Ant Morse

Specialist Speaker Ant Morse is a Futurist, Author, AI Advisor and Speaker on Innovation, Digital Transformation and the Future of Work

• Futurist and former Head of Innovation & Customer Engagement at Virgin Media O2
• Founder of Adventa, advising organisations on AI, innovation and emerging technology
• Author of The Future of Us, exploring how technology is transforming the way we live and work
• Chair of a major Customer Innovation Forum bringing together more than 120 C-suite executives
• Three decades of experience in digital transformation, innovation and customer technology
• Speaker on AI, the future of work, digital transformation, customer behaviour and responsible technology adoption
• Advisor on emerging technologies including AI, machine learning, data, IoT and immersive technologies

Speaking

After three decades working in digital transformation, Ant Morse has learned something that is particularly relevant to organisations confronting artificial intelligence today: the technology is rarely the hardest part. The hard part is deciding what to do with it.

As a futurist, author and former Head of Innovation & Customer Engagement at Virgin Media O2, Ant has spent his career at the point where ambitious technology strategies encounter the realities of organisations, budgets, governance, legacy systems, customer expectations and people who may be a lot less enthusiastic about transformation than the strategy document suggests.

That experience gives his speaking a practical edge. Ant explores where AI and emerging technologies are heading, but also asks the questions leaders need to answer now. Where will AI genuinely create value? What should organisations invest in? How quickly should they move? What governance is required? And how do you bring employees and customers with you while the technology itself continues to change?

Rather than examining technologies in isolation, Ant is particularly interested in what happens when they collide with changing expectations around work, customers, privacy, inclusion and organisational responsibility. It is this intersection between technological possibility and human reality that sits at the centre of his work.

His presentations draw on three decades of digital experience across sectors including telecommunications and technology, as well as transformation programmes spanning public and private sector organisations. They are also informed by his ongoing conversations with senior business leaders through the Customer Innovation Forum he chairs. With more than 120 C-suite members, the forum provides a valuable window into the challenges organisations are encountering as AI, automation and changing customer expectations reshape industries.

Ant Morse makes complex technologies understandable to non-technical audiences, explaining not only what they do, but why they matter and how they may affect businesses, jobs, customers and society.

Speaking Topics

• Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Business
• The Future of Work
• Digital Transformation
• Innovation and Emerging Technology
• AI Adoption, Governance and Organisational Readiness
• The Future of Customers
• Staying Relevant in a Rapidly Changing World
• Technology for Good and Digital Inclusion
• Data, Automation and Intelligent Organisations
• AR, VR, XR and the Future of Immersive Digital Experiences

Why Book Ant Morse?

Ant Morse combines the perspective of a futurist with the practical experience of someone who has spent decades delivering digital change inside major organisations. He helps audiences understand where technology is heading without losing sight of what it takes to make transformation work in practice.

His strength is making complicated technology useful to people who do not necessarily work in technology. Rather than simply presenting a vision of an AI-powered future, Ant helps leaders think critically about what is worth pursuing, what could go wrong and how organisations can balance ambition with cost, governance, culture and human change.

Biography

Ant Morse has watched the digital world repeatedly reinvent itself from inside the organisations trying to keep up with it.

Over three decades, he has seen technologies move from exciting new ideas to everyday necessities, and watched businesses discover that adopting new technology is often considerably easier than changing the people, processes and assumptions surrounding it.

Much of that experience was gained during a long career with O2 and subsequently Virgin Media O2, culminating in his role as Head of Innovation & Customer Engagement. Working across digital sales, solutions, innovation and customer experience gave Ant a close-up view of how technology moves from presentation slides and pilot programmes into the complicated reality of a large organisation.

It also shaped his approach as a futurist. Ant is interested in what technology can do, but even more interested in whether organisations are actually ready to use it.

Today, as Founder of Adventa, he works with organisations to understand emerging technologies and their potential impact on business and society. His research and advisory work covers artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, the Internet of Things and spatial and immersive technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and extended reality, which are changing how people interact with digital information and environments.

In 2022, Ant published The Future of Us, a jargon-free exploration of the digital revolution and how individuals and organisations can remain informed and relevant as technology accelerates.

The book grew from a period of extraordinary technological change. During the pandemic, years of expected digital adoption were compressed into a matter of months as millions of people changed how they worked, communicated, shopped and interacted with organisations. For Ant, it demonstrated both the extraordinary adaptability of people and the speed at which supposedly distant technological change can suddenly become everyday life.

Artificial intelligence has made those questions still more pressing.

Ant examines the gap between the extraordinary capabilities being promised by AI and the practical realities organisations face when attempting to deploy it. His work explores responsible and cost-conscious adoption, governance, organisational readiness and the human changes required if new technologies are to deliver sustainable value rather than simply become another expensive transformation programme.

That perspective is reinforced by his work chairing a major Customer Innovation Forum, which brings together more than 120 C-suite executives throughout the year. The forum explores the challenges and opportunities created by emerging technologies and changing attitudes across industries, giving Ant an unusually broad view of what senior leaders are actually concerned about as they plan for the future.

Alongside his commercial work, Ant has a longstanding interest in technology for good. He has worked on initiatives with organisations including the NSPCC and RNIB around online safety, digital inclusion and access to technology. He is also a trustee of the Birtenshaw Organisation, which provides education and support for children and young adults with disabilities and special educational needs.

This wider perspective matters to his work as a futurist. For Ant, technological progress is not simply about what machines become capable of doing. It is about what organisations and societies choose to do with those capabilities, who benefits from them and whether people are prepared for the changes that follow. As such, his central message is less about predicting a distant future than preparing intelligently for one that is already arriving: transformation may be inevitable. Keeping up with it is a choice.

To contact Ant Morse for keynote speaking, AI and innovation events, leadership conferences and corporate engagements, call a Specialist Speakers agent on 0204 616 0868 or email info@specialistspeakers.com.