BASELINE

Enterprise AI is changing the way organisations invest in infrastructure. While public attention remains focused on GPUs and large language models, many enterprises are discovering that the real challenge lies elsewhere. Data, storage, networking, security and governance are becoming the foundations of successful AI deployment. In this episode of BASELINE, Ian Smith speaks with Eric Herzog, Chief...

For decades, turning an idea into a product required funding, developers, technical expertise and a team. Today, that barrier is beginning to disappear. In this episode of BASELINE, former Tide CFO Ian Sutherland shares how a career break after helping scale Tide from less than $1 million to more than $200 million in revenue led him to an unexpected discovery: modern AI tools had dramatically redu...

Artificial intelligence is no longer just changing productivity tools. Inside large enterprises, banks and global institutions, AI and AI governance are beginning to reshape how organisations coordinate, decide and operate. In this episode, former HSBC AI transformation lead Sol Enenmoh explores the growing tension between traditional enterprise structures and computational systems evolving at mac...

AI is accelerating software development at an unprecedented pace. But what if the real problem isn’t building software anymore? What if the problem is understanding it? In this episode of BASELINE, Tudor Girba joins Ian Smith to explore one of the most overlooked challenges in modern technology: the growing gap between the software we create and our ability to comprehend it. As AI generates more c...

AI can now clone voices, fake video calls and imitate real people convincingly enough to steal millions of dollars from businesses in real time. In BASELINE089, Ian Smith sits down with Will Taylor from YEO Messaging to explore the collapse of trusted communication in the AI era. As deepfakes, AI-generated identities and social engineering attacks become increasingly indistinguishable from reality...

Modern engineering systems are becoming increasingly software-defined. From vehicles and aerospace systems to robotics and critical infrastructure, software is now the bottleneck limiting how quickly complex systems can be built, tested and deployed. In BASELINE088, former McLaren Principal Engineer and Arrival Director Elie Talj explores why engineering may be approaching the limits of human scal...

AI promises abundance, automation and intelligence at planetary scale. But what problem is it actually solving? In BASELINE086, Richard Self joins BASELINE to explore the economics, infrastructure and physical reality behind artificial intelligence, large language models, generative AI and the next generation of compute systems. Drawing on 50 years inside modern computing, from Rolls-Royce mainfra...

In this episode of BASELINE, Ian Smith sits down with Kirill Pyshkin, investor and physicist, to unpack what’s actually happening inside the quantum market. Investment has jumped from around $2 billion to over $10 billion in a year. Large institutions like HSBC and Moderna are already reporting real-world results. So why does it still feel like a science project? This conversation breaks down what...

If something goes wrong at sea, there is no one coming to help you. The only thing that connects you to rescue… is a signal. In this episode, I sit down with John Dodd from Inmarsat, part of Viasat, to understand what really happens when that signal is sent. This is about the systems that keep people alive when they are completely on their own. How they work, what they’re up against, and what it t...

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/enThis conversation explores the gap betw...

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...

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...

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 combinatio...

In this episode of BASELINE, Ian speaks with accountant and finance transformation specialist Michael Loizou about the human side of financial decision-making. As AI tools begin analysing financial data, generating reports, and assisting with forecasting, many people assume the role of accountants will simply become automated. Michael sees it differently. Drawing on years of experience working wit...

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 be...

AI is changing who has the leverage to act - and who doesn’t. This conversation explores what that shift means for climate, work, and who gets to build next.. https://nyamiralabs.aiIn this conversation, Justin Keeble reflects on his career at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and business strategy, and why he chose to leave a senior corporate role to build something new. We explore h...

We thought decentralisation would protect value. Bitcoin promised credible neutrality, but incentives reshaped it. Liquidity won. Ideology lost. In this conversation, John Fletcher explains why proof-of-work security models are structurally fragile, how Tether quietly undermined the neutrality of Bitcoin, and why incentive design always dominates belief systems. Then the discussion turns to AI. La...

Modern economies were built on a simple assumption: intelligence, expertise, and judgement were scarce. That assumption no longer holds. In this conversation, economist S Asieh Tabaghdehi, PhD explores how AI is reshaping labour markets, destabilising human capital, and quietly breaking the assumptions modern economies were built on. We discuss why entry-level knowledge work is being replaced firs...

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept or a laboratory experiment. It is embedded in our interfaces, shaping how we think, decide and act. In this episode of BASELINE, I sit down with Esra Kasapoglu to explore what happens when knowledge becomes abundant, agency becomes distributed, and AI moves from being a tool to becoming what she calls a “cognitive prosthetic.”We discuss how ge...

https://tig.foundation In this episode of BASELINE, Ian speaks with Ying Chan, CTO of The Innovation Game. As AI accelerates software development, much of the conversation focuses on speed. But speed does not make systems resilient. Incentives do. The Innovation Game is a protocol designed to incentivise the development of state-of-the-art algorithms through open participation. Innovators submit c...

3/3 - If AI systems are going to be used in the real world, they have to work. This final film in the UK AI Reality series focuses on where generative AI projects actually succeed or fail, and why trust, quality, and control matter more than capability or scale. Jack Perschke speaks from direct experience about delivery, governance, auditability, and the practical constraints that shape whether AI...

2/3 - Most conversations about AI assume someone is in control. This one questions that assumption. In this second film in the UK AI Reality series, the discussion moves beyond the founder and into the systems that shape national infrastructure, public services, and technological risk. Jack Perschke speaks candidly about how decisions around cloud, platforms, and AI are often responses to circumst...

1/3 - There is only one condition necessary for a business to exist: someone has to be willing to pay. This conversation steps away from the public narrative around UK AI and into the quieter reality of what it actually takes to build an early-stage AI company. Jack Perschke speaks plainly about funding, venture bias, domain expertise, and hiring in a global labour market, drawing a clear line bet...

For a long time, creativity, marketing, and software were separate, outsourced functions. AI is quietly 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 sho...

This conversation is grounded in lived operational history. Simon Reid implemented the world’s first satellite operations automation system for EUMETSAT in 1990, and three decades later led the first commercial in-orbit AI automation platform with AWS and ESA, a system later used for real experiments by third parties. What follows isn’t speculation about AI in space, but insight shaped by decades...