Kay Firth-Butterfield

Kay Firth-Butterfield Speaker Biography

Kay Firth-Butterfield is the CEO of Good Tech Advisory. TIME 100 Impact Awardee 2024 , Who’s Who Emerging Innovator 2024 ,Who’s Who in America, Forbes 50 over 50. Her new book “Co-Existing with AI: A Guide to working loving and playing with AI is available for pre-order and will be published by Wiley in January 2026. She was the Inaugural Head of Artificial Intelligence & Quantum and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum and, in 2014, became the World’s first Chief AI Ethics Officer. She is one of the foremost experts in the world on the use & governance of AI. Kay is a Barrister, former Judge and Professor, technologist and entrepreneur who has an abiding interest in how humanity can benefit from new technologies, especially AI.  Kay is an Executive Advisor to the Cantellus Group, Visiting Scholar at the University of Notre Dame, Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at University of Cambridge and Fellow at New America in the Future of Work and Innovation team. She has authored books on Human Rights, AI and Modern Slavery.  Kay was Vice-Chair of the ground-breaking IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and a member of the group which met at Asilomar to create the Asilomar AI Ethical Principles. She sits on the Polaris Council for the Government Accountability Office (USA), the Advisory Board for UNESCO International Research Centre on AI, the Advisory Board of SwissRE, Fathom, the AI and Philanthropy Steering Committee of the Partnership on AI, the UKRAI TAS Hub and the Board of Earth Species Project. Also, the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on AI and the AI Governance Alliance & Digital Heathcare Transformation Initiative. She is an Ambassador for the Global Trust Challenge co-created by OECD and IEEE. Kay has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations and regularly speaks to international audiences addressing many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic, legal, geo-political and social changes arising from the use of AI. Kay is an Associate Barrister and head of AI at Doughty Street Chambers, Master of the Inner Temple, London and served on the Lord Chief Justice’s Advisory Panel on AI and Law. She has been consistently recognized as a leading woman in AI since 2018 and was featured in the New York Times as one of 10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership.