Technology - Dave Coplin — Keynote Speaker, Author & AI Strategist

A vintage hand grenade mounted upright on a bolted metal base sits on a polished wooden desk, with a paper ticket numbered "1" hanging from its pin ring. Beside it, an engraved wooden desk sign reads "Complaints Department — Take a Number." Headline text across the top reads "Minutes to write, hours to answer."

August 13, 2026

Dave Coplin

Minutes to Write, Hours to Answer

This is the short version of an argument I’ve set out at length in a paper of the same name - the evidence, the sector detail, and worked examples you can adapt. It’s here if you’d rather have all of...

A robotic hand types on a laptop keyboard in front of a row of humanoid robots, under the title "How I Make This" — header image for Dave Coplin's essay on writing with AI.

August 6, 2026

Dave Coplin

How I Make This

The way things are going these days, that sentence is currently supposed to sound like a confession. Like I’ve been trying to hide something that’s not polite to mention in public or be proud of. Except...

A large house under construction at golden hour, wooden frame and scaffolding visible, roof trusses exposed, stacks of timber and construction materials in the foreground. Text overlay reads: ARROGANCE VS ATTENTION.

June 25, 2026

Dave Coplin

Arrogance vs Attention

For twenty years, the smartest people I know have given the same advice on technology: don’t build it, buy it. It was good advice, and there was a reason for it that nobody said out loud very often. Choosing...

Two people sitting apart on a sofa, arms crossed, not looking at each other. Labelled 'The Business' and 'IT'. Title reads: Rebuilding Relationships.

June 11, 2026

Dave Coplin

What 4,000 CIOs Taught Me

Then I walked into the room and something different happened. Not better or worse than the plan. Just real. The kind of real you only get when four thousand people are in front of you and the argument...

Aerial view of a park showing a person walking along an informal desire path worn through the grass beside an unused formal paved walkway, labelled 'User Experience' and 'Design' respectively.

May 28, 2026

Dave Coplin

The Elephant Path

It is 1993. I am working for one of the world’s largest professional services firms, and the way we share information between our office and our clients is by carrying hard drives back and forth on the...

Person standing at a crossroads with diverging path arrows on the ground, casting a long shadow, illustrating the decision point at the heart of automation's opportunity cost.

April 30, 2026

Dave Coplin

The Opportunity Cost of Automation

This is a story from a project I was loosely involved in during my time at Microsoft - long before generative AI, back when machine vision was the frontier. Microsoft Research were working with an oncologist...