GAEA Talks

AI machine learning models are not just a little bit faster than traditional weather forecasting - they're tens of thousands of times faster. But speed alone isn't enough when lives depend on the forecast.In this episode of GAEA Talks, Professor Kirstine Dale, the Met Office's Chief AI Officer and Principal Fellow for Data Science, joins Graeme Scott to explore how AI is driving a paradigm shift in how we understand and predict the weather. From the physics-based numerical weather prediction models that have served us since 1952, to the graph neural network models being co-developed with The Alan Turing Institute, Kirstine explains why the future lies in a blended approach - and why understanding the physics still matters when you're deciding whether it's safe to open a runway at Heathrow.The conversation goes far beyond forecasting. Kirstine and Graeme dig into how climate change is reshaping global supply chains, why machine learning models struggle with "grey swan" events, and how urbanisation is fundamentally changing the impact weather has on the ground. They also tackle the critical issue of diversity in AI and data science - with only 20% of the workforce being women, a figure that hasn't shifted in four years - and why a richer, more inclusive approach isn't just ethical, it's essential for innovation and avoiding dangerous bias in the models shaping our future.Whether you're interested in how AI could one day run a hyperlocal weather forecast on your phone, or why designing seatbelts around one physiology puts others at risk, this episode connects the science to the real world in ways you won't expect.About the Guest:Professor Kirstine Dale BSc MBA MRes MA PhD is the Met Office's Chief AI Officer (CAIO) and Principal Fellow for Data Science. She leads the embedding of AI across all Met Office functions, from foundational climate science to customer-facing products and services. Kirstine holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Exeter, co-leads the development of the Fastnet weather prediction model with The Alan Turing Institute, and launched the Met Office's 'AI4Everyone' programme. She is a passionate advocate for diversity in STEM and AI, championing inclusive workforces as the key to solving society's greatest challenges.

This week on GAEA Talks, Graeme Scott sits down with Alberto Prado - former Global Head of R&D Digital & Partnerships at Unilever, former Head of R&D Strategy at Nokia, and one of the few executives in the world who has had a front-row seat to two of the biggest technology disruptions of our lifetime.Alberto was inside Nokia when the company held over 50% of the global mobile market — and watched from the inside as the iPhone and Android rewrote the rules overnight. He then spent five years leading AI-driven transformation of Unilever's global R&D organisation, compressing decades of laboratory work into minutes using AI and computational science.In this episode, Alberto shares the hard-won lessons from both experiences and draws striking parallels between what happened to the mobile industry and what is now unfolding with AI. From the cultural dynamics that prevent large organisations from adapting, to why domain expertise matters more than ever, to the radical rethinking of how companies, teams and even universities need to evolve - this is a masterclass in transformation from someone who has lived it.What you'll take away from this conversation:- Why the same patterns that destroyed Nokia are playing out again across industries today - How Unilever used AI to compress tens of years of R&D into minutes - Why culture, not technology, determines whether your organisation survives - The shift from hardware-driven to software-driven value creation - and what comes next - Why "humans push the ceiling and machines raise the floor" - How leaders should rethink their organisations as hybrid human-AI teams - Why the education system is fundamentally unprepared for the AI era - The skills that will define the most valuable people in any organisation going forwardAbout Alberto Prado: Alberto is a globally recognised technology and innovation leader with over 25 years of experience spanning telecoms, consumer electronics, healthcare and FMCG. He served as Global Head of R&D Digital & Partnerships at Unilever, where he led the digital transformation of R&D and the creation of the Unilever DataLab Ecosystem. Prior to Unilever, he established and led the Digital Innovation Accelerator at Royal Philips and chaired the company-wide AI Council. Earlier in his career, Alberto held executive roles at Nokia (Head of R&D Strategy), Symbian Software (VP Global Product Management), and NEC Europe. He holds an Engineering and Economics degree from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and an MBA from INSEAD.GAEA Talks is the enterprise AI podcast for leaders navigating the age of artificial intelligence. Subscribe for weekly conversations with the people shaping the future of business, technology and society.LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/albertoprado GAEA AI: https://gaealgm.ai#AI #EnterpriseAI #DigitalTransformation #Nokia #Unilever #Leadership #Innovation #GAEATalks #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #AITransformation

In this episode of Gaea Talks, host Graeme Scott sits down with Max Sebti, Co-Founder and CEO of Score, to explore how AI moves beyond chatbots and into real-world decision systems.Using elite football as a case study, Max explains how his team built a fully automated vision AI system capable of annotating an entire match in under two minutes — more accurately than human analysts. From there, the conversation expands into one of sport’s biggest unsolved challenges: how to objectively measure and translate player performance across leagues, regions, and tactical systems in a scalable, non-biased way.But this discussion goes far beyond sport. Together, they examine why framing the right business problem matters more than model accuracy, how hedge fund principles apply to AI and performance modelling, the risks of centralised AI systems trained on the same datasets, and the ethical implications of data labelling at scale. They also explore the intersection of AI and energy, the future of decentralised systems, and what all of this means for leadership, productivity, and the future of work.This is a conversation about leverage, transparency, and how to think strategically about AI in the real world. If you’re building, leading, investing, or competing in an AI-shaped economy, this episode offers a clear and grounded perspective on where the true opportunities and risks lie.
The GAEA Talks podcast series to brought to you by GAEA AI https://gaealgm.ai

Melissa Reeve is an organizational transformation and AI integration expert who focuses on how companies must evolve—not just technologically, but structurally and culturally—to succeed with AI. Rather than concentrating on tools or models, her work examines how leadership, operating models, governance, and human systems must change as AI becomes embedded in everyday work.Drawing on decades of experience across lean manufacturing, agile systems, and enterprise transformation, Melissa has worked at the intersection of strategy, execution, and change. Her thinking was shaped early by studying the Toyota Production System in Japan and later through leadership roles in scaling agile and enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.She is the author of Hyperadaptive: Rewiring the Enterprise to Become AI-Native, where she outlines a practical, staged approach for helping organizations move from isolated AI experiments to becoming adaptive, learning enterprises that can sense and respond at AI speed. Her work is particularly focused on the “messy middle” of transformation—where people, roles, incentives, and culture collide with new technological capabilities.In this episode of GAEA Talks, Melissa shares insights for leaders navigating AI adoption at scale, including why most AI initiatives stall, how to overcome resistance, and what it really takes to build organizations that evolve alongside AI rather than being disrupted by it. You can find Melissa’s book "Hyperadaptive: Rewiring The Industry To Be AI- Native" at the link below.
https://hyperadaptive.solutions/book
The GAEA Talks podcast series to brought to you by GAEA AI
https://gaealgm.ai

This podcast features a discussion with Richard Saldanha, who shares his background of spending 25 years in the City of London as a risk analyst, quant trader, portfolio manager and even serving as a global head of risk for a large investment manager. His career has focused on linking mathematics, problem-solving and real-world issues. He has an academic background, holding a doctorate in graph theory and multivariate statistics from the University of Oxford. Richard is a Teaching Fellow in the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary University of London, where he teaches statistical machine learning with applications in finance at postgraduate level.Richard is a Fellow and Chartered Statistician (CStat) of the Royal Statistical Society; a Science Council Chartered Scientist (CSci); and a Fellow and Advanced Practitioner in Artificial Intelligence of the Institute of Science and Technology – FIScT(AI).Find out more about Richard's work at Queen Mary University of London https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/staff/richardsaldanha.html, at the Institute of Science and Technology https://istonline.org.uk/ist-artificial-intelligence-training/ and for the Acdemic Speakers' Bureau at The London School of Economics and Political Science https://www.academicspeakersbureau.com/speakers/richard-saldanha.The GAEA Talks podcast series to brought to you by GAEA AI https://gaealgm.ai