The briefing
Opening framing: why AI², and how to read the stack
With Mark Pesce
John Allsopp and Mark Pesce set out the morning's map. AI is not one market but a stack, from atoms to applications: materials, energy, semiconductors and data centres at the bottom, then models, harnesses and the applications built on them. Each layer moves at a different speed, carries different risks, and captures value in different ways. This short opening gives you the frame to read every briefing that follows, and the questions to keep asking all morning.
The briefing
Closing synthesis: what it means for your decisions
With Mark Pesce
John Allsopp and Mark Pesce pull the morning together: what the briefings told us about each layer of the stack, where the layers depend on each other, and where risk and opportunity concentrate. You leave with a clear view of the questions to ask of any AI investment or strategy, before continuing the conversation with speakers over lunch.
About John Allsopp
John Allsopp is the founder of Web Directions, which for more than two decades has run some of Australia's leading conferences for people who design and build the digital world, today including AI Engineer Australia and UX Australia. He is also co-founder, with Mark Pesce, of NOOPS, which tracks the signals shaping AI for investors and strategic decision makers.
John has worked on the web since the early 1990s. His 2000 essay "A Dao of Web Design" is widely cited as a foundation of responsive web design, and he created Style Master, one of the earliest CSS development tools. These days he spends his time at the point where AI engineering practice meets strategy and capital: what is real, what is hype, and what it means for the decisions organisations and investors make now.