Tech Talks

If everyone has access to the same AI model, what's actually left to compete on?

AES Chief Digital Strategy and AI Officer Erin Boyd argues it's not the model, it's the data, and knowing exactly where to reinsert human friction. She explains why she told a room of executives their companies would "wither" if they don't reimagine how they work, and why burning down institutional baggage isn't about cutting jobs. This is AI leadership, unfiltered.

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Fractional CTO and AI engineering lead Jess Madhavan joins David to unpack why so many leadership teams feel like they're falling behind on AI, and why the real risk often isn't too little AI adoption, but too much of it without governance.

Jess and David dig into the shrinking junior talent pipeline, what actually helps early-career engineers stand out now, and why she credits her career less to skill than to who she chose to help along the way.

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Women are twice as likely to lose their jobs to AI as men. Heather Black, founder of Supermums, has spent ten years building the pathway for women into tech, and she's not interested in the stats alone. In this conversation, she and David get into:

➡️ Why AI is quietly widening the gender gap in tech hiring

➡️ The “digital belly flop”: what happens when a £2m AI project skips change management

➡️ The NLP Logical Levels framework Heather uses to diagnose failed tech rollouts

➡️ Why she stepped back from policy and refocused on one person at a time: starting with “Jo”

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Google had rules, but AI search is a black box.

Francisco Vigo, CEO of geoSurge, joins David Savage to unpack why large language models default to the brands they already know, and what that means if yours isn't one of them.

Francsico explains the bias built into how ChatGPT and Claude decide what to recommend, why marketers are more anxious about this shift than any before it, and the energy bottleneck nobody's pricing into the AI boom yet.

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How do you scale a platform built on getting people off their screens?

Cliq co-founder Nicola Gunby joins our host David Savage to unpack a closely-held funding round, early moves into Australia and Europe, and the tension of keeping community intimate while growing fast.

Nicola shares why her team shows up to the events they build for, why founder storytelling beats a polished pitch, and what's missing from the conversation about women in tech.

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Is your company already living in the AI 'tokenpocalypse'?

Anaconda CEO David DeSanto joins our host David Savage to unpack the hidden costs of scaling AI; from a developer burning $300,000 a month on tokens with nothing to show for it, to the compliance risks of data quietly crossing borders. They dig into why AI-native platforms are starting to redefine cloud computing, and why we're at a critical fork in the road between closed and open-source AI. It's a topic not enough are reckoning with...

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George Davis went from building a cash-flow forecasting startup in London at 18, to crypto cross-border payments, to founding Lorum; a correspondent bank for banks, chasing an OCC license in the US.

His argument? The correspondent banking system isn't broken, the incentives inside it are, and almost nobody outside the industry is talking about what happens when banks try to lend deposits that might not last the week.

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Most companies handle AI risk the same way. Lock it down, restrict access, wait and see.

Intuit tried something else.

Let people play with the new tools first, under the lightest guardrails they can get away with, and then send in the platform teams to harvest what actually worked. It sounds like chaos, but Jack Tam (SVP of Product and Engineering) says it's the opposite.

Today, we're talking to a leader who's spent over two decades inside the same company, watching the internet, mobile, and now AI transformations reshape what 'secure' even means. We're going inside the room to ask: what do you actually let go of, to build something that lasts?

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Most AI conversations are about cloud spend and token bills. Tom Bianculli, CTO of Zebra Technologies, is building the opposite: "tokenless AI" that runs directly on frontline handheld devices instead of burning tokens in the cloud.

Tom joins David Savage to unpack what that looks like on the warehouse floor, why 51% of the vote on any AI pilot comes down to whether frontline workers actually want to use it, and why real transformation means designing AI-first workflows from a blank sheet of paper rather than bolting AI onto what already exists.

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Every retail store runs on a "plan of record". The perfect, on-paper version of how things should work. But the floor is messier.

Everseen CEO Joe White joins David Savage to unpack that gap. We find out how vision AI governs itself across GDPR and global privacy rules without ever storing a face, why 25% of retail loss comes from honest mistakes rather than theft, and why the best technology is the kind you never notice.

Plus the real return retailers see in year one, and the "bouncer" philosophy behind stopping shrink before it happens.

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Are West Coast tech giants losing their grip on enterprise AI?

Harpreet Arora from Vercel joins David Savage to break down the massive shift from closed frontier models to open weight alternatives.

Discover how data sovereignty, latency, and a sudden shift from speculative "token maxing" to strict ROI are rewriting the playbook for tech leaders. Learn how to navigate spend sprawl and deploy AI that actually delivers business outcomes.

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Meta keeps pushing brands toward AI-generated visuals. Gozney's answer was to pour real paint over their pizza ovens instead.

Head of Growth Kirsty Tansey joins David Savage to unpack why Gozney refuses to optimise for the next purchase, and chase the next cook instead. Today's episode asks: in a world flooded with AI content, has authenticity become Gozney's real product?

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For years, we've measured developer productivity in isolation.

Now "token maxing" is pouring kerosene on the fire, creating "agent anarchy" as individuals build local solutions that fragment enterprise systems.

SnapLogic CTO Jeremiah Stone explains why optimising for individual AI output is the wrong metric, and why systemic thinking (not token spend) actually drives ROI.

We unpack the hidden costs of AI sprawl, and why the biggest gains come from redesigning business processes.

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Setting up a legal entity abroad used to take 18 months and a small fortune in lawyers. Now enterprise companies are quietly reversing course, closing entities while keeping their best global talent.

Charlotte Johnson, RVP at Pebl, joins the podcast to talk about "entity rationalisation," and how an AI model trained on 186 countries' worth of employment law is changing workforce planning. However, the one place she refuses to let AI anywhere near: letting someone go.

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Today's episode features Checkatrade CEO Jambu Palaniappan, talking about why AI ownership, not AI adoption, is the real boardroom question.

He explains why five or six US tech companies still control most of the ecosystem, why open-source alternatives can't come fast enough, and why every business betting on someone else's model is quietly taking on someone else's risk. This episode is a sharp look at what "data sovereignty" actually means for a company that isn't Google or OpenAI.

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Brands spend fortunes on polished studio shoots, yet modern consumers crave raw, unpolished authenticity to make purchasing decisions.

In this episode, Klaviyo's Brett Bernstein unpacks why user-generated content (UGC) consistently outperforms highly produced media. We explore the psychology of trust, why the "shaky camera" aesthetic drives conversions, and how bringing real-time social signals into your CRM finally unlocks the true ROI of your social media efforts.

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Many companies measure AI success by usage alone, but Box's CTO Ravi Malick says that's a trap that can sabotage your rollout, pushing teams to burn budgets just to look innovative.

In this episode Ravi Malick makes the case for a "clean sheet" approach: rethinking workflows instead of bolting AI onto old ones. We explore why real transformation shows up on the balance sheet, how Box tracks success differently by department, and his two-phase strategy: first letting "a thousand flowers bloom," then "cultivating the garden" to scale what works.

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In this episode, we explore the reality of building deep tech companies that solve massive societal problems. with cofouder and entrepreneur Dom Falcão.Deep Science Ventures challenges the traditional entrepreneurial narrative of "fail fast," explaining why deep-tech startups should be built to never pivot.

We discuss their unique outcome-driven framework, the world’s first PhD program for founder-scientists, and why the cliché that scientists can’t be CEOs is fundamentally wrong.

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When Fiverr's CTO Yossi Levin decided to equip his entire company with Al tools, he didn't set spending limits. Instead, he made cost visibility the only rule.

In this episode, Yossi reveals the human reality of going Al- native, the hidden costs of non-developer prompt mistakes, and why the most critical future skill isn't coding, it's context. We break down the real ROI of Al, beyond just generating more code.

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How do you go from a junior HR role to a Solution Engineer?

In this episode, Izzy Power shares her unconventional journey into tech. We unpack how AI is reducing her admin from hours to minutes, the pressing need to be "intentional" with that saved time, and why the tech industry must rethink how it trains entry-level talent before we accidentally pull up the drawbridge on the next generation.

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Ashleigh Ainsley, MBE and co-founder of Colorintech, joins David Savage to uncover the uncomfortable truths about the technology sector's diversity problem.

They discuss why venture capital is leaving money on the table by ignoring underrepresented founders, the hidden biases in AI, and why a lack of data means structural barriers remain unaddressed. Discover what it really takes to open the door for the next generation of leaders.

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AI innovation is moving at breakneck speed, but are organizations keeping up?

Luis Blando (OutSystems' Chief Product and Technology Officer) argues that scaling AI isn't just about deploying expensive models, it’s a massive cultural transformation.

We explore the "terrible" tension between innovation and governance, why businesses just need a good old bicycle instead of a Ferrari to solve most problems, and how unlocking unstructured data is the secret to ending AI hallucinations.

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When Lucy Donaldson left the highly-regulated finance world to become CIO of Globus, a 100-year-old travel brand, she didn't just face a technology upgrade, she faced a massive cultural shift.

In this episode, Lucy reveals why true legacy modernisation relies on people before platforms, how a master data foundation enables AI success, and why "shadow AI" presents a new governance challenge. Discover the human decisions driving legacy transformation.

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The rush to adopt AI agents is creating an invisible crisis: mounting technical debt and skyrocketing token bills.

Woodson Martin from OutSystems joins us to discuss the "token-o-palypse" that shocked CFOs and the hidden costs of moving too fast. We unpack how leaders can seize back control, build secure infrastructure, and truly own their agentic future without sacrificing compliance or their budgets.

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Tech leaders are waking up to massive, unexpected AI bills. Why? The industry has fallen for the 'reasoning trap': paying models to rethink basic, repeatable tasks from scratch.

Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler joins David Savage to expose the "token-eating" agents causing boardroom budget shock. We unpack why standardising your AI "recipe" is the only way to scale without breaking the bank, and why token-maxxing is a flawed strategy.

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When you experience life's toughest moments, should a chatbot be the one to comfort you?

Sophie Ruddock, COO of Empathy, doesn't think so.

In this episode, we explore the tension between scaling a tech-for-good platform and maintaining human compassion. Sophie reveals why they refuse to fully automate grief, the limits of AI in emotional support, and how solving the logistical burden of death delivers both vital social care and real business impact.

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The board wants an AI “Ferrari,” but are you ready for the security headaches?

Aidan Finn, CEO of Binarii Labs, reveals that unstructured data makes up 90% of enterprise data (and it's dangerously exposed). We unpack the illusion of data sovereignty, the risks of relying on a single cloud provider, and how fragmenting files across locations could be your ultimate defense. Discover how to actually take back control.

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We are currently obsessed with using artificial intelligence to generate the perfect pop song or a flawless corporate video. But what if we are building the exact tools that audiences are actively rejecting?

In this episode of Tech Talks, we uncover the invisible decisions shaping the future of digital creativity. David sits down with OverTune founder Siggi Arnason to discuss why the public's current anger toward AI is actually misdirected. Siggi argues that our frustration is the boiling point of 15 years of social media conditioning, where algorithms have heavily rewarded "emotional spikes and repetition" over actual art.

While corporate boardrooms continue pushing polished, flawless AI tools to monetise their intellectual property, they are entirely missing what audiences are asking for. If perfect AI isn't the answer, what is? Siggi believes the next massive wave of consumption will be the complete antithesis of AI. We explore how platforms like Roblox and SoundCloud are fostering a new era of raw, highly collaborative, and "authentically ridiculous" content.

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When Francesco De Stefano proposed radical 3D printing designs with robotic arms, people laughed. In response, he made a radical choice: Caracol wouldn’t sell a single system for five years until their technology was perfected.

Francesco joins David Savage to unpack the realities of reshoring, how advanced manufacturing actually solves critical skilled labor shortages, and the hidden human decisions driving the next industrial revolution.

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We are pouring billions of dollars into large language models, trusting them to reshape how our businesses operate. Yet, if you read the fine print on Microsoft's Copilot licensing agreement, you will find a startling admission: the tool is "intended only for entertainment".

So why are leaders deploying a technology that, by default, cannot work reliably and completely obfuscates its own training data?

In this episode, technologist and CTO Vaclav Vincalek exposes the dangerous disconnect between AI hype and verifiable reality. We explore the alarming "brain atrophy" among young users who have stopped critically assessing the information they are fed by AI tools. We also unpack the double standard of financial giants like JP Morgan, who deploy AI for thousands of general employees but strictly ban it on the trading floor, the one place where people are personally responsible for outcomes and mistakes mean losing the company or going to jail.

Finally, Vaclav shares his vision for a new "personal web" designed to strip away algorithmic interference and give users total encrypted control over their own curated information.

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We assume AI’s greatest test is in self-driving cars or robotics, but what if it’s actually inside video games?

David Savage sits down with Artificial.Agency CEO Brian Tanner to explore how generative AI is shifting games from pre-scripted stories to living, reacting worlds. Discover why building gaming AI is surprisingly harder than real-world automation, and what happens when society gains access to super-intelligent personal assistants.

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Generative AI is sparking fear across the creative industry, but VSCO CEO Eric Wittman argues that AI isn't the only threat to photographers, it’s also business acumen.

In this episode, David Savage explores why the average professional photographer lasts just 2 to 3 years, how AI is actually becoming a creator's best thought partner, and the leadership lessons learned from embracing technological transformation rather than fearing it.

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Every fintech pitch deck claims to use AI, but are they just ticking a box for VCs?

In this episode, Started PR founder Kimberley Waldron unpacks the tension between AI hype and real revenue. We explore why experienced founders are terrified of "AI washing", the looming cultural divide between human and silicon lifeforms, and how AI might actually solve global financial parity instead of just cutting corporate costs.

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Social media is flooded with viral videos of humanoid robots, but what happens when the cameras turn off? In this episode, David Savage sits down with Kacper Nowicki, CEO of Nomagic, to uncover the reality of "unhappy robots" gathering dust. We explore the massive gap between online hype and industrial reliability, the invisible labor shortages driving e-commerce, and the real decisions behind automating physical work.

Why do scaling tech companies wait until the 11th hour to care about governance and compliance?

David Savage sits down with Scrut Automation’s Nick Muy to explore the panic that hits when a major enterprise deal is on the line. They unpack the realities of building trust, why there are no "magic wands" in compliance, and why the narrative that AI will eliminate jobs shows a complete lack of imagination.

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While software moves fast, progress to unlock the power of fusion energy faces the unforgiving laws of physics.

David Savage sits down with Cary Forest, Chief Scientific Officer at Realta Fusion, to explore deep tech's realities. They discuss why nature ignores pitch decks, the tension between massive scientific risk and infinite payoff, and how fusion could eventually provide the clean, 24/7 power needed to sustain the AI revolution.

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AI agents are taking over, but who governs their access?

In this episode, David sits down with Nancy Wang (CTO of 1Password) to explore the evolving "trusted access gap" for machines and agents.

Nancy reveals why 1Password deliberately sacrifices development velocity for confidential computing, how the CTO role has shifted out of the "engine room", and why they’ve completely rewritten engineering interviews.

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How do you manage technology governance for 20,000 volunteers without killing innovation?

Joanne Todd, CIO at St John Ambulance, explains why she embraces a "sandbox" approach to shadow IT instead of shutting it down. We discuss the 150-year-old charity's evolution, the friction in frontline healthcare, and the terrifying reality of AI bias for vulnerable populations. Discover why technology must do the heavy lifting while never replacing human empathy.

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Many companies boast hundreds of AI experiments, but how many actually make it to production?

In this episode, Chris Bridgland from Couchbase reveals the stark reality of "AI readiness". We explore why data quality remains the ultimate bottleneck, the danger of unbounded AI agents, and why testing AI is like designing an airplane. Discover why mastering internal validation—and setting strict guardrails—is the only way to build AI you can trustWhen I've sat down with several customers... we asked them the question. So, you know, how many AI projects are you currently running? And they said, we've got around about 300. [...] So how many are live? They said, right now seven are live... what they're finding is that at some point during that development cycle, these things are coming and biting in the back."

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