AI Is a Tool, Not a Fix-All: Kieran Gilmurray on Purposeful Innovation
Kieran Gilmurray is a globally recognised keynote speaker and AI Future of Work expert, represented by The AI Speakers Agency. As CEO of KG & Co and Chief AI Innovator at TTG, he helps businesses unlock performance through AI, automation and data.
Named a LinkedIn Top Voice seven times and winner of the Global Intelligent Automation Award, Kieran combines decades of leadership across law, tech and publishing with academic depth and a sharp focus on strategy.
In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, he shares his journey into tech and explores how businesses can adopt AI with purpose, clarity and responsibility.
Q: What led to your career in artificial intelligence and technology?
Kieran Gilmurray: “Realistically, this started about 25 years ago, if not even 30 years ago, at university. When I was there, there weren’t really computers, and the computers that were there were not exactly great.
“I remember typing and typing and not having a clue about how to do saving. You can imagine trying to write essays on one of the first computers that came into Manchester University wasn’t the most fun thing in the world, but it sparked an interest because you’re looking at something that really was the future at the time.
“It wasn’t until a couple of years later I went and taught English abroad when I started to see customer records, and then I thought, ‘Hold on, these should be going into databases because we should be making far more use of our customer data to allow us to actually make better decisions and work’.
“Then I remembered computers, and I put computers and databases together and went into the Master’s at Queen’s University in Belfast. My dissertation was on databases and coding and something else I was doing at Tech Masters.
“Then I got into computer coding, then into automation, and a couple of years later I thought, we’ve got the insight and the computing technology and the automation that we need. But what about the foresight? I was fortunate to come across a company in England who were doing a lot of predictive analytics.
“Then you could start to see, ‘If we know what’s happening and why it’s happening and what might happen, and what can we do about it to get the results that we want?’ Then, as businesses, we can turn something extraordinary into place.
“Over the years I’ve been a CTO, a CIO, Head of Process Excellence, a Chief AI Officer, and I’ve just been in that space ever since. Now I want great automation, great technology, great insight, and great foresight.
“Once you put those things together with financial literacy or some form of business acumen, and you keep your eye on the end goal, particularly focusing on what the customers want, then you can have a much better decision than any other business. And so far, it’s worked out all right.
“The businesses I work with, when they do all of those things, become really fun places to work where there’s a lot of high-performing teams able to use technology. Rather than the robot being in them, we take the robot out and make things very profitable, very efficient and a lot of fun.”
Q: So, what is the biggest AI misconception that you see, particularly in business?
Kieran Gilmurray: “There are so many misconceptions now because it’s reached what I would describe as an inflated point of hype. The biggest one is that AI can do everything.
“I’m just off a consulting call a second ago. I tend to teach, talk, and consult big and small. I think that’s a lot more effective once you can set strategy that works in the real world when rubber hits road. And then when you’re able to implement it, you come up with a much more effective personal role or function.
“AI can’t do everything. It’s a tool in your toolkit. It’s an amazing tool, and if you use that tool in the right lock, for want of a better phrase, then the world opens up to more efficiency, creativity, innovation, productivity, higher sales, higher ROI, reduced operating cost. The multiplier effect of using this technology is immense.
“But if you use it in the wrong circumstances, the cost effect is multiplied over and over again. Recently, when I was chairing a conference for some of the biggest CTOs and CIOs in the world, one had 223 what they confidently described as proof of concepts. I re-described them as proofs of cost because there was nothing of any business benefit that was going to come out.
“As long as you know what you’re doing, AI is a great tool among other great tools. It’s a brilliant one, I should say. If you put a great tool with a great person, you can normally get a better result, as long as you point everyone in the right business outcome-based direction.”
This exclusive interview with Kieran Gilmurray was conducted by Mark Matthews, Senior Keynote Speaker & Entertainment Manager at The AI Speakers Agency.
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