Kieran Gilmurray: AI strategy without purpose is pointless

A recognised authority on AI strategy and digital transformation, Kieran Gilmurray has spent over two decades helping organizations translate complex technologies into tangible business outcomes. 

With experience as a CIO, CTO, and Chief AI Officer, he has led large-scale automation and data initiatives across multiple industries. Now a bestselling author and keynote speaker, Kieran is among the UK’s most sought-after artificial intelligence speakers — known for his practical foresight, people-centric approach and commitment to demystifying emerging tech. 

In this exclusive interview, Kieran shares his insights on what separates AI success from failure, the ethical frontiers of data and why foresight — not just insight — is key to future-ready leadership. 

Q: In your experience, what differentiates companies that succeed with AI from those that struggle to realise its value? 

Kieran Gilmurray: “Yeah, the ultimate thing is actually an end goal that turns into pounds, pennies, pence or dollars or yen or whatever else it is. All these things — we’re in business to make money, in the main. I accept third-party companies, you know, charities and whatever else, to be more efficient, make better use of money and everything else, but we’re looking for some form of economic return or output. 

“So those businesses that put AI to the right use will win. Those leaders who act, as I describe, as lighthouse leaders — in other words, they lead the way. They’re a shining light as to what works and what doesn’t work. AI is tied to strategy to help build or better deliver business strategy more profitably, more economically and more operationally focused. 

“Those businesses that focus on their people and innovation — and in this day and age, agility — but always maintain the focus on ROI. Those who build a great AI strategy or tech strategy, with a brilliant people strategy, with a great change management strategy, all focused on delivering a really good business strategy, will tend to win. 

“But ultimately, remember — it’s not about getting distracted by the tooling or the policies or the capability or the data or anything else. It’s those who focus maniacally on their customers and what they want and deliver that in an agile, least-friction way. Something that excites and delights the customer, where needed. 

“When I say, “where needed,” because let’s be honest — if I’m buying insurance, very often people consider it a distress purchase. Whereas if I’m selling a piece of art, you know, that’s a different experience altogether. 

“But I want to keep my customers maniacally happy. I want to make sure that my staff are brought on board, have the tools that they need, have the vision and strategy that they want to follow and are absolutely bought into it. 

“And when I’ve got my customer, my business, my staff, my leadership team and everyone all focused in the right direction, doing what everybody should consider valuable, meaningful work, then I can get the business ROI or the outcomes that I want. 

“And you’d be amazed — that’s not the most numerous amounts of ingredients, but you would be surprised at how many people ignore their customers. They get focused internally. How many people run their staff — for want of a better phrase — into the ground and then introduce more change that they don’t explain? 

“You’d be amazed at how many customers or companies get lost in all of the tech and all of the things that are happening in the world and forget the basics. In other words, we need to make more money than we spend in the long term to make sure we actually survive. 

“So, if you can get the simple things right — and those are reasonably simple — now, they’re complex to do and to install and to get working, to get all the moving parts together. But if you do all those things — customer, staff and business ROI — then you haven’t gone too far wrong at all. You can actually do a pretty good job.” 

Q: As AI adoption accelerates, how critical is it for organizations to embed ethics into their strategy — and what are the consequences of failing to do so? 

Kieran Gilmurray: “For so many reasons. Look, we’re going to get judged every day by our staff, our customers and most importantly by ourselves, to say, “Look, whether what we’re doing is actually right or wrong.” And let’s be honest — we do know. I hope to God we do know what is right, and we do know what is wrong. 

“But AI now — look, there are so many things that I can see that by analysing great big data sets. Let me give you an example. So, a number of years ago, I was working in an insurance brokerage. 

“We could tell with a 95% certainty whether someone would come or go based on their price elasticity, which is a nice fancy name for saying: if we up or down your price by a certain percentage, will you react or not? And we could tell, out of 180,000 clients, what they would do based on a £5 rise, £20 rise, £40 rise, £150 rise. 

“And when you combine AI insight like that with other insight — for example, neurolinguistic programming or behavioral science, all AI, all pattern-based, all databased — then you probably know more about people than they do about themselves. 

“And then you have the responsibility and the accountability to determine what you do with that. So, if I were to look at staff data without telling them, I could pretty much work out who’s saying what to who, who’s connected to who, who’s going to go or not. But where is the actual privacy in that? 

“I could manipulate customers, should I wish, using NLP data and all those types of things. We could make decisions using AI that might involve biased data. The things that can go wrong, the things that you could do — all are possible. 

“And there are some naughty examples. So, one — let’s say, without naming them too much — is in a recent book by their ex-global PR person, who was able to describe how AI could identify very quickly young girls who put pictures up onto a particular social platform. 

“They then take them down because research has proven they’re not confident about themselves or their looks. And the next minute, AI is collecting all that data, packaging it up and selling it off to makeup advertisers. 

“And you’re sort of going look, yes, from a business perspective, isn’t that wonderful? You can gain a huge competitive advantage and sell a lot of products and advertising. But really, from a moral perspective, if it was your niece, your daughter, your sister, your aunt, your mother — whatever else — would you, do it? 

“So, I think ultimately, we have tremendous power in our hands — to get great insight, to get great foresight, to combine databases and things together that can define us more than anything. We can then combine that with, as I said, NLP, behavioural science — again, databases. 

“The question is: can you look yourself in the mirror at the end of the night and say, “Actually, look, I did really well today, but I didn’t harm anyone. I know right from wrong. Actually, I did the right thing by business, my customers, my staff, myself.” And if I can do that, then fantastic. 

“Not all of us can do that, I’m sure. And not all businesses are as reputable as we have seen over the last number of years. And that’s why there are rules in place — you know, body rules, association rules, local country rules, European legal systems. So, if you don’t judge yourself, someone else quite rightly will. 

“So, let’s see — I hope we do the right thing because AI can allow us to achieve so much more than put our best brains on the planet to work out thumbs-up and thumbs-down emojis. Let’s hope we actually apply this great science to solving some of society’s greatest problems, as opposed to targeting young girls with extra makeup if they’re not quite feeling at their best today.” 

Q: What do you aim to leave your audiences with when delivering a keynote or corporate address? 

Kieran Gilmurray: “My business is, I come and put a really practical lens on the things that we’re actually doing. So, we can all talk theory, and businesses can come away going, “Oh my goodness, that was interesting.” Or people can say the same thing — and then, hopefully, to God, they’re inspired by it. 

“But I want real strategies, real outcomes, things that inspire, things that I can take action on immediately. And because I talk, I research and I practise, and I live in the real world — not only will you get a high-energy talk, but you will get insights into what’s happened, why it’s happened and what’s likely to happen. And you can use that information to actually guide your business a little bit more. 

“But you’ll come away with real actionable strategies that you can turn into really good business outcomes — all from standing, sitting or whatever it is you want to do, dialling into any one of my talks. 

“And everyone who tends to go away with that finds those same things: high energy, excitement, realism, practical — I can see into the future — so they can make a little bit of a better decision here based on all the trends that are happening. But I can take what I’ve learned and do something with it.” 

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