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What AI can now do
Richard examines advances in reasoning, research and agents, explaining the work AI can now undertake and where current models remain unreliable.
AI expert · keynote speaker · independent researcher
Richard Foster-Fletcher
What AI can do, and what it changes in business.
Richard works directly with advanced AI models and studies their effects on organisations. His keynotes and senior briefings connect developments in the technology with how businesses make decisions, develop expertise and understand their own work.
LinkedIn Top Voice in AI, 2024 · Favikon UK Top 20 AI Researcher, 2026 · Author of The AI Gap, forthcoming from Kogan Page, June 2027.
The work
Direct work with AI and independent research into its consequences.
Richard chairs MKAI, the independent research institute he founded in 2019. His research combines controlled experiments on model behaviour with studies of corporate reporting, contracts and governance.
His work examines how AI changes the information people rely on, the alternatives they consider and the judgements they make. He develops these arguments through published research, the What Still Matters essays and the Structural Dynamics of AI Adoption.
Speaking
What Richard speaks about
The talks connect current AI capability with its consequences for business. They give audiences a clearer understanding of the technology, its limitations and the decisions involved in putting it to use.
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How AI can strengthen judgement
Advanced models can test competing explanations and widen the alternatives considered in a difficult business decision.
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How AI changes what an organisation knows
AI summaries, advice and first drafts can shape the information an organisation relies on, with consequences for expertise and responsibility.
Previous speaking includes Salesforce, Oracle, Arm and the London School of Economics.
Independent research
Where the story and the evidence part company
Richard compares claims about AI with documented decisions, reported results and observed model behaviour.
The published studies set out their methods and distinguish findings from the interpretations they support.
Visit the MKAI research archive →What companies report about AI
Adoption Without Capability Reporting found that the corporate reporting examined described deployment and control far more often than measured contributions from AI reasoning or synthesis.
View the published record →Governance instructions change how AI responds
In Richard’s controlled tests, broad governance instructions reduced clear recommendations. Narrower instructions preserved clear recommendations while continuing to refuse prohibited actions.
View the published record →When AI shapes the first draft
Richard’s work on Residual Logic examines how a model’s initial framing can survive later human revision, even after its wording has been replaced.
Read the Structural Dynamic →_1783702420594-C5awYkhH.jpg)
The book
The AI Gap
Organisations were offered AI as intelligence and deployed it as software.
The AI Gap examines whether deployed AI can meet the financial and strategic commitments made for it, and what organisations may be excluding through the uses they permit. It follows the consequences for senior judgement and responsibility.
The wider work
Explore Richard’s work
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Speaking
Richard’s keynotes and senior briefings examine what AI can do and how it changes business.
↗Research
The published studies examine model behaviour, corporate reporting and the decisions that shape AI use.
↗Writing
What Still Matters follows AI’s effects on professional judgement, business and the changing character of work.
↗Structural Dynamics
The eight Structural Dynamics describe ways AI may change judgement, organisational knowledge and responsibility.
Speaking enquiries
Bring current AI research to your audience.
Richard speaks at conferences, board sessions and private senior briefings. Enquiries can cover the audience, the occasion and the questions the event needs to address.
Enquire about speaking