Paul Forrest

Paul Forrest

1 bookBusiness & EntrepreneurshipScience & TechnologyManagement & Leadership

Paul Forrest has spent more than twenty-five years advising boards. Much of that were in professional services where he was a partner and held senior leadership positions, and the rest as an investor and adviser to venture-backed and private equity-owned companies. He now works at the operating end of artificial intelligence rather than the commentary end. He is a fractional head of AI across a portfolio of private equity holdings and high stakes ventures, founder of Athleet.AI and a seasoned non-executive director. He leads the governance pillar of the Business AI Alliance, which works on AI adoption among British small and medium-sized businesses, and has recently concluded a special adviser role with the UK government. He teaches what he practises. He is Adjunct Professor at the London School of Innovation, tutor and assessor in AI law, policy and governance at the London School of Economics, and an industry masterclass tutor at Oxford's Saïd Business School. He is completing a doctorate at the University of Lancashire on artificial intelligence in elite performance coaching, and holds a number of master's including international business law and an MBA.

Book

Tales from AI Development Hell

Tales from AI Development Hell

Moonshots, Misfires and Management - How to Avoid an AI Boondoggle

  • Business & Entrepreneurship
  • Science & Technology

Why do sophisticated artificial intelligence deployments repeatedly collapse within world-class organisations? The answer rarely lies in defective algorithms or inadequate compute. Instead, catastrophic AI disasters are engineered in executive boardrooms—driven by perverse incentives, unexamined procurement, institutional silence, and flattering green dashboards that mask severe operational drift. In this incisive and urgently needed guide, seasoned enterprise advisor Paul Forrest dissects high-profile debacles across healthcare, algorithmic trading, automated public administration, and generative technology. From Watson's oncology misadventure and Zillow's algorithmic property collapse to fatal autonomous navigation failures, Forrest demonstrates how well-intentioned leaders consistently convert reasonable technical choices into structural boondoggles. Moving beyond post-mortem critique, Forrest delivers a rigorous nine-part operating model and twelve concrete diagnostic frameworks. Learn how to deploy the Evidence Ladder, construct Decision Exposure Maps, and implement robust Contestability Design to question automated certainty. Essential reading for board members, enterprise executives, and technology directors, this definitive work provides the operational toolkit required to interrogate vanity metrics, enforce constitutional governance, and safely halt failing programmes before reputational and financial ruin strikes.

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