Episode 5: The Fumble Zone, AI Safety & Leading AI Goes to Canada 🍁
Neil’s heading to the pub. Kieron’s been up since six. It’s Friday, the sun’s on their faces, and Episode 5 of the Leading AI podcast is underway — squash in a Peroni glass and all.
This week the boys (?!) cover some genuinely meaty ground:
The Fumble Zone 🏉 Bob Piggott’s great LinkedIn piece on implementing AI coined it perfectly — organisations install AI, it works technically, and then… people fumble it. Sound familiar? Kieron and Neil dig into why hands-on training makes all the difference, why generic AI courses are failing people, and how Leading AI is now offering focused, practical AI training for housing associations straight from the Glasgow stage. Real keyboards, real problems, real results.
IT Managers — do they actually get it? One customer is excitedly planning a data lake for the second half of this year. Another wants to put 200 documents into KnowledgeFlow — and is obsessing over formatting. Neil’s verdict? Stop fussing with things that don’t matter and make your data AI-readable now. Why wait 12 months when you can start today?
The DPO who thought she’d go to prison AI safety comes up in a new and unexpected way this week — a Data Protection Officer who was so worried about liability she shut the whole AI project down. Kieron and Neil unpack the difference between legitimate caution and ignorance dressed up as compliance, and why organisations still downloading AI policies from the internet in 2026 should be doing much better.
Product of the week 🎵 (hum your own jingle) Conversation Sharing gets a deeper look this week — specifically how it’s evolving into a powerful approval and governance tool. Share your entire AI conversation with a manager, let them read the whole thought process, get sign-off, and create an audit trail. Redaction also gets a mention — names, emails and addresses now automatically stripped before hitting the audit log. Explainability, citations, and why the black box argument is a bit like asking someone how they had their idea in the shower.
🍁 Big news — Leading AI is going to Canada Kieron announces the partnership with Qatalyst Research Group, led by the excellent Ted Weiker, who works with economic development organisations and municipalities across Canada. With 350 potential customers and a team that knows AI and understands those sector challenges deeply, it’s the perfect partnership.
Neil made it to his pub appointment. Kieron didn’t punch his dentist. Another week in AI — done.
Two mates. A bar. Thirty years of business between them. And all they want to talk about is AI.
Pull up a stool — we’ll get the beers in. 🍺
