Book Cassie Kozyrkov, the world's first Chief Decision Scientist, for keynotes on decision intelligence and AI leadership. Speaker Agency UK enquiries.
This guide profiles Cassie Kozyrkov as a cassie kozyrkov keynote speaker available through Speaker Agency UK. Below: thematic overview, signature topics, audience fit and frequently asked questions for event planners.
Sit in on any senior executive meeting today and you will feel a very specific kind of anxiety vibrating in the room.
Boards of directors are currently throwing absolute fortunes at artificial intelligence projects for one terrifying reason.
They are absolutely petrified of being left behind.
Yet beneath all the breathless enthusiasm and glossy consultancy presentations lies a very uncomfortable truth.
Most corporate leaders have no actual idea what they are buying.
They treat modern algorithms like autonomous magical entities ready to solve every structural problem the business has ever faced.
This is an incredibly dangerous mindset.
Modern artificial intelligence is not an autonomous monster preparing to take over the corporate world.
It is much better understood as a highly obedient magical genie granting wishes at an absolutely blistering speed.
And this brings us to the core problem of our age.
The actual commercial risk does not sit within the software code.
The true danger lies entirely in having unskilled wishers holding incredibly powerful tools.
If an executive asks the wrong strategic question or defines a lazy metric for success, the machine will perfectly and efficiently execute an absolute disaster.
Nobody understands this architectural crisis better than Cassie Kozyrkov.
Cassie is not just another data scientist trying to sell you a software integration.
She was the inaugural Chief Decision Scientist at Google.
During her near-decade at the technology giant she did something virtually unprecedented.
She personally trained over twenty thousand Google employees in applied data methodologies and directly guided over five hundred complex artificial intelligence projects.
Along the way she pioneered and defined an entirely new corporate discipline known as Decision Intelligence.
Her core thesis should be etched onto the wall of every boardroom in London: “We do not have a computation problem in modern business. We have a human judgement problem.”
Cassie teaches us that mountains of data and brilliant machine learning models are completely useless without expert human direction at the helm.
The true corporate revolution is not about building better mathematical models at all.
It is about engineering far better human decisions.
Let us address a very quiet secret shared by most Chief Executive Officers.
Many incredibly smart and capable leaders currently suffer from massive technical imposter syndrome.
When data engineers start talking about deep neural networks and stochastic gradients, business leaders tend to nod politely and hand over the budget just to avoid looking foolish.
They mistakenly believe that you must know how to write complex Python code to manage a technology team.
Cassie obliterates this gatekeeping mentality by using her now famous microwave analogy.
Think about how you heat up your dinner.
Building a microwave is incredibly difficult. However using a microwave is incredibly easy.
Building a machine learning algorithm completely from scratch requires a deep understanding of particle physics, hardware engineering and electrical routing.
Applied machine learning is simply knowing how to punch the right buttons on the front panel to safely heat up your food without burning the kitchen down.
Cassie points out the absolute absurdity of the current educational system.
We are trying to teach business leaders how to build the microwave from scratch when all they actually need is the confidence to use it.
You do not need a computer science doctorate to do amazing things with technology today.
You just need a deep reservoir of human creativity and supreme clarity regarding your commercial goals.
She refers to this beautiful shift in technology as automating the ineffable.
Historically, human operators were forced to give computers rigid step-by-step instructions.
Now we can simply show computers millions of examples and let them infer the rules themselves.
When a problem is too nuanced and too messy for a normal spreadsheet, artificial intelligence steps in.
This brilliant perspective strips away all the terrifying science fiction mysticism.
It brings the software right down to earth and frames it simply as an alternative interface rather than an independent thinking machine.
So why did Google suddenly need a Chief Decision Scientist anyway?
What was actually broken inside one of the most successful companies on the planet?
The technology industry historically suffered from a massive structural flaw.
Companies deeply conflated the act of collecting data with the act of making a choice.
Executives assumed that if they just built large enough data lakes the right strategic direction would simply reveal itself like magic.
But this assumes data is a magical crystal ball.
Data only ever gives you memories of the past. Decisions are your only tangible mechanism for influencing the future.
Cassie engineered Decision Intelligence to bridge this massive corporate void.
She built it as a strict applied discipline.
She forcefully merged raw data science with social science, economics and behavioural psychology.
She often makes a razor-sharp distinction to clear up executive confusion.
Traditional data science focuses exclusively on making data useful.
It uncovers hidden patterns and builds nice visual dashboards.
Decision Intelligence sits completely downstream from that process.
It focuses exclusively on ensuring that human choices are actually of high quality.
An absolutely flawless predictive algorithm that solves the wrong commercial problem represents a tragic waste of company money.
Modern organisations are crashing their heads against a complexity ceiling.
The global market is far too fast and intertwined for old-school planning cycles.
Decision Intelligence provides leaders with the architectural scaffolding required to safely interpret total chaos.
It turns executives from passive consumers of colourful graphs into active designers of corporate reality.
There is a rising trend in corporate public relations that Cassie Kozyrkov absolutely despises.
It is the era of algorithmic scapegoating.
When an automated recruitment tool filters out female candidates or a dynamic pricing model drastically overcharges a loyal customer, executives love to shrug their shoulders and blame the computer.
Cassie forcefully ends that cowardly narrative.
She reminds global audiences that artificial intelligence is human decision making all the way down.
Every single algorithmic system is heavily shaped by a long string of subjective human choices.
A human decided exactly what problem needed solving.
A human aggressively curated the messy training dataset.
A human approved the mathematical thresholds and a human definitively signed off on the commercial launch.
To blame the software for a bad outcome is a total collapse of executive accountability.
To help leaders properly evaluate systems before they go live, she created a brutally strict evaluation framework known around the tech industry as The Kozyr Criteria.
It gives non-technical managers a clear roadmap for safely auditing complex algorithms.
It is split into three non-negotiable pillars.
The first pillar is Objective.
Leaders must identify exactly what the machine is built to do and decide if that goal truly aligns with the ethical foundation of the business.
The second pillar is Data Access.
You must relentlessly audit the training data the system can reach.
If your data is poisoned with historical human prejudice, your fancy new tool will simply automate that prejudice at scale.
The final pillar is Functionality.
You must implement aggressive real-world testing to verify the tool works as intended outside the clean laboratory environment.
In this generative era where software spits out infinite potential answers instead of one single truth, leaders have to step up.
They can no longer just manage tasks.
Cassie argues they must become true authors of meaning.
They must explicitly define exactly what commercial value looks like and hold the line when the algorithms go wandering off track.
You can buy the most expensive data infrastructure in the world.
It will not save you if the person sitting at the head of the boardroom table fundamentally misunderstands probability.
Cassie holds degrees in cognitive neuroscience alongside her statistical background for a very specific reason.
She knows that humans are naturally terrible at evaluating risk.
Our brains evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to quickly spot a lion moving in the tall grass.
They did not evolve to comprehend exponential growth curves or interpret statistical variance on a balance sheet.
This biological reality means corporate leaders fall victim to severe outcome bias and heavy confirmation bias every single day.
Executives absolutely love to trust their gut intuition.
They read a crisp data report that clearly contradicts their personal opinion and they creatively find a way to ignore the numbers entirely.
They twist the math to fit the narrative they already decided upon in the shower that morning.
To combat this expensive irrationality Cassie introduces an incredibly powerful mental model called the Change Your Mind framework.
Before a leadership team looks at a single line of fresh data, they must have a deeply honest conversation.
Cassie forces them to predefine exactly what specific numerical evidence would actually compel them to abandon their beloved current strategy.
She demands that leaders write down the exact conditions required for them to admit they are wrong.
As she brilliantly notes from the stage: “As long as you can change your mind for free, no actual decision has been made yet.”
If a managing director cannot define the criteria required to alter their viewpoint, they are not practicing business strategy.
They are simply practicing a blind religion.
Leaving her prestigious post at Google in September 2023 allowed Cassie to dramatically expand her commercial influence.
She now sits at the helm of her own elite advisory firm appropriately named Kozyr.
As the Chief Executive Officer of Kozyr, she aggressively guides Fortune 500 leadership teams through the perilous jungle of machine learning adoption.
Her current private advisory client roster reads like a catalogue of global titans.
She works with NASA, Gucci, Meta and Spotify to optimise their choices at an astronomical scale.
But Cassie truly shines the brightest when she steps onto a stage.
If you have ever suffered through a dry corporate presentation delivered by a nervous software engineer you will appreciate exactly why Cassie commands absolute attention.
She is an exceptionally gifted communicator.
She effortlessly translates intimidatingly complex mathematical concepts into highly entertaining and brilliantly sharp business frameworks.
She blends a devastating wit with totally uncompromising academic rigour.
She holds a very rare superpower.
She can hold the absolute respect of a room full of grumpy senior developers while simultaneously making a non-technical sales director feel entirely empowered and excited about the future of automation.
True corporate transformation never starts by simply plugging a new piece of software into the mainframe.
It starts by systematically rewiring how the senior management team approaches complex choices.
Booking Cassie Kozyrkov transforms an event from a generic industry gathering into an absolute masterclass on modern operational philosophy.
Let us stop worshipping the tools.
A calculator is infinitely better at arithmetic than any human being but a calculator cannot decide to acquire a competitor or redesign a brand identity.
The same exact logic applies to the latest highly hyped generative algorithm dominating your LinkedIn feed today.
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly a phenomenal and historically significant lever.
But the lever is entirely blind.
It does not know the corporate strategy.
It does not understand human empathy and it cannot take moral responsibility when things break.
Human judgement must be the firm hand resting on that lever.
Cassie Kozyrkov proves that while software can generate endless answers, defining the future of your company still requires a human being brave enough to make the final choice.
The future belongs exclusively to the decision makers.
To book Cassie Kozyrkov as a cassie kozyrkov keynote speaker, request a tailored proposal from Speaker Agency UK. Fee enquiries, availability check and Compass AI matching to adjacent speakers all turn around within one working day.
How can I book Cassie Kozyrkov?
Contact Speaker Agency UK via https://www.speakeragency.co.uk/contact for fee enquiries, availability and tailored brief.
What is Cassie Kozyrkov's speaking fee?
Fees vary by event format, audience size and location. Speaker Agency UK will provide a tailored quote within one working day.
What topics does Cassie Kozyrkov cover?
Decision Intelligence & AI Leadership, with adjacent topics tailored to your event objective.
Is Cassie Kozyrkov available for online events?
Yes. Online keynotes, hybrid panels and recorded contributions are all supported.
What is the typical lead time to confirm Cassie Kozyrkov?
We confirm availability within 24 hours; full briefing and contracting typically takes 2-3 weeks.
Can Cassie Kozyrkov tailor content to our sector?
Yes. A 30-minute pre-event briefing with the client team allows full tailoring to sector and audience.
Do you offer Compass AI matching for similar speakers?
Yes. Compass AI suggests adjacent speakers if dates or budget shift; alternative shortlists arrive within hours.
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