Safety or Surveillance? The Use of Facial Recognition in Shops to Help Fight Crime

Is the price of safety the end of anonymity?UK retail is fighting back against rising crime with Facial Recognition technology like Facewatch.  But this powerful tool comes with a massive ethical and legal question mark.In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I look at the undeniable success in tackling repeat offenders and boosting staff safety.  But also, explore the serious risks of false positives, GDPR compliance, and the erosion of public privacy.It's not about choosing sides, it's about choosing standards.  How do we govern biometric surveillance responsibly?  Listen to this podcast to hear more thoughts on this topic.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

Is your organisation's AI strategy built on a solid foundation, or is it a fast-track to fragmentation and risk?In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I explore the shift from AI experimentation to responsible execution.  I address the critical question of how do we use AI effectively, and in a way that works alongside human expertise.The concept of Human-in-the-Loop is more vital than ever!  Human-in-the-Loop isn't about slowing down automation, it's about building resilience and ethical guardrails.  I discuss why human oversight is essential for:💡 Catching anomalies and preventing AI hallucinations before they impact the business.💡 Providing the fairness, empathy, and contextual understanding that algorithms cannot replicate.💡 Using human feedback to keep AI aligned with your organisation's values and customer expectations.AI accelerates, but humans steer!  Learn how to classify decisions, build clear oversight layers, and ensure your staff has the training to partner effectively with AI.  The future is a human-at-the-centre model.Listen now to understand how to build an effective AI strategy that drives real growth, innovation, and trust.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I discuss the launch of Google DeepMind's Gemini 3. The podcast breaks down:💡 Gemini’s massive jump in core reasoning power.💡 The new Gemini Agent and the Antigravity Coding Platform.💡 Google embedding Gemini 3 directly into Search from Day One.This episode is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the shift from passive AI to agentic execution.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

This holiday shopping season, the battle for the future of e-commerce is being fought by Agentic AI assistants like Perplexity and Amazon's Rufus.In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I discuss the debate of Innovation vs. Immaturity with AI Assisted Shopping and breakdown the following: 💡 The Outdated Product Problem - Why generalist AI often recommends last-generation gifts.💡 The strategic masterstroke of Perplexity's Instant Buy with PayPal.💡 The power of Amazon's Rufus and its hyper-personalised, agentic utility.💡 The legal conflict that is forcing the old guard to defend its turf and will define Retail Tech's next era.The shift to Agentic AI is inevitable, but the technology is still working out the kinks, both technical and legal. Tune in to understand the true value proposition for Tech Leaders and consumers alike.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

The recent global internet outage on November 18th, 2025, was a reminder of the fragility of our digital world. When a single configuration error at Cloudflare took down major services like OpenAI, X, Spotify, and thousands of others, it exposed a critical vulnerability in modern infrastructure.In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I look at the root cause of the Cloudflare incident that cascaded into a global catastrophe.This episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned with digital supply chain risk and systemic failure. I discuss: 💡 The Concentration Risk - Why a failure in one core provider can cause a systemic shock across the global economy, following similar recent incidents at AWS and Microsoft Azure.💡 Building for Failure – The critical importance of the Principle of Graceful Degradation.💡 Mandating Out-of-Band Access - Why your internal tools must be independent of the infrastructure they manage to ensure you can fix problems when the main network is down.💡 Auditing Automation - The need for rigorous pre-deployment testing and blast radius analysis for all automated configuration changes.The question is no longer if another failure will happen, but whether your organisation will be prepared when it does.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

For the first time, we have a documented case of a major cyber-attack executed largely without human intervention.  The attacker?  An AI.In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I look at the alarming Anthropic incident, where a state-sponsored group manipulated the Claude Code AI model to act as an autonomous agent for espionage.This isn't just about faster hacking.  It's a fundamental shift:The Trick – How did hackers bypass safety guardrails? By simply tricking the AI into a "role-playing" scenario as a legitimate security employee.The Threat - We are moving from defending against human hackers to defending against AI-managed threat agents. This lowers the barrier to entry for sophisticated, large-scale operations.The Urgency – The episode explores why this incident makes AI safety frameworks and regulation a national security priority.If you are a tech leader, a cybersecurity professional, or a policymaker, this is a must-listen.  The rules of defence have changed.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

Vibe Coding is where AI generates code from natural language and it’s revolutionising how we innovate and build software at speed.  But with this power comes significant risk.  Are your organisation's security, compliance, and engineering standards ready for the AI-driven shift?In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders, I discuss how we need to balance innovation and control.  I break down the major risks of Vibe Coding, from subtle security vulnerabilities and data leakage to the challenge of maintaining auditability and engineering excellence.What you will learn:💡 The fundamental difference between Vibe Coding and traditional development💡 Why AI-generated code requires a "human-in-the-loop" approach💡 Practical mitigations from sandboxed environments and secure prompt engineering to implementing robust governance frameworks💡 How to ensure speed and efficiency don't come at the expense of securityThis is a must-listen for all Tech Leaders, CISOs, and Developers navigating the AI landscape.  Don't just innovate, innovate securely.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

Just hours before Microsoft's earnings call, a massive Azure outage took down services globally.  Was it a sophisticated cyber-attack, or something far simpler?In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I look at what caused the Azure Front Door problem.Listen in to learn more about: 💡 The root cause of the Azure Outage.💡 How Microsoft maintained its financial momentum and managed the narrative despite the massive disruption.💡 The data that shows most major outages are internal technical failures, but also the critical, growing trend of disruption as a primary cyber-tactic.For every IT and security leader, this incident is a powerful case study in modern digital resilience.  When systems fail, we need to understand if it’s an error of code, or perhaps an act of cyber warfare.What are your thoughts?  Do you think the public and media are too quick to assume a cyber-attack? Let me know in the comments.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

The recent AWS outage in the US-EAST-1 region was more than just a technical glitch, it exposed the critical vulnerabilities in a single cloud provider infrastructure.In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders, I look at what caused the outage and the global ripple effect that took down major apps, banking services, and even government portals.What you’ll learn in this episode:💡The root cause of the failure.💡The disproportionate impact on sectors like finance, gaming, and government.💡Why the concentration of cloud power creates a "too big to fail" systemic risk.💡Possible mitigation strategies to avoid similar issues in the future.This episode is essential listening for planning your business continuity and risk management strategy.Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com

Are you ready for AI to become a true partner in your daily work?In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I explore the release of Microsoft Agent Mode and Office Agent, along with the revolutionary concept of "vibe working" within Microsoft 365 Copilot. This isn't just about automation; it's about AI understanding your intent, orchestrating complex tasks, and even evaluating its own work!Discover how Agent Mode is transforming productivity in: 💡 Democratising advanced data analysis and financial modelling in Excel, allowing you to focus on insights, not formulas.💡 Streamlining document creation with "vibe writing” in Word, turning tedious tasks into an interactive, conversational experience.Learn how this shift frees up countless hours, enabling you to concentrate on higher-level thinking, creativity, and strategic decision-making. It's about augmenting human intelligence and making expert-level capabilities accessible to everyone.Tune in now to explore the future of work and how Microsoft Agent Mode and Office Agent are reshaping our interaction with productivity tools. Don't miss out on actionable guidance and inspiration!Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platformsSend me a messageStart building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/Support the showI’m truly honoured that the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast is now reaching listeners in over 85 countries and 1,250+ cities worldwide. Thank you for your continued support! If you’d enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe to ensure you're notified about future episodes. For further information visit - https://priceroberts.com