The Meeting That Changed How I Think About AI

The Global Investment Leaders Club (GILC) recently featured some of the work I’m doing with artificial intelligence. It was an honour to be included, but it also gave me an opportunity to reflect on why I’ve become so interested in this space in the first place.

For me, AI has never been about replacing people.

It’s about helping people do what they already do—just a little better.

That belief actually started years ago, long before AI became part of everyday conversation.

I remember sitting in a meeting with a founder who had built an incredible business. The product was solid, the opportunity was real, and you could tell they’d poured everything into making it work.

But when it came time to present the business, something didn’t click.

The pressure of the room got to them. The story became difficult to follow, important details were missed, and the investors walked away without really understanding what had been built.

I remember leaving that meeting thinking how unfair that was.

The business wasn’t rejected because it lacked potential. It was rejected because the founder couldn’t communicate that potential in the moment.

That experience has stayed with me ever since.

It’s also one of the reasons I became interested in how artificial intelligence could actually help people instead of trying to replace them.

AI as a sounding board

The way I see it, AI shouldn’t be making important decisions for us.

It should be helping us think more clearly.

Sometimes all we need is another perspective. Someone—or in this case, something—that asks the questions we hadn’t thought of, points out the gaps in our thinking, or helps us explain an idea in a way that makes more sense.

That’s the thinking behind one of the projects I’m currently building, IQPitch.

The goal isn’t for AI to write a pitch and send someone on their way.

It’s to help founders prepare before they walk into the room.

To challenge assumptions.

To highlight weak points.

To suggest ways of explaining complex ideas more simply.

At the end of the day, the entrepreneur still tells the story. AI is simply there to help them tell it better.

Looking beyond investment pitches

That same philosophy applies well beyond raising capital.

Whether it’s healthcare, automation, digital infrastructure or business intelligence, I think AI has the potential to remove a lot of the repetitive work that slows people down.

It can help us research faster.

Compare more information.

Spot patterns we might otherwise miss.

But it shouldn’t replace experience.

A doctor’s judgement still matters.

An engineer’s knowledge still matters.

An investor’s instincts still matter.

AI works best when it’s sitting beside those people, helping them process information and make better decisions—not making those decisions for them.

Building technology people actually use

Through Castill Group, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a number of projects that explore practical uses for AI.

One thing I’ve learnt is that people don’t really care how clever the technology is.

They care whether it solves a real problem.

That’s what motivates me.

I’m far more interested in building tools that genuinely help people than chasing the latest trend or adding AI for the sake of it.

Technology should make our lives easier.

It should give us more time to think, create and solve problems.

And if it can help someone communicate a brilliant idea that might otherwise have been overlooked, then I think that’s a pretty worthwhile use of AI.

The recent GILC feature was a great reminder of why I started exploring this space in the first place.

We’re still only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

But I remain convinced that the future doesn’t belong to AI alone.

It belongs to people who know how to use AI to become even better at what they already do.

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