Richard Foster-Fletcher Speaker

Richard Foster-Fletcher Keynote Speaker

  • Author of The AI Gap
  • Named among the UK’s Top 20 AI Researchers and Entrepreneurs in 2026
  • Chair of MKAI

Richard Foster-Fletcher's Biography

Richard Foster-Fletcher is the author of The AI Gap and one of the UK’s leading researchers on how artificial intelligence makes organisations more capable.

Named among the UK’s Top 20 AI Researchers and Entrepreneurs in 2026 and a LinkedIn Top Voice in AI, he chairs MKAI, the independent institute researching AI’s effect on organisational capability, founded in 2019.

Richard tests the latest AI systems at the limits of their reasoning and judgement. He works across models from leading AI labs and is regularly invited to evaluate new releases. His research examines what these advances can contribute to executive decision-making and how they expand what organisations can understand, decide and accomplish.

He has advised UK Parliament and the United Nations on AI strategy and given talks for Salesforce, Telefónica, Oracle, ARM, LSE, Imperial College London, UCL and University of Oxford.

Through MKAI, Richard publishes independent empirical research on how advanced AI changes organisations. His talks connect the latest advances in intelligence and judgement with their implications for executive decision-making and organisational performance.

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Richard Foster-Fletcher's Speaking Topics

  • The State of AI: What the leading models can now do

Conference main stages, annual meetings, company events.

AI models are becoming more capable at reasoning, research and analysis, and at work that runs across many steps. This keynote explains where the leading models have reached, which developments are a real change rather than repackaging, and where current claims run ahead of the evidence.

It also examines the distance between the strongest models and the AI most organisations are actually running, why that distance exists, and what it costs a company to leave it there. Senior audiences leave with a clearer view of what the technology can now do and how far their own organisation is from it.

  • The Gap Between Commitment and Capability

Why the AI a company deploys may no longer do what its commitments assume

For boards, executive committees and the P&L holders carrying AI-dependent commitments. Delivered as a closed board session or to a wider leadership audience.

Companies have made commitments to the market that depend on a level of capability being available from their AI systems. That capability may exist in the original model and still not survive deployment, once governance and security controls are applied. Those controls raise stability by limiting what the model produces, and the teams responsible for making AI safe are rarely the teams making commitments to the market.

That separation opens a gap between what is required from the AI and what it is permitted to do. Public documents show that companies are not testing whether the system, once deployed and governed, remains capable of the work their commitments assume. The briefing sets out why the gap opened, which functions and processes produced it, and how to trace where it is showing up. Senior leaders leave knowing which functions need to be involved, what evidence is missing, and what closing the distance between the commitment and the system would require.

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Why Book Richard Foster-Fletcher as a speaker?

  • He tests the latest AI systems at the limits of their reasoning and judgement, works across models from leading AI labs and is regularly invited to evaluate new releases.

  • He is the author of The AI Gap and chairs MKAI, where he publishes independent empirical research on how advanced AI changes organisations.

  • He has advised UK Parliament and the United Nations on AI strategy and spoken for Salesforce, Telefónica, Oracle, ARM, LSE, Imperial College London, UCL and the University of Oxford.

Videos of Richard Foster-Fletcher

Richard Foster Fletcher Speaker Reel - How advanced AI changes organisations
AI Accountability in Audit: The Risk Nobody's Ready For | DataSnipper Connect 2026 London

Comments & Testimonials

“Richard is a very impressive individual, and I don't make a compliment like that lightly.”
Danilo McGarry Former Head of AI at Citigroup and UnitedHealth Group
"Richard brings depth and clarity and a unique perspective to AI discussions."
Dan Ariely Author of Predictably Irrational and Professor of Business Administration at Duke University.
"Richard Foster-Fletcher has the ability to articulate complex concepts with clarity and relevance.”
Ulas Malli Board Member, AIPA
"Richard skilfully gets to the heart of the matter to provoke a truly insightful conversation."
Sir Anthony Seldon Author, Historian and Educator
"Richard adeptly addresses the complexity of AI innovation, enhancing the understanding of critical issues.”
Megan Hendricks Executive Director, MBA Career Services & Employer
"Richard has a unique quality: 360° perception. Richard takes you further than most people I know. Richard is boundless and will take you as well as your audience to the next level!"
Denis Rothman AI Author
“Richard is shaping the world with his questions.”
Andrew Zolli Chief Impact Officer at Planet

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