Mark's Thoughts

AI outcomes, not AI hype: reflections from a PyData panel

markw@markwilson.co.uk (Mark Wilson) — Thu, 5 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I joined a panel at the PyData Milton Keynes meetup.

PyData is a global community of developers, data scientists and engineers working with open-source data tools. The Milton Keynes chapter only began running events in 2025, and this was its first in-person gathering.

The panel was hosted by Grace Farayola. I was joined by Samantha Roberts from SDG Group, Madara Premawardhana from the University of Buckingham, and James Graham, former CEO of BsoftB.

The evening’s theme was FutureTech 2026: innovations that will shape tomorrow.

Ahead of the event Grace shared a set of questions that she intended to ask the panel. The discussion covered a lot of ground, but I’d prepared a few thoughts in advance.

Sadly, I don’t have a record of the great insights that my fellow panellists shared (it’s pretty hard to take notes when you’re on the panel). Instead, this is a short reflection on the topics I was asked to cover, based on the answers I prepared beforehand.

The future of tech is not just about “the shiny stuff”

When asked what the future of technology means from my perspective, my answer was fairly simple.

The future of tech is outcome-led: secure platforms, trusted data and modern applications solving real problems, with AI built in so value can be delivered safely and at scale.

It’s not particularly glamorous.

There are plenty of exciting innovations and bold ideas in the industry right now. But most organisations are still trying to get the fundamentals right while staying responsive to their customers, clients or citizens.

That may not make headlines, but it’s where progress really happens.

AI is becoming a core operating layer

The more interesting question is what organisations should prioritise in 2026.

The answer isn’t “more technology”. It’s the technology that turns AI into measurable outcomes.

AI has moved beyond experimentation. It is becoming part of the operating fabric of organisations: a productivity multiplier, a margin lever and a differentiator for customer experience.

That puts CTOs firmly in the hot seat.

Technology leaders are increasingly expected to turn AI into real business impact, not innovation theatre.

The foundations that make this possible are not new:

Trusted, unified data.
Modern, composable platforms.
Secure and resilient infrastructure.
Experience-led technology that people actually adopt.
Sustainable architectural choices.
Cross-functional teams that can deliver outcomes.

Put simply: AI only works when the foundations are solid.

Turning experiments into outcomes

Many organisations are still experimenting with AI and cloud technologies.

The challenge is moving from experiments to measurable value. The simplest way to do that is to start with the outcome: what does good look like? (Remember Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, where the second habit is “begin with the end in mind”.) In other words, decide which metric you want to change, then work backwards.

A practical playbook looks something like this:

Start with the outcome – which metric will move?
Prepare the data – quality, lineage and access.
Prepare the platform – APIs, automation and observability.
Put guardrails in place – security, governance and responsible AI.
Deliver a thin slice – prove the value quickly.
Scale what works.

It’s often said that a very high percentage of AI projects fail (usually quoting various analysts and academic institutions). It’s not just AI projects either. Many initiatives struggle because they start with the technology rather than the outcome.

If you can’t explain the impact in a sentence, the project probably needs more thinking.

Innovation and compliance are not opposites

One of the debates during the panel was whether organisations can realistically be both innovative and compliant.

I think they can.

Innovation and compliance are often presented as competing priorities (“while America innovates, Europe regulates”), but that’s the wrong way to think about it.

It’s more like driving a car. The brakes and steering don’t slow you down. They allow you to move faster, safely.

Technology governance works the same way. When guardrails are built into the design from the start, they enable innovation rather than restrict it.

The real shift for technology leaders

The biggest change we are seeing is not technical. It’s organisational.

AI outcomes are becoming career-critical for technology leaders.

In many organisations, AI is no longer a side experiment. It is becoming part of the operating fabric of the business, influencing productivity, margins and customer experience.

That means the expectations placed on technology leaders are changing.

Just as CFOs are held accountable for financial performance, CTOs will increasingly be judged on whether AI initiatives move the business forward.

Not demos. Not pilots. Not slideware. Real business outcomes.

Imagine a world where offices are designed around people, not desks

markw@markwilson.co.uk (Mark Wilson) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is still a lot of noise about getting people “back to the office”. But that debate often skips an obvious question: back to what, exactly?

If the answer is rows of hot desks filled with people on back-to-back video calls, it’s not surprising that enthusiasm is limited. I’ve written before about the future of the office and, more recently, about hybrid work and so-called “watercooler moments”.

My view hasn’t really shifted. Offices still have a role. But that role is about collaboration, not simply attendance.

So rather than arguing about policies, it’s more interesting to ask what a genuinely good office would be like:

Imagine a world where offices adapt to people, not the other way around. Where meetings don’t start with five minutes of technical fumbling. Where space is shared fairly, energy is used sensibly, and design decisions are backed by evidence rather than habit.

Last week, I (along with colleagues from Node4’s Office of the CTO) visited Cisco’s Smart Workspace in London and that description wasn’t far off what we experienced.

The London Smart Workspace opened in February 2025 and is the fifth iteration on Cisco’s estate (after New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Paris).

It’s not a glossy showroom. It’s a working environment built around the idea that when people make the effort to come together physically, the space should support collaboration properly.

Managing space like it matters

The first thing that struck me was how deliberately space is handled.

There are no fixed desks and there are meeting rooms of all sizes — from single person booths to large collaboration spaces.

If a meeting doesn’t happen, the booking is released automatically. Larger bookings are handled through a concierge-style process rather than simply clicking a bigger room in a calendar.

The system avoids the familiar scenario of two people occupying a room built for ten while others wander the floor looking for somewhere to sit.

That might sound over-managed, but it’s really about fairness and visibility. Space is expensive. If you’re going to maintain it, you may as well use it well.

When organisational silos don’t help

Something else that came through in conversation was how closely human resources, facilities, and information technology (IT) teams need to work together to design spaces like this. Not as separate departments negotiating responsibilities, but as a joined-up function focused on the overall employee experience.

Once the building itself is part of the digital estate, those boundaries blur.

Lighting, room booking, collaboration platforms, air quality and occupancy data don’t sit neatly in a single traditional box. And when the building management system (BMS) is connected to the network, IT and operational technology (OT) stop being abstract ideas in a strategy deck and become part of day-to-day operations.

Infrastructure in plain sight

The open ceiling makes that integration visible.

Power is delivered over the network. Lights, blinds, access points, sensors and video devices all use PoE. It’s practical rather than decorative, and it reflects the reality that modern workspaces are as much digital infrastructure as physical environment.

There are thousands of sensors across each floor measuring occupancy, environmental conditions and usage patterns. Air conditioning adjusts based on actual room use rather than fixed assumptions. That combination of real-time data and automation reduces energy use without compromising comfort.

Older sensors can be a security risk. Properly managed ones reduce risk while still providing useful insight.

In some cases, ultrasound is used for room awareness and proximity detection rather than Bluetooth, because it does not travel beyond doors and windows in the same way. It’s a small technical decision, but it shows the level of thought that has gone into the design.

This isn’t presented as an all-or-nothing transformation. The phrase used was “crawl, walk, run”. Start with obvious value. Expand once you understand the benefit.

Designed for collaboration, not hierarchy

The meeting rooms themselves felt considered rather than over-engineered.

They face natural light, with blinds that adjust automatically throughout the day. Plants and natural materials soften the space. Together, it reflects what designers would call a biophilic approach — bringing natural elements into the working environment to make it feel more human — but done in such a way that it doesn’t create a maintenance burden.

Acoustic treatment is built in and even the table shape is deliberate. I looked it up and apparently it’s an isosceles trapezoid (schoolboy Mark would probably have known that - just one of many facts I’ve forgotten over the past few decades). The shape means remote participants aren’t visually sidelined and no one sits at a symbolic “head of the table”.

Different areas are designed with varying levels of stimulation. Some spaces are more open and collaborative, others quieter and lower intensity. It’s a simple acknowledgement that not everyone works best in the same sensory environment.

These may sound like small things. But small design decisions add up. In sport, they would be called marginal gains.

The technology in the room follows the same thinking. It can detect how many people are present, where voices are coming from, and who is speaking — not just that “the room” is speaking. Facial processing happens locally at the edge rather than sending images to the cloud, and any user profiles are tokenised so they are not easily extractable.

The aim isn’t surveillance. It’s to make hybrid meetings feel less awkward and less second-class for those who are not physically present.

You might expect that, in a Cisco office, everything would need to run Webex. Fortunately, that isn’t the case. Rooms can operate across multiple collaboration platforms rather than being locked to one. The equipment runs natively on Cisco’s RoomOS, allowing it to function as Microsoft Teams Room (MTR), Webex, Zoom or a SIP endpoint.

That flexibility matters. People shouldn’t have to think about infrastructure when they walk into a meeting. They should just get on with the conversation.

Getting around

One of the most impressive features is the way that the office integrates with people. That sounds cringy and AI-written (it wasn’t, BTW) but wayfinding is handled simply. Scan a QR code and you can be directed to your room. Scan another and your collaboration profile follows you into the space. It doesn’t adjust desk height or lighting at one of the individual desks (yet), but the direction of travel is clear.

There are strategically-placed displays on the office walls to guide you, integrated with mobile apps.

An office that earns its keep

Out of hours, the building scales itself back. Lighting, heating and cooling adjust automatically based on actual use. That reduces cost and provides real data on how the space is used, rather than relying on assumptions.

Although there is significantly more embedded technology than in a traditional office, operating costs have reduced. Lower energy consumption is part of that equation.

All of this reinforces a simple point: if organisations want people in offices, the space has to offer something that home working does not. Not presenteeism. Not rows of desks. But a better environment for collaboration.

The technology already exists. The harder step is choosing to design work around people rather than around furniture layouts inherited from a different era.

Resources

Three small experiences that say a lot about customer experience

markw@markwilson.co.uk (Mark Wilson) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most organisations don’t set out to deliver a poor customer experience. In fact, many invest heavily in tools, processes, and metrics designed to do the opposite.

And yet, small moments still go wrong.

Not the dramatic kind that trigger complaints or refunds, but the quieter ones that leave people slightly dissatisfied. They are often the result of sensible decisions made in isolation, which only reveal their downsides when they meet a real person.

The three experiences below are unrelated on the surface. Taken together, they say something useful about how organisations present themselves to the people they serve.

A birthday lunch and a missing conversation

My wife booked a table at a pub she likes for a birthday lunch. Her first call went unanswered. On the second attempt, she got through and asked for a dog-friendly table, ideally close to the fire.

I called separately to ask whether anything could be done to mark the birthday. Nothing elaborate. Perhaps a candle on a brownie or a simple dessert. I was told that wasn’t possible, but that I was welcome to bring in my own cake.

When we arrived, we did have a dog-friendly table, but not one near the fire. That part of the message hadn’t been passed on. The staff on the floor picked up on our disappointment immediately and worked hard to put things right.

Then, when I mentioned the birthday, they suggested exactly what I’d asked for on the phone.

Later, we discovered why. The initial call hadn’t gone to the pub at all. It had gone to an outsourced “base camp”, and not everything had made it through.

No one on site had done anything wrong. The staff were excellent, and we enjoyed the lunch. But a decision taken to drive efficiency elsewhere had created friction at the point where it mattered most. From our point of view, there had been one conversation. Internally, there had been several.

The join showed.

When internal distinctions meet external reality

I recently spoke with some IT leaders about an organisation that was trying to improve its Net Promoter Score. Unfortunately, there were some inconsistencies in delivery, particularly around project work.

Internally, this prompted a familiar discussion. What counted as “service”? What sat outside it? Which activities should influence customer feedback, and which should not?

From the customer’s point of view, those distinctions barely existed.

They saw one supplier and one relationship. Projects and service were not separate experiences; they were simply different parts of the same one. Until everything worked consistently, the feedback reflected that inconsistency.

These internal distinctions are not unreasonable. They matter for governance, accountability, and commercial clarity. But customers don’t experience suppliers through operating models. They experience outcomes, and they judge the whole by the weakest part.

Once again, the organisation was presenting its internal structure to the outside world.

“Oliver”, broken data, and silence

The third example is smaller, but less forgivable.

I received a marketing email from a company offering to help me get better outcomes from my data analytics. It was addressed to “Oliver”. My name, is “Mark”.

I ignored it. They followed up. Still “Oliver”.

I replied, deliberately using the wrong name in return, and explained that I didn’t need their services. I also pointed out that there was no unsubscribe option on their email.

I never heard back.

I wasn’t a customer, and I wasn’t complaining. I was responding to an approach and giving clear feedback on why it wasn’t landing. Whether the issue was bad data, a broken CRM, or careless automation is almost beside the point.

The attempt to engage was sloppy, and the silence that followed suggested nobody was listening anyway.

What these moments have in common

These stories aren’t really about pubs, IT services, or marketing emails. They’re about how organisations choose to present themselves.

In one case, efficiency gains elsewhere fractured the experience at the frontline. In another, internal structures were allowed to leak into the customer relationship. In the third, a poorly executed attempt to win new business did more harm than good.

Different contexts, but the same underlying problem.

Customers experience organisations horizontally. Most organisations are still designed vertically. When responsibility, information, or ownership changes hands internally, customers feel it immediately.

People don’t move through departments. They move through moments.

Presentation matters more than intent

At least one of these organisations was careless. The others were well-intentioned but exposed by the way they had chosen to operate.

The outcome, however, was the same.

Each of them presented itself poorly at a moment that mattered, whether through broken handovers, visible internal boundaries, or a lack of basic care in how someone was approached.

Customers and prospects don’t see effort charts or efficiency targets. They see what lands in front of them and draw conclusions from that alone.

And those conclusions, once formed, are difficult to undo.

A first post... of sorts

markw@markwilson.co.uk (Mark Wilson) — Mon, 9 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been blogging since 2004, and I have over 2500 posts published on my blog. Unfortunately, that site has become unreliable, and I can’t work out what’s wrong with WordPress. For now, the site is still online, except for the few minutes each day that it spikes my CPU quota to 100%.

A new blog

I already moved my homepage away from the blog, with a nice, simple, static HTML and CSS website, and a Github Action to push it to my web host. Whilst one of my friends teased me for hand-writing code, it’s noticable how fast it is. So I decided to have a go with another simple site. No more SQL databases, over-complicated plugins — just back to basics, using Hugo.

Hugo has been around for a few years now, so there’s probably something else I should be using but I like the idea of writing posts in Markdown (I love working in Markdown, and have started to use it more in my day job…).

I have to admit that getting up and running with Hugo has been a bit more complicated than I hoped, but that’s the technology we’re running on for now, and I can start to publish my thoughts again.

To dos

There are a couple of things I still need to do before I can launch:

I know a few people subscribe to the old blog, so I need to get RSS up and running, and ideally maintain the URI for the feed.
I would like to bring some, if not all, of the old content across.

Credits

Before I sign off this first post on the new platform, Flavio Copes’ 2020 post on How to Create Your First Hugo Blog: a Practical Guide has been a huge help in getting started. I’ve also been Googling like crazy and finding lots of advice in the Hugo Documentation and Hugo Discourse.