Martin
D Adams

Martin Adams is an ethical-AI founder, innovation expert and keynote speaker. He helps leaders turn AI hype into practical advantage while keeping people and creativity at the centre- so they can decide where to invest, manage risk and keep a human edge while scaling AI.

More than just a commentator, he has founded and scaled a number of his own ethical-AI businesses which have then been acquired, including Codec.ai – a UK Top 20 AI scaleup – and Metaphysic.ai, named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies globally. Named a Maserati Top 100 UK Entrepreneur, and a World Economic Forum Global Innovator, he now advises the boards of organisations building at the cusp of innovation while putting human creativity first.

Martin serves on the Board of UCL (University College London), where he helps oversee strategy, management and innovation at one of the world’s top ten universities – home to 33 Nobel laureates, including AI pioneers Sir Demis Hassabis and Professor Geoffrey Hinton. He sits on the AI Advisory Board of the Marketing Society and a number of companies, and has worked with schools to build human-centred AI curricula that prepare young people for an AI-shaped future.

He originally trained as a lawyer at Harvard, and began his career working with creative business and privacy and intellectual-property cases in New York. That legal grounding underpins his work today: he is known for helping organisations of all types around the world harness AI’s upside while protecting data, reputation and intellectual property value. He helped establish the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), advancing transparency and trust in digital media, and combines that expertise with technical understanding as an inventor on three patents in generative video.

As a speaker, organisations invite Martin when they need to cut through noise and understand what AI means for their business. He has spoken for clients like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, L’Oreal, Oracle, Arabian Business, as well as the European Commission, the Alan Turing Institute, Cannes Lions, MIT and SXSW, and his arguments on how we can use technology to advance human agency and business impact have been featured in global documentaries on AI.

Martin is an advocate for building AI that advances human potential and preserves what he calls our “immortal insights” about what really matters to people. He argues technology should be used first to expand human possibility. On stage he blends frontier insight with clear, practical frameworks that audiences can act on immediately. He helps leadership teams build belief, and leave the room with a concrete way to move forward with real confidence.