Cristina Criddle
Boards are being asked to make capital decisions on AI while the people building the technology, the regulators trying to contain it, and the platforms distributing it are all moving on different timelines. Leadership teams need a reporter’s view from inside the labs and the policy fights, not a vendor’s roadmap. The question is no longer what AI can do; it is who controls the systems, who sets the rules, and how that shapes the next three years of corporate strategy.
Cristina Criddle is the Financial Times’s San Francisco-based AI correspondent, helping leadership teams read what is actually happening inside the frontier AI labs, regulators and platforms shaping their next strategic decisions.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Cristina Criddle
- A direct line into the AI story as it is being reported, from a journalist who breaks news on OpenAI, Google, Meta and TikTok for the FT, not a commentator reading the same coverage as the audience.
- First-hand authority on platform power and data governance: in 2022 ByteDance admitted its staff used her personal account data to try to identify her FT sources, which gives her an unusually concrete view of how large platforms actually behave.
- Award-recognised reporting credentials, including gold at the 2023 MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards for technology coverage.
- Translates frontier AI development into language a non-technical executive can act on, drawing on a decade across the BBC’s Today Programme, BBC Breakfast and BBC Three, in addition to the FT.
- Works as keynote, panellist, host and moderator, which makes her useful as both a content voice and a credible chair for senior internal AI conversations.
Biography highlights
- Technology Correspondent, Financial Times, San Francisco, covering Artificial Intelligence.
- Previously the FT’s Technology Correspondent in London for three years.
- Former BBC technology reporter across the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, TV, radio and online.
- Producer of the BBC Three documentary “The Instagram Effect” (2022) on the platform’s impact on user wellbeing.
- Gold winner, MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards 2023, Science, Environment & Technology category.
- Subject of ByteDance’s admitted 2022 internal surveillance operation, in which staff accessed her location data via her personal TikTok account to try to identify her FT sources.
Biography
The frontier AI story is being written from a small number of buildings in San Francisco, and most boards are reading it second-hand. Criddle reports it first-hand. As the Financial Times’s Technology Correspondent specialising in AI, she covers OpenAI, Google, Meta and the other labs setting the pace, and the regulators and rival platforms trying to keep up.
Before the San Francisco posting, she spent three years as the FT’s Technology Correspondent in London, breaking stories on TikTok, Meta and the wider platform economy. Her reporting record was recognised with gold at the MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards in 2023 in the Science, Environment & Technology category.
Her earlier career at the BBC, across the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, TV, radio and online, included producing the 2022 BBC Three documentary “The Instagram Effect”, which used insider testimony to examine the platform’s effect on younger users. That mix of investigative reporting and broadcast experience is why she works as both a keynote voice and a chair for senior internal AI conversations.
In December 2022, ByteDance admitted that four of its staff had used Criddle’s personal TikTok data to try to identify her FT sources. The company dismissed the staff and restructured its internal audit team. The episode is one of the few publicly confirmed cases of a major platform surveilling a named journalist, and it gives her a concrete point of view on platform governance, data access and trust that boards are increasingly being forced to take seriously.
Key speaking topics
- Artificial intelligence and the frontier labs
- Enterprise AI adoption and workplace impact
- AI regulation and governance
- Big Tech platform power
- Data privacy and platform surveillance
- Social media’s effect on users and society
- Future of technology and consumer adoption
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees making capital allocation decisions on AI
- CTOs, CIOs and Chief AI Officers tracking the frontier labs and policy environment
- Communications, policy and legal leaders responsible for AI risk and platform exposure
- Conference programme chairs looking for an FT-credentialled AI host or moderator
Audience outcomes
- A current, named-source view of what is happening inside the major AI labs and how it is likely to land commercially
- A working understanding of the regulatory pressure on AI and large platforms, and where it is likely to bite
- Sharper questions to ask internal AI teams, vendors and platform partners about data, governance and safety
- A clearer sense of what is signal and what is noise in the AI news cycle
Talks
A reporter’s read on how AI has moved from research to mass consumer use, and what that means for enterprise strategy and regulation.
Key takeaways:
- How the frontier labs are actually competing, and what that says about the next two years
- Where regulation is heading in the US, UK and EU, and what leaders should prepare for
- What the AI arms race is doing to workforces, products and platform power
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| South America | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| United Kingdom | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |