The next decade will be shaped by intelligent systems and the people who choose how they are built and governed.
BASELINE is a long-form conversation series with founders, academic, policymakers, and operators working at the frontier of AI and digital systems.
These conversations surface judgement, intent, and lived experience - helping you orient yourself for what comes next.
**NEW** For leadership teams, that same work also informs a fixed-scope BASELINE Execution Sprint, designed to turn organisational insight into clear, executable decisions.
Watch. Listen. Engage with intent.
Your AI Strategy Won’t Survive This Shift - Bob De Caux
Enterprise AI adoption is accelerating, but implementation is proving far more difficult than expected. While organisations are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large language models, many are struggling to translate capability into real operational impact. Bob De Caux is the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) at https://www.ifs.com
This conversation explores the gap between AI innovation and enterprise execution, covering the realities of AI strategy, organisational readiness, and the challenges of deploying AI systems at scale. Topics include AI transformation, enterprise architecture, data readiness, internal capability gaps, and the pressure on leadership teams to act before fully understanding the implications.
Drawing on real-world experience inside enterprise environments, this discussion breaks down why AI initiatives often stall, where companies are overestimating progress, and what needs to change for AI to deliver measurable value.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
How To Actually Get Hired In AI Companies - William Excell
The AI job market is expanding rapidly, but most people still don’t know how to access it. In this episode, Ian sits down with William Excell, a recruiter working directly with AI startups and high-growth technology companies, to break down what is actually happening inside the hiring market. As AI reshapes how companies are built, teams are becoming smaller, faster, and more selective. The result is a fundamental shift in what companies look for and who gets hired.
This conversation explores the real dynamics behind AI hiring, including the skills that matter, how roles are evolving, and what candidates need to do to position themselves effectively. If you are trying to understand where you fit in the AI economy, this episode provides a clear and grounded perspective from inside the system.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
The Hidden Talent Market - Gene Allmark-Kent
The global talent market is changing faster than most companies realise. For decades, careers followed a predictable path: education, corporate ladder, promotion, leadership. But AI, automation, and network-driven hiring are quietly rewriting the rules of work. In this episode of BASELINE, Ian Smith sits down with Gene Allmark-Kent, a senior executive search leader at Wilton & Bain, to unpack what is really happening behind the scenes of the global hiring market.
Why do thousands of job applications receive no response? Why are many opportunities never advertised? Why are networks becoming more valuable than résumés? From AI transforming enterprise decision-making to the collapse of traditional career ladders, this conversation explores how organizations are actually recruiting talent and what individuals must understand to navigate the next phase of the workforce.
The result is a candid look at the hidden mechanics of hiring, leadership, and influence in the AI era. If knowledge is becoming abundant, what becomes scarce?
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
The Emergence of Intelligence (And Why You’re Losing Your Edge) - Errol Rasit, Gartner
Errol Rasit is a Managing Vice President of Emerging Technologies Research at Gartner, where he advises global organisations on how technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud, and data infrastructure are reshaping business, decision-making, and human behaviour. With nearly two decades inside Gartner and leadership roles across research, product, and innovation, Errol brings a rare combination of deep technical insight and real-world enterprise perspective.
In this BASELINE conversation, we explore the emergence of intelligence through AI and what it actually means beyond the hype. From hyper-personalisation and AI-generated communication to the breakdown of trust, accountability, and human effort, this discussion goes deep into how behaviour is already changing at scale. We cover the rise of generative AI, the ChatGPT effect, and how organisations are restructuring around agentic systems.
Errol shares why ease of use is driving mass adoption, how accuracy drift creates long-term risk, and why ongoing human oversight still matters. We also explore decentralised data ownership, privacy trade-offs, and the growing role of AI in healthcare, retail, and everyday decision-making.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
If AI Replaces Work, Why Do We Still Need Humans? - Dr Rodrigo Perez-Vega
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how markets operate, how companies hire, and how consumers make decisions. But beneath the headlines about productivity and automation lies a deeper question: what happens when human labour is no longer required to sustain the economy? In this conversation with Rodrigo Perez-Vega from Henley Business School, we explore how AI is reshaping consumer behaviour, employment, and even demographic trends. If consumption fuels economic growth but AI reduces the need for human work, the foundations of our economic systems begin to shift.
We discuss the collapse of birth rates across advanced economies, the possibility of synthetic reproduction through robotic womb technologies, and the growing transfer of agency from humans to intelligent systems.
From AI-driven consumer behaviour to the long-term implications for society, this episode examines one of the most uncomfortable questions of the AI era: If systems can think, produce, and decide… what role remains for humanity?
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
I Didn’t Expect AI to Save So Much Money - Rob Paton
For a long time, creativity, marketing, and software were separate, outsourced functions. AI is collapsing those boundaries. In this conversation with independent brand consultant and creative Rob Paton, we explore what changes when execution becomes fast, cheap, and accessible to everyone. We talk about why traditional agency models are under pressure, why creativity still matters but shows up differently, and how AI-assisted tools are shifting work in-house.
From branding and production to custom software and “vibe coding,” this episode looks at what happens when teams can build directly instead of buying capability. We also ground the discussion in a real case study from a heating installation business, showing how AI-assisted tools can remove bottlenecks, reduce cost, and change how decisions get made.
Subscribe to BASELINE for long-form conversations exploring AI, creativity, and human intelligence.
The Algorithmic Leap | AI, Innovation, and the Rules of the Game - Dr John Fletcher
In BASELINE052, Ian Smith sits down with Dr John Fletcher an Oxford, Imperial, and Cambridge-trained physicist and Chief Scientist at The Innovation Game. John is not just a world-class academic - he’s a rare innovator who bridges the gap between research and real-world impact.
At The Innovation Game, he is building technology that creates genuine competitive advantage, not just another layer of AI hype. His work proves how algorithms can solve critical problems in logistics, medicine, and science showing that the future of AI is about application, not buzzwords.
Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?