Tech Talks

Last year, Harvey Nash’s Digital Leadership Report found a third of firms seeing a return on AI. This year it says two-thirds. David thinks that’s rubbish, and Faye Murray, Field Chief Data Officer for EMEA at Dataiku, largely agrees: much of that ‘return’ is personal productivity, while agentic AI at scale is still struggling.
The pattern she sees is pilots that start with the technology rather than the problem, with no baseline, no accountable owner and costs that never surface in the proof of concept. Meanwhile, employees are building agents faster than IT can track them, and bans only push the risk underground. We unpack governed self-service, governance proportionate to risk, why sovereignty means being able to switch providers without rebuilding everything, and the question every agent owner should answer before launch: is the action reversible? Press play before you sign off your next pilot.

On today’s show David and Sam discuss a post from Megan Caywood, take a look at here ideas here.
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The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

Eight years ago, Gene Reich was running an MSP and worried about help desk phishing: callers who weren't who they claimed to be, and sensitive data littered across email and ticketing systems. He and Peter Segerstrom, co-founders of Traceless, now argue the problem has escaped the help desk. In a remote-first world, huge groups of people work with other huge groups, and nobody knows who anyone else is. Add AI-powered social engineering, staff vibe coding their jobs, and a Teams flaw Peter says let attackers impersonate colleagues, and identity becomes everybody's problem.
We unpack why people remain the weakest link in the supply chain, why AI may matter more to small businesses than enterprises, and why Gene believes today's AI is already good enough for 90% of users. Then Peter names the conversation nobody is having: a looming crisis of authenticity. Listen before you approve your next password reset.

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Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to learn more about our services.
The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠⁠Lemzi⁠⁠.

One morning, Diana Kocheva learns that the classmate she’d sat beside since she was seven has died. There is no time to mourn. There’s work, a podcast to record, and a mother in Zaporizhzhia who needs a generator to get through the winter.
Diana, founder of London Tech Community, came to the UK as a Ukrainian refugee in 2022 and now runs a community of thousands of women in tech, while living, as she puts it, between two worlds. If you lead people, some of them are carrying something similar, and it will never show up on a dashboard.
David and Diana unpack who gets labelled a refugee, the online pile-on that branded her a “red carpet refugee”, why luck is the only real difference, the defence innovation the West is missing, and why tech should talk far more about art.
Press play before your next one-to-one.

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.
The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

For his last documentary, David flew a sound engineer and a TV production crew to a dry lake bed in the Nevada desert, just to record his footsteps and a passing car. Four hotel rooms, two cities, one soundscape. Most stories can’t wait for that kind of operation, and most opportunities won’t.
Owen Grover, General Manager USA at Nomono, knows the trade-off well: when an interview subject becomes available at the last minute, waiting to assemble the full team can mean missing the moment altogether. It’s a dilemma every tech leader will recognise, whether the prize is a story, a pilot or a product launch.
Together they unpack when a lean kit beats a full squad, why video has proved additive rather than a threat to audio, and where AI should stop: the audience and the creators should always be human.
Press play before you call in the cavalry.

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.
The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

In 2020, every bar and restaurant shut, and the social media marketing business Tom Shaw had built for them went with them. With no clients left to answer to, he decided to learn to code. Today, as a tech content creator with 400,000-plus Instagram followers, he gets behind the security at data centres, labs and Formula E’s broadcast operation.
But his sharpest lesson isn’t about access. One of his videos hit six million views and won him roughly 1,000 followers; another reached a million and won 40,000. For any leader reporting on reach, that gap should sting.
David and Tom unpack why AI has removed the barrier to building but not the risk of shipping, why tech moves faster than society, and why counting watchers is the wrong metric. Press play if your numbers look great and still feel empty.

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.
The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.