Richard Foster-Fletcher stands among the UK’s most respected artificial intelligence speakers, recognised for his forward-thinking insights at the intersection of AI, digital trust, and ethical innovation.
As the founder of Neural Pathways and host of the Boundless podcast, Richard has become a sought-after voice for organisations seeking clarity on responsible AI deployment and inclusive transformation strategies.
In this exclusive interview with Champions Speakers Agency, the influential technology speaker explores the real-world impact of generative AI, offering expert guidance for navigating complex data challenges, safeguarding ethical standards, and embracing change with purpose.
A passionate advocate for equity in tech, Richard also discusses the vital role of diversity and inclusion speakers in shaping a fairer digital future, and what modern leadership speakers must understand to thrive in the age of AI.
Q: From your experience advising leaders, what are the most persistent misconceptions about AI in the boardroom—and how do they affect implementation strategies?
Richard Foster-Fletcher: “I’ve seen three common misconceptions about AI that I think are quite troubling.
“The first is that suddenly, somehow, CEOs of companies have decided that AI is possible even though they’ve never fixed their data. But the benefit of this now is that they’re going home, they’re seeing their partner or their children, whoever, using these generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, and they’re thinking, “Wow, we’ve got to do that in the workplace.”
“So, they come in, they speak to their CTO, their CDO, and the CTO/CDO can finally come back and say, “Great, if you want to do that, we’ve actually got to take a proactive approach to sorting out our first-party data or our third-party data.”
“So, it’s the opportunity that people have been looking for in organisations to get the fundamentals sorted so the CEO’s vision that they’re seeing around large language models and generative AI can be achievable. And I say to people when they ask me, “How should I learn about AI?” I say you should learn about data. You’ve got to understand the fundamentals of data before you can get anywhere with artificial intelligence.
“The second thing that I see, the common misconception, is that they can stop their employees using ChatGPT. You cannot. Everybody’s got second, third, fourth devices. People are working from home.
“Look, let’s be very, very clear: ChatGPT is the most incredible product ever because it does your work for you. Imagine someone saying to you, “I’ll give you the greatest app in the world.” What’s that? It’s an app that literally does your work. Okay, how can they not use that?
“So, your strategy must incorporate the fact they’re going to be sharing data into these models, they’re going to be using them at home or out of sight of you or your IT team. So have a strategy that works with that rather than against that.
“The third thing is that CEOs think they can replace their staff with AI. To some extent, of course, this may be possible and we see a lot of headlines. But my feeling is they should come at this with a completely different approach—something that’s called the SAMR model.
“SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and then Replacement. But you’ve got three aspects before the replacement: Substitution, Augmentation, and Modification. That’s the area that I think CEOs should focus on when they’re looking at the power of AI for productivity and for augmenting, substituting, and modifying their workforce, rather than just replacing.”
Q: Emerging economies are eager to embrace AI. In your view, how might generative AI shape the trajectory of global markets—and what are the risks of adopting tools trained on foreign data ecosystems?
Richard Foster-Fletcher: “I’ve been travelling quite a lot recently, presenting and working with governments in places like Tunisia and Turkey.
“In Tunisia, it was quite interesting to see not only have they established an AI university from one of the management schools, but they’re actually launching it in English rather than their usual French—which is an indication of how they want to connect more with the global market and the work that they’re doing. The worst thing they can do is get left behind on these sorts of technologies.
“If we look at the US, 70% apparently of businesses are now using ChatGPT. But let’s pause that thought for a second, because a lot of the talk that we hear in places like Tunisia and Turkey and others is about the cutting edge. They’re excited about the sorts of breakthroughs that they can be a part of in areas like health, and in agriculture and climate change, and industry and manufacturing.
“But my message to those leaders is, let’s not forget that when we talk about the majority of AI implementations, the overwhelming majority is going to be everyday companies—small companies—using platforms like ChatGPT, along with Gemini, along with other options like Claude and Perplexity, just to mention those as well.
“And so what are the issues around that? There’s a tremendous potential uplift in productivity from those organisations jumping in and using those low-cost and no-cost tools. But let’s look at some of the data behind that: 55% of websites are in English. 50% of all internet traffic goes to US companies.
“So it’s not just asking how do we deliver cutting-edge research and AI? It’s not just asking how do we get companies empowered to be using these tremendously useful platforms like ChatGPT? But asking, hold up—if it’s been built on websites and on traffic that’s got nothing to do with Tunisia, Turkey, other places—how relevant is it? How useful is it? And what are the risks?
“How could it impact our culture, our sovereignty, our morality, our customers in this country if we’re using platforms that were built on data that is simply not aligned to the way that we think and the way that we work?
“So, can they leapfrog? Absolutely. Can they be a big part of the AI story? Absolutely. But I think to some extent, it needs to be on their terms, and we’ve got to work out how to do that.”
