What if the person shaping the future of AI at one of the world’s biggest companies started by modeling the brains of bumblebees?
Daniel Hulme, Chief AI Officer at WPP and founder of Satalia (acquired by WPP), is a rare hybrid: academic, founder, and futurist. Now he’s building Consium—the first commercial research organization focused on machine consciousness—while leading AI transformation across a 120,000-person creative empire.
In this episode, we dive into how Daniel built a bootstrapped AI company from scratch, why he believes consciousness (not just intelligence) is the next frontier in computing, and how marketing is becoming the proving ground for AI’s real-world impact.
Key themes we cover:
🔹 What neuromorphic computing and spiking neural nets mean for AGI
🔹 How “brand brains” are changing the future of marketing at scale
🔹 The economic singularity and the end of labor as we know it
🔹 Why consciousness—not just ethics—needs to be engineered
🔹 How to regulate AI impact without stifling innovation
From decoding nature to building the minds behind global brands, Daniel’s journey shows that the next era of AI won’t just be about thinking machines—it’ll be about machines that just might think.
Chapters:
Welcome & Guest Intro (00:01 – 01:04)
From Bumblebee Brains to AI Founder (01:05 – 06:24)
Bootstrapping Satalia and the WPP Acquisition (06:25 – 12:32)
Why Marketing is the Best AI Sandbox (12:33 – 17:20)
The Case for Machine Consciousness (17:21 – 22:40)
Spiking Neural Networks and AGI Potential (22:41 – 28:17)
The Economic Singularity and the End of Jobs (28:18 – 33:09)
Brand Brains and Synthetic Audiences at WPP (33:10 – 37:56)
Regulating AI Impact, Not Just AI Models (37:57 – 42:20)
Rethinking Ethics, Purpose, and Governance (42:21 – 47:44)
Founding Consium and Commercializing Consciousness (47:45 – 53:38)
Lightning Round: AGI Timelines, Book Recs, and Final Thoughts (53:39 – 59:11)
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