About this site
Conversational AI News is an independent publication and events organiser launched in November 2022 by me - Ewan MacLeod - originally as a private list of Conversational AI news links that I was curating for myself. I've swapped that activity by publishing the links (with commentary) on this website - so hello and welcome!
The Background
For the longest time, I've been fascinated by the power and possibility of Conversational AI.
As Chief Digital Officer for a leading bank in Northern Europe, I had a front-row seat as we launched an in-app chat capability... and then later on, a chatbot or conversational AI interface. This was back in 2016 or thereabouts. Even then, with limited capabilities, the chatbot was showing enormous promise. Today, the chatbot is reliably answering millions of conversations every year.
But it's not just answering - it's orchestrating. It's connected to dozens of back-end APIs to enable customers to solve their issues now, without having to make that tedious customer support call.
So I'm not only a fan, I've seen the technology function up close - and I've had the privilege of representing these successes publicly.
About Me
I'm Ewan, I'm the founder and editor of Conversational AI News. I've got game with this sort of thing - or at least a track record. From 2006 until around 2015, I was the editor of Mobile Industry Review. I tracked the mobile industry's rise (and falls - hello Nokia/BlackBerry) for more than a decade, only slowing down when every phone began to look the same.
I've worked in Financial Services for quite some time, generally focusing on helping drive Digital Transformation across banks in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East. I've been responsible for $250M+ transformation budgets and I've regularly been the decision maker and buyer of technology and services such as Conversational AI. I therefore have a slightly different approach and interest than a journalist might.
I've been publishing FinTech Profile ("meet a new CEO every week") since about 2014.
I've been evangelising Conversational AI for quite a while – especially through my role as external faculty (AI, FinTech & Digital Transformation) for the London Institute of Banking & Finance ("LIBF"). You can find my LIBF credentials at the bottom of my LinkedIn profile. I regularly work with LIBF to offer executive education on topics such as AI for senior leaders and boards of directors.
You can read more about me on my LinkedIn or personal site:
Ewan MacLeod
The Audience
I can't definitively give you an overview of the audience because there's a lot of people who find the site from the likes of Google and I can't profile them easily. Likewise, in recent months there's been a heck of a lot more referrals from ChatGPT and Perplexity in particular. So the site is readily found and valued by the search engines and AI.
In terms of numbers, I've built a curated following of the LinkedIn Newsletter of just under 2,500 senior executives, working in and around Artificial Intelligence. I know a lot of them. Some of them I've worked with directly, or I have completed consulting assignments with them. Others I don't know. When I scroll down the job titles, they are almost always someone with responsibility – e.g. Chiefs, EVPs, VPs, "Heads of" and so on.
About 17,600 follow me on LinkedIn directly and I aim to ensure I am highlighting the posts to them too. My LinkedIn profile audience is much broader but still centres around those who have chosen to add or follow me – indicating they've got an interest in FinTech, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence.
LinkedIn & LinkedIn Newsletter
You can follow the site at our LinkedIn page here - and you can subscribe to the newsletter on LinkedIn here - or click the image below:
Contact Me
Send me your feedback, pitches and ideas! Please visit the Contact page for more details.
Thanks for reading.