Hey {{first_name}},

Something extraordinary happened in the last couple of weeks and I don't think it's getting nearly enough attention.

Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, and it's about AI.

If you're not Catholic and you're wondering what that even means, let me give you the context.

An encyclical is one of the most important documents a Pope can issue. It sets the moral and strategic direction of the Catholic Church for the next era.

And this one, called Magnifica Humanitas, which means Magnificent Humanity, is about safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.

There is also incredible alignment here too…

Pope Leo signed it on May 15, exactly 135 years to the day after Pope Leo XIII signed Rerum Novarum, the encyclical that defined the Catholic Church's response to the Industrial Revolution.

That document went on to shape workers' rights and social policy for over a century.

This one is doing the same thing, but for AI.

And when religious leaders are now stepping into the conversation about technology, I think we all need to pay attention.

This week on the AI Ready Women podcast, Lou and I sat down with Julianne Hickey, a social justice leader and AI governance expert based in Wellington, New Zealand.

She has spent a decade leading a major humanitarian agency, she's met the Pope twice at the Vatican, and she now leads AI strategy across the New Zealand public sector.

So she sees this from every angle.

What Julianne said about this moment really stayed with me.

She called the encyclical "a love letter to the world." Because at its heart, it's saying something really simple:

Technology must remain in service of humans. Not the other way around.

In a world where so much of the AI conversation is being shaped by tech companies whose business model depends on us using more, faster, this is one of the few voices saying, slow down. Look at what we're building. Make sure it serves people first.

And honestly we need that voice.

Here's what I'm seeing in my recruitment business right now

Companies are restructuring, citing AI as the reason. People are being made redundant. Hiring is slowing in some industries.

But underneath that, there's a quieter, more important story.

The leaders who are getting this right aren't just focused on productivity. They're thinking about what happens to their people. They're investing in their teams. They're communicating openly about where they're heading.

The leaders who are getting it wrong are treating AI as a cost-cutting exercise. Lose half your workforce. Squeeze more out of the people you keep. Hope it works.

It won't.

Because as Julianne said in our conversation, you cannot build a thriving organisation if your people don't feel safe.

1. AI is not neutral

The encyclical makes it really clear that;

Which means it matters who is in the room shaping this. It matters who is using it. It matters who is questioning it.

If women aren't part of these conversations, the technology will be built without us in mind.

So whether you're cautious, curious, or already deep in it, your engagement matters. Your voice matters.

2. The risk isn't just about jobs. It's about meaning.

The encyclical raises something I've been thinking about a lot. The deeper danger of AI isn't just that it takes our jobs. It's that we start to see ourselves as machines too.

We measure ourselves by output. We compare ourselves to algorithms. We forget that our value is not in how efficient we are.

This is why human skills, creativity, judgment, connection, empathy, are becoming more valuable, not less. Because they're the things AI can't replicate. And they're the things that make us who we are.

3. We have agency, and we need to use it

One of the most powerful things Julianne said was that everyone is focused on AI agents giving the technology agency. But the encyclical is flipping that. It's reminding us that humans have agency. The technology is in service of us.

That means we choose how we use it. We choose what companies we work for. We choose what brands we support. We choose what we consume and what we create.

That is power. And we should be using it.

Before we ended, I asked Julianne what women can be doing right now to stay AI-ready without losing themselves in the process.

And she shared a Māori framework called Te Whare Tapa Whā, which is the house of wellbeing.

It has four parts:

I loved this so much because it's a reminder that being ready for the future of work doesn't mean burning yourself out trying to keep up. It means staying whole.

This is one of the most thought-provoking conversations I've had on the podcast. And I think you'll get so much from it.

Listen to this week's episode 🎧

🎧 Listen here: The Pope’s AI Warning and Why Women Need to Reclaim Their Agency

What stood out to you most from this newsletter?

Send it through. I want to know.

With confidence,

Georgie 💜