Practical AI

Book the AI talk where something actually gets built.

Matt takes a real problem from your audience and builds a working tool that solves it, live, in minutes. Most AI speakers talk about what AI might do. This one shows a room what they can do.

The sessions

Three ways to run it.

Pick a length. Each session is written up two ways, ready to drop straight into your programme: copy the short version for a listing, or the full write-up for a session page.

1

45-minute presentation

Build with AI

Someone in this room will describe a problem. By the end of the session, it'll be fixed.

Programme listing

Bring the thing that annoys you at work. One person's problem gets picked, and Matt builds a working tool that solves it, live, in front of everyone, no preparation, no demo, nothing set up in advance. Then he shows you everything that's still wrong with it. You'll leave knowing what you could now make yourself, and what still needs a professional.

Session page

Most sessions about AI tell you what's coming. This one shows you what's already here.

Someone in the audience describes a real problem from their own work, the spreadsheet nobody trusts, the report rebuilt by hand every Monday, the form that gets typed out twice. Matt picks one and builds a working tool that solves it while you watch. Nothing is prepared in advance, which is the point: until you see it happen in real time, it's easy not to believe it.

Then comes the part most people find most useful: what happens next. Building the thing is the easy bit, the questions that follow are where people get stuck. Where does the data actually live, and who's responsible for it? Who should be able to see this, and how do you control that? What breaks when twenty people use it at once? What needs to be true before you'd put it in front of a customer?

You'll see which of those you could handle yourself, which need someone else, and roughly what each one costs. That's the map from "this works" to "this is live", and it's the part nobody else shows you.

You don't need to bring anything, and you don't need to be technical. You're here to watch.

What you'll leave with

  • A clear picture of what you could now build yourself
  • An honest sense of what still needs a developer
  • The name of the tool used, and where to start
It has already happened

20+ people in the room100% left with a working toolNone of them technical

"I don't think any of them had any idea they would actually take away a product they could use in their business."

Lisa Holdstock · Founder, Cabal

Matt Hughes
About Matt

He builds it. He doesn't just talk about it.

Matt Hughes doesn't talk about what AI might do. He asks someone in the room for a problem, builds a working tool that solves it, and puts it live before the session ends.

He's spent twenty-five years helping non-technical people through technology change, first across government, finance, media and the NHS, as a Microsoft Certified Trainer delivering to organisations including the BBC, RBS, NATO, MOD and Tesco. Today he runs Vlogcast Studios in Leicester, founded TubeFest and the Festival of AI, and teaches business owners and teams across the UK to build the tools they need without writing a line of code.

He runs every session personally.

Matt has trained teams at

BBC
NHS
Tesco
adidas
Emerson
Royal Bank of Scotland
Natural Resources Wales
Speaker resources

Everything an organiser needs.

Bios and headshots, ready to drop straight into your programme.

Short bio (50 words)

Matt Hughes builds working software live on stage, from problems the audience gives him, in minutes. A Microsoft Certified Trainer with twenty-five years in enterprise IT, he's the founder of TubeFest and the Festival of AI, and he's trained teams at the BBC, NHS, RBS, NATO and Tesco.

Bio (100 words)

Matt Hughes doesn't talk about what AI might do. He asks someone in the room for a problem, builds a working tool that solves it, and puts it live before the session ends. He's spent twenty-five years helping non-technical people through technology change, first across government, finance, media and the NHS, as a Microsoft Certified Trainer delivering to organisations including the BBC, RBS, NATO, MOD and Tesco. Today he runs Vlogcast Studios in Leicester, founded TubeFest and the Festival of AI, and teaches business owners and teams across the UK to build the tools they need without writing a line of code.

Long bio (press packs)

Matt Hughes builds software live, in front of audiences, from problems they give him on the spot. There are no slides after the first ten minutes and nothing is prepared in advance, which is the point. Until people watch it happen, they don't believe it's possible.

He came to this the long way round. Twenty-five years in enterprise IT, across government, education, insurance, finance, oil and gas and media, spanning organisations including the NHS, Virgin Media, Lockheed Martin, Transport for London and the University of Manchester. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer he delivered to the BBC, RBS, NATO, MOD and Tesco, and led training for RBS across their global rollout. That's a career built on one skill: getting people who don't consider themselves technical to use technology confidently.

Alongside that he built a video business. He runs Vlogcast Studios in Leicester, founded TubeFest, now in its fourth year, and created the Festival of AI, which brings hundreds of business owners, creators and entrepreneurs to the National Space Centre each October.

Through Practical AI he now runs build sessions for teams, membership organisations and mastermind groups across the UK. At a recent session for the Cabal founder community, more than twenty people, none of them technical, left with a working product they'd built themselves.

He runs every session personally.