The Elite Edge: ⚡ The AI Great Divide: What 2025 Made Obvious — and What 2026 Will Reward 🚀
Doing The Research For You.
Deepali Vyas
December 22, 2025
Elite Edge | Week 66
⚡ The AI Great Divide: What 2025 Made Obvious — and What 2026 Will Reward 🚀
This is the second-to-last Elite Edge of the year.
I’ll be sending one final newsletter next Monday, December 29th — a true year-end close and reset.
But before we get there, we need to talk about what actually separated careers in 2025.
Because it wasn’t titles.
It wasn’t tenure.
And it definitely wasn’t effort.
🤖 THE AI GREAT DIVIDE (THE REAL STORY)
2025 wasn’t the year AI replaced people.
It was the year AI repriced them.
Across executive search, leadership teams, and hiring decisions, the pattern was unmistakable:
The professionals who accelerated:
Used AI weekly or daily
Applied it to real work, not experiments
Focused on judgment, synthesis, and decision-making
Positioned themselves as AI + human thinking leaders
Learned publicly and visibly
The professionals who quietly lost leverage:
Waited for permission
Avoided it because they didn’t want to “look behind”
Assumed experience would protect them
Confused credentials with relevance
No mass layoffs.
No dramatic exits.
Just a widening gap in influence, opportunity, and confidence.
🔮 WHAT I’M WATCHING HEADING INTO 2026
Here’s what’s becoming non-negotiable:
AI fluency becomes table stakes, not a differentiator
Judgment in ambiguity becomes the most valuable leadership skill
Leaders who can’t translate AI into business outcomes will stall
Careers built on “what I’ve done” lose to those who can explain how they think
The gap between proactive and reactive professionals widens — again
2026 will not reward the most experienced.
It will reward the most adaptable and visible.
🎓 LAST WEBINAR OF THE YEAR
If you’ve been meaning to attend one of my sessions — this is it.
👉 Tuesday, December 30th at 7pm EST
This is the final webinar of 2025, and we’ll be:
Breaking down what actually mattered this year
Resetting your positioning for 2026
Translating insight into action (not overwhelm)
Sign Up Here: https://careergameplan.youcanbook.me
📅 January webinar dates will be shared soon, and they’ll go deeper — more tactical, more focused, more forward-looking.
Thank you to everyone who has already joined me this year and invested in themselves.
📚What I Read Week…
📰 The Wall Street Journal: White-Collar Job Anxiety Is Rising — and It’s Not Irrational
This WSJ article put data behind what many of you have been feeling: job anxiety is rising even without layoffs.
The takeaway?
This isn’t emotional anxiety — it’s strategic uncertainty.
AI, restructures, and quiet cost-cutting have changed the rules, and many professionals no longer know where their leverage comes from. That’s exactly why optionality, visibility, and judgment matter more than ever.
🎙️What I Listened to This Week… (Podcasts)
😂 Meme of the Week
💬 FINAL WORD
2025 didn’t reward comfort.
It rewarded courage.
Courage to rethink your path.
Courage to let go of what wasn’t working.
Courage to learn something new — even when you were already “successful.”
Next week — December 29 — I’ll send the final Elite Edge of the year.
It will be about reflection, clarity, and setting yourself up to win 2026 with intention.
Until then:
Rest. Take stock. Get ready.
Your career isn’t behind you.
It’s being redesigned in real time.
Until next week,
— Deepali Vyas
Your Elite Recruiter
Doing the research so you don’t have to.
💛 A HOLIDAY THANK YOU (AND AN INVITATION)
As the year comes to a close, I want to pause and say thank you — whether you’ve been with me since Day 1 or found this community recently.
If you joined a coaching session, invested in a webinar, or spent time learning with me this year, I’m truly grateful. Choosing to invest in yourself — especially in a year like 2025 — is not something I take lightly. It’s been an honor to work with so many of you.
Over the past year, many of you asked:
Is there a more ongoing way to work together?
Can we go deeper?
I wish we had more time.
I heard you — and I built something new.
I’ve created a Concierge Career Coaching experience for professionals who want sustained, hands-on support — not surface-level advice, but real momentum. It’s a high-touch, executive-level coaching experience where we truly do the work together over three months.
As a thank-you to this community, I’m offering $250 off for those who want to join.
👉 To learn more or receive the discount, reply to this email or hello@vyas-media.com.
No pressure — just an open invitation.
And whether or not we work together formally, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Tell me what you’re proud of this year, what you’ve been working through, or what’s next for you.
I’m rooting for you — always.
Wishing you and your family a warm, healthy holiday season and a strong start to the year ahead. 💛
— Deepali Vyas, Your Elite Recruiter
💼 This Week’s Elite Job Drops 💼
💼 Exclusive Job Drops — Before They Hit the Market
These openings are under the radar — not on LinkedIn, not on job boards. I’m sharing them here first, straight from my insider network.
✨ ELITE RESOURCES ✨
Retirement Planning Made Easy
Building a retirement plan can be tricky— with so many considerations it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve put together The 15-Minute Retirement Plan to help investors with $1 million+ create a path forward and navigate important financial decisions in retirement.
Your résumé and LinkedIn aren’t admin tasks.
They are economic signals.
My Resume Fix, LinkedIn Overhaul, and Power Presence Package are live — built with my elite recruiting and coaching team to help you show up clearly, confidently, and competitively.
I know my personal calendar is limited — which is exactly why I’ve expanded an elite coaching team, trained in the same frameworks and hiring realities you see here.
👉 All services + coaching info:
https://www.deepalivyas.com/products
🌟 About Me 🤝🏻
🎥 FOLLOW ME
🔥 ELITE RECRUITER ON THE MARCH TO 1 MILLION
🎁 Free Giveaways
I’m giving away 5 Free Webinar Seats — so tell me your story and you might be the lucky winner (reply to this email) 😃
I want to help as many people as possible — and this is my way of giving back to the community that continues to grow with me.
Feedback is a Gift
I would love to know what you thought of this newsletter and any feedback you have for me. Do you have a favorite part? Wish I would add something? Felt confused? Please reply and share your thoughts!