Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse E350 | How to Stop Wasting Money on AI (and Start Mining Gold) with WPP's Daniel Hulme
AI hype is everywhere - but most of it is just noise. This episode cuts through it.
Dominic digs into what real artificial intelligence actually looks like with Daniel Hulme, Chief AI Officer at WPP and founder of Satalia and Conscium.
They explore why most so-called “AI projects” are really just automation in disguise, how to spot where genuine adaptive intelligence can unlock value, and what’s coming next - from synthetic audiences that test creative before launch, to the race toward conscious machines.
What you’ll learn:
- Why most “AI” isn’t intelligent - and how to tell the difference
- Where companies are misinvesting in generative tools
- How WPP uses AI to transform creativity and decision-making
- Why adaptive systems (not shiny models) are the real future of business
- How Daniel thinks about consciousness, empathy, and what humanity looks like in an AI-powered world
Book recommendations:
Genesis - Craig Mundie & Eric Schmidt
About the Guest:
Dr. Daniel Hulme is one of the UK’s leading voices in applied AI, ethics, and technology.
He’s Chief AI Officer at WPP, where he leads strategy and deployment of AI across 100,000 people, and Founder & CEO of Satalia, the AI company he started from his PhD and later sold to WPP for a reported $100 million.
Daniel recently co-founded Conscium, an AI safety company that tests and verifies AI agents - and is exploring whether machines could soon become conscious.
He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from UCL, where he’s also Entrepreneur in Residence, and was named by AI Magazine as one of the Top 10 Chief AI Officers globally.
Who should listen:
CMOs/CEOs/COOs, data/AI leaders, product & strategy teams, and founders deciding where to place AI bets (and what not to build in-house).
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