Weapons of Mass Confidence: How AI Can Help Close the Confidence Gap for Women
We chat with Kat Thomas, author of Weapons of Mass Confidence and founder of creative communications company Knock Three Times.
We're back with a conversation that we think will resonate with so many of you, particularly anyone juggling a senior role, caring responsibilities, and the relentless mental load of work and home.
We were thrilled to chat to Kat Thomas, multi-award-winning creative entrepreneur and author of Weapons of Mass Confidence: How AI Will Help Women Win More. Kat shares the deeply personal story behind the book- navigating her dad's move into care from a different country, hitting bureaucratic dead ends, and the moment ChatGPT helped her solve in ten days what had taken her ten months of phone calls and lawyers' fees.
From there, the conversation opens up into something much bigger: the confidence gap, the hidden cost of under-asking, and why women must show up to AI rather than reject it -because if we don't, the biases baked into these tools will only get worse.
This is a hopeful, honest, and very practical conversation about how AI can be a quiet accelerator for women at work and at home.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
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The very personal story that led Kat to write the book — and why her first AI use case was nothing to do with work
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The confidence gap, and why women often hold back when men go for it
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AI as a private "rehearsal room" for difficult conversations, doctor's appointments, salary negotiations and life admin
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The "power moves vs polish" divide: how men and women are using AI differently, and the guilt factor holding women back
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Why rejecting AI on ethical grounds risks making bias worse, not better
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Kat's Just Ask philosophy — and what changes when asking becomes normal rather than risky.
Zoe and Paul also discuss two stories shaping the leadership conversation right now: Rishi Sunak's observation that "flat is the new up" — the idea that organisations can grow without growing headcount thanks to AI -and what this means for younger talent looking for a career path. Plus, Claude's recent pricing experiments and what the shift from SaaS-style licences to metered, usage-based AI pricing means for small businesses, charities and anyone trying to budget responsibly in an AI-dependent world.
Show Notes & Links
Weapons of Mass Confidence - https://www.waterstones.com/book/weapons-of-mass-confidence/kat-thomas/9781835842027
Zoe and Paul discussed:
Rishi Sunak on AI and taxation - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg07x4rejdo
Changes to Claude’s pricing model and AI dependency - https://zoeamar.com/2026/04/30/ai-governance-risk-charity-leaders/
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Editing and production - Paul Thomas
Music by Joseph McDade - https://josephmcdade.com/music
Full transcript of this episode (srt file)
Full transcript of this episode (.txt file)
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