The Comb-Shaped Career: Why Senior Women with Multiple Skills Will Win in the Age of AI | Prue Jones

AI cannot replicate relationships. And it's been my experience that projects will live or die, fail or succeed, on the basis of how strong the relationship is.
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For 20 years, Prue Jones has worked in the creative industries. She's watched technology change everything, from painting with gouache and pasting up type by hand to the birth of Adobe Creative Suite, the explosion of UX, and now the arrival of AI.
And here's what she's learned: design was never really about the visuals. It was always about the decisions. The taste. The judgment. The relationships. The ability to see the whole picture when everyone else is stuck in their silo.
Those are the things AI can't do. And those are the things that will make senior women with multiple skills absolutely invaluable in the age of AI.
In this episode of the Career Confidence Podcast, Georgie sits down with Prue Jones, a creative director, designer, and leader who's spent her career connecting people, process, and creativity across some of Australia's most complex projects.
Prue shares why she believes the future belongs to what she calls comb-shaped people, women who have depth across multiple verticals, not just one. Women who can take the 10,000-foot view. Women who understand that AI can automate tasks, but it can't reassure a client, anticipate what's coming next in a conversation, or hold a team together through messy change.
This conversation is about what happens when you stop trying to pick a lane and start leaning into the breadth of your experience. It's about why taste, judgment, and critical thinking are becoming more valuable, not less. It's about the difference between facilitating transactions and facilitating connection. And it's about why the next chapter of work isn't about being the most technical person in the room. It's about being the person who can bring it all together.
Prue also shares how she's upskilling herself on AI, why she's finding it fun rather than fearful, and the one thing she wishes more designers understood: just because we can doesn't mean we should.
In this episode:
How Prue's career has spanned 20 years in the creative industries, from gouache paint to AI
Why design is really a set of decisions, not just visuals
What Prue got wrong in 2017 when she said AI would never touch human creativity
Why she believes AI is here to stay, and why it's imperative to understand it even if you're uncomfortable using it
How she's using AI in her own design process, from Figma agents to Claude MCP
Why taste is the one thing the machine cannot manufacture on its own
What comb-shaped people are, and why senior women with multiple skills will win in the age of AI
Why having a 10,000-foot view is one of the most valuable skills you can bring to an organisation
Why AI cannot replicate relationships, and why soft skills are more important than ever
How to lean into the breadth of your experience rather than trying to pick one lane
Why Prue is moving from facilitating transactions to facilitating connection
What the experience economy looks like, from book doofs to sleep concerts
Why human connection will become even more valuable as the world becomes more reliant on technology
Why just because we can doesn't mean we should, and the unintended consequences of AI design decisions
How organisations need to think very carefully about who owns what in an interaction
One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation?
Your breadth of experience isn't a problem. It's your superpower.
The women who will thrive in the age of AI aren't the ones who can do one thing perfectly. They're the ones who can pull on multiple skills, take the 10,000-foot view, and bring people together.
They're the comb-shaped women. And they're about to become absolutely invaluable.