What does a Chief AI Officer actually do — and why is the job title still so widely misunderstood?
In this episode of Experiments in Artificial Intelligence, host Dave Birss talks to Tiffany St James, the UK’s first regional public-sector Chief AI Officer, responsible for AI strategy across Liverpool City Region’s six local authorities and 1.6 million residents.
Tiffany explains why the Chief AI Officer role is fundamentally a change management and stakeholder trust position, not a technical one — and why hiring a pure technologist into the role can actually cause it to fail. She walks through her three portfolios of activity (transport, health and social care, and education), and why every one of them is measured on better outcomes rather than faster ones.
If this episode resonates with where your organisation is right now, Tiffany has also built a course for us: The Leaders’ AI Playbook, designed to help leaders confidently drive AI adoption, spot high-impact opportunities, and embed responsible AI practices without the common missteps. It’s a natural next step from this conversation.