Dough - The Office
Sliced Bread
BBC
4.6 • 695 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What will the office be like in future?
Greg Foot, host of BBC Radio 4's 'Sliced Bread' brings you 'Dough', examining the rise of future wonder products.
Greg is joined by experts, entrepreneurs and industry innovators to discuss the trends we're seeing today and where they may lead us tomorrow, before a leading futurist offers their predictions on what life might be like within five, ten and fifty years.
This time we’re looking at the future of the office - asking whether in years to come, we’ll even need one?
If so, is the ‘conference room’ soon to be a thing of the past, replaced with cafes, comfy chairs, and table tennis tables?
And will our future HQs be home to service robots and AI receptionists?
Greg learns how the Covid-19 pandemic changed office working and the trends transforming the look of high-end office developments. He is joined by the futurist Tom Cheesewright and guests including:
- Professor Matt Davis, University of Leeds - Jane Clay, Strategy Leader and Principal at Gensler which designs and refurbishes buildings around the world - Mike Dalloz, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of The Meeting Pod Company.
Produced by Jon Douglas. Dough is a BBC Audio North Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. BBC Sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:28.8 | You're about to listen to the latest episode of Do. |
| 0:31.6 | Episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts, |
| 0:35.1 | but you can listen to the latest episode first on BBC |
| 0:37.8 | Sounds a week earlier than anywhere else. Make sure you subscribe to get new episodes of Doe as soon as |
| 0:43.2 | they become available and listen first on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Greg Foote and welcome to Doe, |
| 0:48.8 | the show that explores future wonder products that might rise to success and redefine our lives. Each episode, I sit down |
| 0:55.9 | with entrepreneurs and experts to discuss where the businesses of today may be tomorrow. This time, |
| 1:02.4 | we're looking at the future of the office, asking whether in years to come we'll even need one. |
| 1:08.0 | If so, is the conference room soon to become a thing of the past, replaced with |
| 1:12.2 | cafes, comfy chairs and table tennis tables? And will our future HQs be home to service robots |
| 1:18.8 | and AI receptionists? Clocking on to present his vision for the years ahead, it is our CFO, |
| 1:26.4 | that's chief futurist officer to you. Tom Cheesewright. Hello, Tom. Hello, Greg. I promise this won't be a meeting that should have been an email. I'm very pleased to hear it. That wouldn't make for great listening. Oh, gosh, I'm sick of those. If you're new to Doe, each episode I am joined by one of our resident futurists, and after we've done some future scoping with our guests, |
| 1:44.6 | I challenge our futurist to give their predictions on what the business of tomorrow may look like in 5, 10 and 50 years time. |
... |
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