AI isn't the starting point. But I'm going to Cambridge to find out more.

I've just spent two days at Cambridge Judge Business School with Cambridge Spark, starting a three month programme on Leading with AI. Lloyds Banking Group are investing in their leaders to understand what AI really means, not just for technology, but for how we lead, decide and create.

I walked in with a point of view. I'm walking out with the same one, but sharper.

AI isn't the starting point. The human outcome is.

There is a lot of noise right now. Every conference, every LinkedIn feed, every boardroom conversation. AI will replace designers. AI will replace leaders. AI changes everything.

I don't think that's the right question.

I've spent 25 years designing and leading design. I started with a pencil in my hand and I now lead one of the largest design organisations in the UK. And in all of that time, one thing has never changed. The starting point is always the same. What do we want someone to feel? What do we want them to understand? What do we want them to trust? What do we want them to be able to do?

That question doesn't change because a new technology arrives. It becomes more important.

We just shipped something at Lloyds that proves it.

We recently released an enhanced experience across our apps using natural language to help customers understand their spending. Simple questions. Clear answers. More control.

We didn't build it because the technology existed. We built it because the insight was clear. Customers needed to feel in control of their money. They needed to trust what they were seeing. AI was the tool that helped us get there faster and more elegantly. But trust was the starting point. The human outcome came first.

Not the tech. The insight.

So why am I doing this programme?

Because holding a point of view isn't the same as understanding something deeply. And I want to understand it deeply.

I want to know how AI changes the way organisations make decisions. How it shifts power, accelerates some things and makes others obsolete. How leaders who don't understand it will be left behind, not because AI replaces them, but because they never learned to ask it the right questions.

I'm a design leader. My job has always been to ask the right questions before reaching for the tools. This programme is about making sure I'm asking the right questions about AI itself.

What I think the design perspective brings to this conversation.

I'm in a room with leaders from across Lloyds. Technology leaders, commercial leaders, operations leaders. And I think the design perspective brings something that's easy to miss in those conversations.

We are trained to start with people. Not systems, not data, not capability. People. What they need, what they feel, what they trust, what they avoid. That instinct, to put the human outcome first, is exactly what's needed to lead with AI well. Because the risk isn't that AI is too powerful. The risk is that we use it to answer the wrong questions faster.

Designers know how to ask the right questions. That's the craft.

In a world where anyone can experiment and make, the role of design doesn't diminish. It becomes more important.

Three months. Cambridge. More to come.