Harshlight Mission:
AI is reshaping work faster than the world is prepared for.
Harshlight makes the case - through research, narrative and frameworks - for a better approach.
The Problem
The disruption isn't coming. It's here.
Entry-level pathways are closing. Mid-career roles are being automated. Communities built around industries that employed thousands are facing structural unemployment - not cyclical, not temporary.
The businesses making these decisions aren't malicious. Most are simply optimising for short-term margins without understanding the long-term consequences - for their own capability, for the people they employ, and for the communities they operate in.
Someone needs to make the case for a better approach. With evidence, not sentiment.
What Harshlight Does
Harshlight produces research, narrative and frameworks that help businesses, investors and policymakers understand what responsible AI adoption actually looks like - and what the cost of getting it wrong actually is.
Not theoretical. Built from 12 years of operational leadership through genuine crisis, restructuring, and workforce transformation.
The work operates across three levels:
For businesses and investors: What does responsible AI adoption look like from the leadership chair? How do you restructure without destroying the capability that sustains long-term value?
For policymakers and institutions: What does the employment data actually show? Where are the gaps between policy intent and ground-level reality? What interventions work?
For society: What does this transition feel like from the inside - and why does that matter for how we design the response?
A Cautionary Tale
Sebastian Gritt is a Bristol project manager. Good salary, mortgage, two kids. By 2028 he's doing warehouse shifts.
This isn't dystopian fiction. It's a scenario built from real displacement data, showing what the next seven years look like when businesses optimise for short-term margins and governments respond too slowly.
Written for four audiences: individuals who want to prepare, business leaders making restructuring decisions, investors assessing long-term value, and policymakers designing the response.
25 minutes. It will reframe how you think about what's coming.
Coming shortly: The MD's Blueprint - the same story from the employer's chair. What responsible adoption looks like, and what the cost of getting it wrong actually is.
Harshlight Reports
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Harshlight #2 - The AI Workforce Disruption Forecast - Job Losses & Societal Impact in the UK
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Harshlight #4 - Breaking Point – When AI Disruption Overwhelms Traditional Labour Markets
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Harshlight #6 - Protecting Your Future - Who is Responsible?
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Harshlight #10 - 90 Day Team Rebuild Strategy
Who Is Behind This?
Marc Richard
I spent 12 years as MD of a manufacturing business navigating the kind of structural disruption that knowledge workers are now facing - cashflow crisis, workforce restructuring, cultural transformation, successful exit.
I left in 2024. By then I could see the same pattern playing out at a different scale and speed across every knowledge-work industry. The difference is that manufacturing disruption happened over decades. This is happening in years.
Harshlight is my attempt to contribute something useful to how we navigate it - as businesses, as institutions, and as a society.
I'm not neutral on this. I think the way most businesses are currently managing AI adoption is storing up serious long-term problems - for their own capability and for the communities they operate in. I think that can be changed. And I think the people most likely to change it are the ones who understand both the commercial logic and the human consequences.
For business turnaround and interim CEO work: marcdrichard.com
Get Involved
Harshlight is early. The research is real, the mission is clear, and the audience is growing.
If you're a business leader, investor, policymaker, or journalist engaging seriously with AI's workforce impact - and you want research that's grounded in operational reality rather than theoretical frameworks - we'd like to hear from you.