Biography for event organisers & press
Martin Adams is an ethical-AI founder, board advisor and keynote speaker who helps leaders see the real opportunities in AI - and act on them with confidence and humanity.
He is a World Economic Forum Global Innovator, Maserati Top 100 UK Entrepreneur and Harvard Law School-educated former intellectual property lawyer. Over the last 20 years, Martin has founded, raised capital for, scaled and exited numerous mission-driven ethical-AI and data businesses, including most recently Metaphysic.ai, which was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies globally before being acquired. Through Metaphysic.ai, Martin was a leader in early industry efforts around content provenance and authenticity, including as a founding member of C2PA - the global initiative helping establish standards for trust and transparency across the Internet and digital content.
Martin speaks internationally on artificial intelligence, innovation, leadership, media and organisational transformation, including for audiences such as SXSW Sydney, the European Commission, MIT, Cannes Lions and the Alan Turing Institute. His work helps senior leaders cut through AI noise, understand where AI can create real advantage, and build organisations that remain trusted, creative and human as technology accelerates.
He brings both boardroom perspective and builder experience. Martin is the youngest appointed member of the Council of UCL, one of the world’s leading universities, and sits on The Marketing Society’s AI Advisory Board. He works with boards, CEOs, founders and innovative businesses to translate technological change into clear strategy, stronger leadership and measurable transformation. He has worked with boards and leadership teams at organisations including Unilever, L’Oréal, P&G and Pfizer to help turn ambitious technology and innovation agendas into practical change, better decision-making and real business results.
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Martin also brings a rare combination of governance and invention experience. As a member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, he contributes to global discussions on how AI should be developed and governed. As an inventor on numerous published patents for real-time generative AI systems, he has also helped create the underlying technologies shaping the next era of AI-generated media, identity and human-computer interaction.
Before founding his most recent AI businesses, Martin helped start one of the world’s first social media consultancies after using his most precious asset as a student - a university “.ac.uk” email address - to access a then-unknown site called Facebook. The company went on to work with some of the world’s leading brands and cultural figures, including Madonna and Lady Gaga.
This sparked a fascination with building innovative businesses, understanding popular culture and creating intellectual property, which Martin took to the next level after being offered a place at Harvard Law School. While there, he worked at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society with the artist Shepard Fairey, advising on intellectual property and digital issues in relation to the famous Obama “Hope” poster - one of the most high-profile intellectual property disputes of its time, receiving coverage in the New York Times, Guardian and BBC.
After graduating from Harvard Law School with a Dean’s Prize, Martin was recruited by the law firm he had fought against in that case and given the brief of counselling the firm and its leading private equity clients on the transformative impact of social, digital and emerging technologies across their business portfolios. He worked with some of the world’s most successful venture and private equity firms, as well as clients including Facebook and Samsung.
Martin was later lured back to East London from New York by Songkick, where he worked on business development and the use of audience data to change how the music industry operated before Songkick was acquired by Warner Music Group.
Coming from a family of teachers with no knowledge of business or technology, Martin is firmly committed to helping younger people understand both. He founded the Social Media Unit @ UCL to promote wider discussion at the policy and political level around tech and digital in the UK and Europe, and to make these industries more understood and accessible for school leavers, students and budding entrepreneurs from all sections of society.
Martin has also advised government, public bodies and specialist organisations on technology, data, digital influence and emerging forms of information warfare, including work with the Royal Marines on psychographic terrain mapping and the digital war against ISIS. He has appeared as an expert witness before the UK House of Commons on AI and the creative industries, contributing to policy discussions on how technology is reshaping culture, rights, trust and economic value.
Education
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Masters, Harvard Law School - Dean’s Prize
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Bachelors, UCL - Dean’s Prize for Academic Excellence & Sweet and Maxwell Prize for Top Student in Year
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Bachelors, University of New South Wales, Sydney - A. Limbury and R. Howell Prize for Strategic Negotiation
