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In this week's Data Debrief, Kyle Winterbottom and Catherine Dowden-King recap the Future of Data, AI & BI Summit with Starburst, share Catherine's top tips for networking at data events, and debrief this week's main episode with Simon Turner, Chief Technology Officer at Foil AI — including the Welsh Water case study that brought his "autonomic business" concept to life.
They also discuss:
- Why the Future of Data, AI & BI Summit's core theme was the gap between giving people AI tools and reimagining how a business actually operates.
- What "codified business knowledge" — the context layer — means for scaling AI from local productivity hacks to full agentic systems.
- Catherine's top tips for networking at data events: doing your homework, messaging speakers in advance, and finding natural pauses for small talk.
- Why leading with curiosity, rather than negativity, makes conversations easier to build on.
- Why giving yourself permission to step away from an event is as important as showing up to it.
- How Simon Turner's Welsh Water case study used agentic AI to cut through false alarms during this summer's drought.
- Why the "autonomic business" concept compares agentic AI to a heartbeat that speeds up without conscious thought.
- Why having access to AI tools is no longer a competitive advantage, now that everyone has them.
- The debate between focusing on a handful of core business metrics versus giving people room to experiment and discover new use cases by accident.
- Why the best AI use cases sometimes emerge locally, before being scaled across a business.
- Why AI is making CVs look increasingly similar, and how outcomes-focused writing helps candidates stand out.
- Why intentionality — in networking and in career planning — matters more than ever in a fast-changing market.
- Why data and AI leaders should back the people already experimenting successfully with AI tools, not just the official roadmap.
- A preview of the "data dilemmas" segment returning for Driven by Data Live.
