Daniel Hulme
Most large organisations have run AI pilots. Few have moved AI into operating reality at scale, with clear lines on governance, accountability and where it is allowed to make decisions. Boards now need a sharper read on what AI can actually do for their business, what it should not do, and how to deploy it without inheriting risks they cannot defend in front of regulators or customers.
Daniel Hulme is an applied AI specialist and Chief AI Officer at WPP who helps senior teams move AI from isolated pilots into operating advantage, while making honest calls on where the technology should and should not be used.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Daniel Hulme
- He runs AI inside a FTSE 100 holding company. When he talks about deployment at scale he is describing decisions he is currently making across WPP’s operating businesses, not modelling them from the outside.
- He sold the AI consultancy he founded, Satalia, to WPP after building it across clients including Tesco, Unilever, PwC, BT and the BBC. The deployment track record is operational, not slideware.
- As founder of Conscium, the first commercial research organisation on machine consciousness, he can address AI safety and the frontier governance questions that boards are starting to ask, without retreating into philosophy.
- His UCL credentials are substantive, an EngD in AI, the former directorship of the Applied AI MSc, and a current Entrepreneur-in-Residence role. The science behind the commercial advice is real.
- He signed the 2017 open letter to the United Nations on autonomous weapons alongside Musk, Hinton, Russell and Hassabis. He has been in the public AI governance conversation for almost a decade, well before it became fashionable.
Biography highlights
- Chief AI Officer, WPP plc, coordinating AI strategy across the group since the 2021 acquisition of Satalia.
- Founder and former CEO of Satalia, the UK AI company named to Gartner’s Cool Vendors list for data science in 2016.
- Founder and CEO, Conscium, a London-based commercial research organisation studying machine consciousness and neuromorphic AI, founded 2024.
- EngD and Master’s in Artificial Intelligence, University College London. Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UCL.
- Faculty member, Singularity University, on AI, ethics, innovation and organisational design.
- Founding Fellow, Academy for the Mathematical Sciences (2026).
- Co-author, Stories from 2045 (Economic Singularity Foundation, 2019).
- Signatory, 2017 open letter to the United Nations on lethal autonomous weapons.
Biography
WPP acquired Satalia in 2021 and made its founder its Chief AI Officer across the group. That move put one person in charge of AI strategy across a FTSE 100 advertising and marketing holding company, with operating brands that touch most of the world’s largest consumer businesses. The job is what most boards are now wrestling with on a smaller scale.
Daniel Hulme founded Satalia in 2008 out of his AI research at University College London, where he earned his EngD and went on to direct the Applied AI MSc programme. Satalia’s work for clients including Tesco, Unilever, PwC, BT and the BBC sat at the unglamorous end of AI, optimisation, decision intelligence and operational decision-making, which is where deployment usually succeeds or fails.
In 2024 he co-founded Conscium, a commercial research organisation focused on machine consciousness and neuromorphic AI. The work matters commercially because the next set of AI governance questions, around verification, autonomy and accountability, are not solved by the current generation of large language models. He was a signatory to the 2017 open letter to the United Nations on autonomous weapons, alongside Musk, Hinton, Russell and Hassabis, which placed him in the public AI safety conversation long before it reached boardrooms.
He remains UCL’s Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence, holds Singularity University faculty status, and was elected a Founding Fellow of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences in 2026. The combination matters for one practical reason. When he discusses how AI is being deployed inside a FTSE 100 company, the technical claims are coming from someone with a research apparatus underneath them.
Key speaking topics
- Applied AI in large enterprises
- AI strategy and the Chief AI Officer role
- AI ethics, safety and governance
- Machine consciousness and frontier AI research
- Decision intelligence and optimisation
- The future of work under AI
- Organisational design through technology
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees making AI investment and governance decisions
- Chief AI Officers, CTOs, CIOs and Chief Data Officers shaping enterprise AI strategy
- Risk, audit and compliance leaders working out AI accountability
- Innovation, transformation and digital leaders moving AI beyond pilots
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of what AI can realistically deliver inside their own organisation in the next 18 months, separated from vendor narrative.
- Working language for the governance and safety questions their board will be asked, including where the limits of current AI sit.
- A more honest read on which AI use cases are commercially defensible and which are not yet.
- Exposure to frontier research questions, including machine consciousness, that will shape the next wave of AI regulation.
Talks
A keynote on how AI is reshaping business and society, and what leaders need to do about it now.
Key takeaways:
- A practical map of where AI is creating commercial value today and where it is not
- The governance and ethics questions boards should already be asking
- A frame for thinking about AI safety and frontier risk without falling into either hype or fatalism
A keynote on how AI changes work, jobs and organisational structure, and how leaders should respond.
Key takeaways:
- How AI is changing job design and where human work is durable
- What workforce strategy looks like when AI is treated as an operating capability
- The organisational design choices that determine whether AI deployment succeeds
A keynote on what serious AI deployment looks like inside large organisations, drawn from running AI at WPP and across Satalia’s enterprise client base.
Key takeaways:
- Why most enterprise AI pilots fail to scale and what fixes that
- The operating model and data conditions AI deployment depends on
- Where decision intelligence and optimisation deliver value before generative AI does
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| 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 | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |