What we believe

The way AI is being built right now concentrates power in the hands of very few people. The rest of us are being asked to accept the results.

AI is the biggest shift in how we live and work that we'll see in our lifetime. And yet, most of us don't feel like we have any say in how it's being built. Right now, decisions about its future are being shaped by a narrow group of people -and that's not good enough. We believe AI's benefits should be shared, its risks managed, and its opportunities open to everyone.

None of this has to be true. We believe anyone can learn to use and build with AI. We believe AI only works - ethically, commercially, and for society - when the people shaping it reflect the breadth of human experience. And we believe the best way to advise on AI is to build with it yourself, test your own ideas, and be honest about what works and what doesn't.

That's what Idea Junkies is. A consultancy, product studio, and learning community built on those convictions - and on the belief that anyone with curiosity and accountability can become one of the people shaping this technology, regardless of where they started.

How Idea Junkies started

Laura Richards learned to build AI applications on maternity leave. With twins. What started as a way to solve everyday problems turned into a deep dive into machine learning, AI development, and a question that now drives everything we do: if AI is genuinely going to change how we live and work, who gets to shape AI?

The answer, it turned out, was in the very thing she'd spent nearly twenty years doing: communication, change management and understanding what people actually want. The missing piece in AI adoption was never the technology. It was the people expertise. So she built a company around that gap - one that advises, builds, and teaches from the same set of convictions.

Laura Richards working on a strategy framework at a whiteboard

Two decades of making change stick

Before Idea Junkies, Laura spent a decade at the intersection of emerging technology and public policy - advising government bodies including DCMS and BEIS, and partnering with organisations like Digital Catapult and Comic Relief. Before that, a decade in strategic communications and PR taught her how to make complex ideas land with real audiences.

Now she brings all of that together: working with leadership teams on AI strategy, training organisations to build genuine AI capability, and building voice-first AI tools through Idea Junkies Studio. The studio work keeps the advice honest - she builds with the same tools she helps clients adopt, and she sees first-hand where the technology works and where it falls short.

Credentials

Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (FCIPR)
Level 5 AI and Machine Learning Engineering
Associate Lecturer, Newcastle University
Founding member, CIPR AI panel
MA in Media and PR
Advisory work with DCMS, BEIS, Digital Catapult, Comic Relief, and others

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For speaking enquiries: hello@ideajunkies.co.uk