We’re constantly told AI will change the world of work. But we can build a better future ourselves, starting with the one thing all jobs have in common: pay.

Yet pay remains one of the most under-discussed aspects of work. It is about much more than a payslip: it reflects who is valued, who holds power and whose time is deemed to be worth more.

When Zara Nanu began building companies that use technology to tackle pay gaps within some of the world’s largest employers, she wanted to understand why those gaps had barely changed while work had been transformed. What she found were systems shaped by centuries-old assumptions and biases that continue to guide how we pay people today.

Tracing the story of pay from early societies and the factory clock to the algorithm, Nanu explores new approaches to fairer pay, and the challenges leaders face in putting them into practice. For anyone shaping the future of work, The Payslip is both a lens for understanding where we are and a map for where we could go next.