Calum Chace
Most boards now accept that AI will change their business. Few have a defensible view on what it changes first, what it changes structurally, and what it does to the labour model their P&L assumes. The gap between accepting AI as a trend and treating it as a strategic variable is where serious organisations are exposed.
Calum Chace is a writer, speaker and AI safety company co-founder who helps senior leaders work out what artificial intelligence does to their business model, their workforce and the wider economy they operate in.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Calum Chace
- He has built two books and two operating ventures around the same argument: that AI changes capability, then labour, then the structure of the economy. Boards hear a coherent thesis, not a trend update.
- He coined the term “economic singularity” and wrote the book on it. Leadership teams trying to think clearly about technological unemployment get the original framing, not a recycled version.
- Through Conscium, the AI safety company he co-founded in 2024, and the linked PRISM research non-profit, he speaks from inside the live debate on machine consciousness and agent evaluation, not from the sidelines.
- Thirty years across BBC journalism, Financial Times writing, KPMG strategic intelligence and CEO roles mean he frames AI for commercial audiences in language they already use.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder of Conscium (2024), an AI safety company working on neuromorphic computing, AI agent evaluation, and machine consciousness.
- Co-founder of the Economic Singularity Foundation, a think tank on the future of jobs in an AI economy.
- Author of Surviving AI and The Economic Singularity, plus the techno-thrillers Pandora’s Brain and Pandora’s Oracle.
- Co-host of the London Futurist Podcast and the PRISM Podcast on sentient machines.
- Read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford; trained as a journalist with the BBC; contributed to the Financial Times.
- Former director of KPMG’s strategic and commercial intelligence media practice and CEO of several businesses before moving to full-time writing and speaking in 2012.
Biography
Artificial intelligence is two distinct strategic questions for a board, not one. The first is what AI does to the products and services a business sells. The second is what it does to the labour the business buys. Calum Chace has spent a decade arguing that the second question is the one most organisations are underprepared for, and that the gap between AI as a capability story and AI as an economic story is where the strategic risk sits.
His two non-fiction books frame that gap. Surviving AI deals with the long-term safety question once machines start to match and then exceed human capability. The Economic Singularity gave a name to the moment when technological unemployment becomes the dominant labour reality, and made the case that this is a question of decades, not centuries. The economic singularity is now a term other writers use; he wrote the book it came from.
The work has continued into operating ventures. In 2024 he co-founded Conscium, an AI safety company developing neuromorphic computing, agent evaluation methods and research on machine consciousness. Conscium has since seeded PRISM, a non-profit researching sentient machines, which he co-hosts as a podcast. Earlier, he co-founded the Economic Singularity Foundation, a think tank on the future of jobs.
Before any of that, Chace read PPE at Oxford, trained as a BBC journalist, wrote for the Financial Times, ran the media practice at KPMG’s strategic and commercial intelligence group, and held several CEO roles. That commercial background is why his talks for senior audiences sound like strategy conversations rather than technology briefings, and why he can argue both sides of the AI question, capability and consequence, in the same room.
Key speaking topics
- Artificial intelligence and the two singularities
- The economic singularity and the future of jobs
- AI safety, alignment and machine consciousness
- Digital transformation and AI in the enterprise
- AI in healthcare
- AI in education
- The philosophy of AI
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees building a long-range AI strategy
- CHROs and people leaders facing workforce redesign around AI capability
- Conferences for technology, financial services, healthcare and professional services leadership
- Government, regulator and policy audiences working on AI governance and labour-market policy
Audience outcomes
- A clearer separation between AI as a product question and AI as a labour question, and a sense of which one their organisation is more exposed to.
- A working definition of the economic singularity and a view on whether the case for serious technological unemployment is credible.
- A more informed position on AI safety, machine consciousness and agent evaluation as governance issues, not laboratory topics.
- Language and reference points senior leaders can use in their own board and investor conversations about AI.
Talks
A keynote setting out the two distinct strategic questions AI raises for organisations: the long-term safety question of machines that match or exceed human capability, and the nearer-term economic question of technological unemployment.
Key takeaways:
- Why treating AI as a single trend conflates two different leadership challenges
- The case for taking the economic singularity seriously within a planning horizon, not a generational one
- How safety, alignment and consciousness research connect to board-level AI governance
A practical session on what AI changes inside an enterprise now, how to think about capability adoption, and where to expect structural rather than incremental change.
Key takeaways:
- Where AI is already operating advantage and where it is still demonstration
- The questions a board should be asking about AI investment, not just AI projects
- How to assess workforce exposure to automation across functions
A keynote built on the central thesis of his book: that AI capability will eventually cover most of what humans currently do for money, and that policy and corporate planning need to start now.
Key takeaways:
- Why technological unemployment is a different problem from previous waves of automation
- The implications for the social contract, taxation and corporate purpose
- What organisations can credibly say about jobs in the AI transition
Videos
Testimonials
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| Europe | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| South America | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |