Ai & Culture
Nicholas Hodder
- Regions:
- Surrey, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, London, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria, Edinburgh and Lothians, Glasgow and Strathclyde
- Notice Period:
- Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
- Type:
- Professional
- Fee:
- Paid: £1000 for commercial clients, £350 for registered charities.
- Category:
- Business
- Updated:
- 15th December 2025
- Tagged:
- Ai | Culture | Leadership | Transformation
Peter Drucker famously said that "culture eats strategy for breakfast." But in the era of Large Language Models and Generative AI, we are faced with a new reality: AI is eating culture. It trains on our history, mimics our creativity, and automates our output.
For leaders and practitioners in the cultural sector—from museums and heritage sites to theaters and creative agencies—this shift is both terrifying and electrifying. We are no longer just competing for attention; we are navigating a fundamental shift in what audiences value as "authentic."
In this strategic deep-dive, we will explore the friction between algorithmic efficiency and human expression. We will look at how AI is democratizing creation while simultaneously challenging the economic models of the arts. Crucially, we will discuss how cultural institutions can pivot from being passive observers to active shapers of this technology.
Key Takeaways for the Audience:
The Consumption Crisis: Understanding how AI "feeds" on cultural data and what this means for copyright, ownership, and the value of human intellectual property.
Curating vs. Computing: How to differentiate the "human touch" in an automated world, and why the role of the curator/editor is becoming more, not less, important.
Practical Applications: Real-world examples of how the sector is using AI right now—from hyper-personalized visitor experiences and accessible archiving to experimental performance art.
Strategic Resilience: A framework for cultural leaders to adopt AI tools ethically and sustainably, ensuring that technology serves the mission rather than dictating it.
Target Audience: This talk is designed for cultural leaders, museum directors, arts administrators, curators, policymakers, and creative professionals looking for a balanced, hype-free roadmap to the future.
Views: 50 | Enquiries: 0About Nicholas Hodder
Nick has been a stand up comedian for two decades alongside his career in technology. As well as a sought-after speaker, Nick regularly addresses the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, ethics, and cultural heritage. He recently gave a TEDx talk on the role of museums in the age of AI. He is passionate about demystifying emerging technologies—from Blockchain to Neural Networks—helping boards and trustees understand how these tools can serve their mission rather than just their bottom line
Recently, Nick served as the Director of Digital Engagement and Transformation at the Imperial War Museums (IWM). In this role, he spearheaded a mission to democratize history, proving that even century-old institutions can lead the world in innovation. His tenure at IWM was defined by groundbreaking work in AI, working with Google Cloud and Capgemini. Nick led the initiative to utilize Generative AI (specifically LLMs and neural networks) to unlock the museum's vast, siloed archives
By automating the transcription and translation of over 20,000 hours of oral history, his team condensed decades of manual labor into a matter of weeks. This work not only preserved first-hand accounts of conflict but made them accessible to a global audience for the first time—work that was featured in The Times, BBC News, and BBC Tech Now.
Under his leadership, IWM saw its digital footprint expand explosively. Website visitors grew from 6 million to over 20 million annually while the museum’s YouTube presence skyrocketed from 200,000 views to over 315 million.
Nick is a fierce advocate for "culture-first" transformation. He argues that buying the right technology is easy; building a team with the psychological safety to experiment with it is hard. He has been recognized for cultivating "growth mindsets" within his teams—encouraging rapid experimentation and de-stigmatizing failure as a necessary step toward innovation.
His leadership style has earned industry recognition; his team at IWM was awarded "The Best Place to Work in Digital" at the 2024 Digital Technology Leaders Awards, and Nick himself was named in the Computing IT Leaders 100.
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