 2025 and a Global Leader in AI by Women in Management 2025.  Links: Website: https://www.portfolio.oiedu.co.uk/ [https://www.portfolio.oiedu.co.uk/] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oiedu/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/oiedu/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oiedu19/ [https://www.instagram.com/oiedu19/]

Resting Wrong: Why One Break Won't Undo the Year You Just Had

What's actually happening when you finally stop, and why your brain needs more than a holiday to recover from it It's day one of your time off. The out-of-office is on, the laptop is closed. And then your hand finds your phone, not because anything's wrong, just to check. You close it again, and nothing settles. That night you're lying in bed replaying something from weeks ago. Your body is somewhere with nowhere to be. Your nervous system hasn't gotten the message. That's not a failure to relax. It's biology that hasn't caught up yet. In this episode, Virginia Palm looks at why almost a quarter of people take no time off at all, and why, for the people who do, one break often isn't enough to undo what the year actually cost. Drawing on Robert Sapolsky's research on allostatic load and a decade of evidence that the well-being benefits of a break fade within the first week back at work, this episode reframes rest as a frequency, not a once-a-year event, and explains why the guilt that follows you into a holiday is, neurologically, the thing undoing it. You'll learn: * What allostatic load actually is, and why it's a measurable physical cost, not a feeling * Why a single break doesn't "clear the balance" of a hard year, according to the research * Why guilt about resting activates the same threat circuitry as the overwork that caused it * A three-question recovery audit to use before, during, and after this break * Why frequency - not duration - is what actually determines whether rest works This isn't about trying to relax harder. It's about understanding why your nervous system doesn't believe you yet that it's safe to stop. If you've ever come back from time off feeling like it barely happened, this episode explains why, and what would actually need to change. To learn more about Augment Mind visit: www.augment-mind.com

What You Lose When AI Remembers for You - with Lucy Dinu

The strategy built in minutes. The brief drafted before the meeting ended. The answer retrieved before the question was fully formed. Everything faster. Everything smoother. And somewhere in that efficiency, something quietly shifting. This episode is about what happens to the brain when AI takes the cognitive load, what gets offloaded, what stops being encoded, and what leaders need to deliberately protect before they notice it's gone. In this episode: * What cognitive offloading actually is, and why the brain does it automatically * Why integrating AI changes not just how you work, but how you think * What most executives aren't asking when they bring AI in, and what that's costing them * The difference between retrieving intelligence and building it * What human judgement actually means when the tools get this good Virginia Palm's guest is Lucy Dinu, founder and managing director of KHAIO, an AI architecture firm that helps executives architect AI integration, building both the technical structure and the human judgement that decides whether the rest of it holds. Her path runs from opening her own restaurant at 20 to over a decade leading global teams across 50 markets in pharma, finance, automotive, hospitality, and the public sector. Originally from Romania, she has lived in the Netherlands, dreams of living in Japan, but currently calls Stuttgart, Germany home. It's Me. Your Brain. | The mind behind your decisions.

Brain Capital - The Asset Nobody's Managing

Brain Capital - The Asset Nobody's Managing. Why the Most Important Asset in Your Organisation Is the One Nobody Is Measuring Most organisations manage their buildings, their technology, their financial capital with rigour and intention. The cognitive capacity of the people doing the thinking, the brains running every meeting, every decision, every strategy, is largely unmanaged, often actively depleted, and almost never measured. In January 2026, brain capital arrived at the main stage of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Not in the wellness tent. In the core economic agenda. The McKinsey Health Institute and the World Economic Forum published a landmark report arguing that in the AI era, investment in brain capital - brain health and brain skills, is not an optional wellbeing initiative. It is the most important infrastructure decision most organisations aren't making. In this episode, Virginia Palm, breaks down what brain capital actually is, why the numbers demand a boardroom conversation, what is depleting it in most high-performance environments - including an AI paradox most leaders haven't seen coming - and what building it looks like at the level of strategy, team design, and individual leadership. You'll learn: * Why brain capital is defined as two interdependent components, brain health and brain skills, and why you cannot optimise one while neglecting the other * What $3.5 trillion, 12 billion working days, and 1 in 5 professionals actually tell us, and why these are economic figures, not health statistics * Why the AI era creates a paradox: human cognitive skills become most valuable exactly when the conditions of work are most reliably depleting them * What the five levers of brain capital investment look like at the level of a leadership team, and what most organisations are still missing * Why this is not a wellness conversation, and what it means to treat cognitive capacity as the strategic asset it is If you manage anything - a team, a function, an organisation - this is the conversation your strategy is missing. 🌐 www.augment-mind.com [http://www.augmentmind.de/]

From the Outside: Successful. From the Inside: Dysregulated.

The apartment in front of the ocean. The titles. The recognition. Everything on paper looking exactly right. And underneath it, something slowly, quietly, falling apart. This episode is about high-functioning burnout: what it looks like from the inside before it breaks, why the people closest to you don't see it, and why the system you need to read the warning signs is the same system being quietly degraded by them. In this episode: * What it actually feels like to be performing well and dysregulated at the same time * Why the signals were there, and why the brain couldn't receive them * What happens when you do everything right and it still isn't enough * The second collapse, and what it taught that the first one couldn't * What came back first when the body finally stopped Virginia Palm's guest is Camila Santiago, a therapeutic mindfulness mentor and founder of The Grounded Way, where she works with companies, founders, and individuals, both remotely and in person, to navigate mental overload, decision fatigue, and high-performance pressure. Recognised as a Top 100 Women Voices on LinkedIn and ranked #2 in Workplace Wellbeing, she brings over a decade of mindfulness practice and firsthand experience of burnout in corporate environments to deliver practical, real-world tools for clearer thinking and more sustainable leadership. Originally from Brazil, she now lives in Bali, where her work is shaped by both structured practice and lived experience. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilapsantiago/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilapsantiago/] Website:  www.thegroundedway.life [http://www.thegroundedway.life/] Email: hello@thegroundedway.org [hello@thegroundedway.org] It's Me. Your Brain. | The mind behind your decisions.