Peter Ward is one of the UK’s most dynamic Artificial Intelligence speakers, best known as the co-founder and CEO of Humanity. His company has set the ambitious goal of adding one billion healthy years to humanity by the end of this decade.
With a background in building consumer platforms that reached over a billion users, Peter is now applying his expertise to preventative healthcare. His work bridges technology, AI, and longevity science to tackle health crises on a global scale.
In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, UK’s largest keynote speaker bureau, Peter shares his bold vision for democratising health, how AI is reshaping medicine, and why technology will also transform the future of work.
Q: Humanity has set an ambitious goal of adding one billion healthy years to people’s lives. Can you explain the vision behind this mission?
Peter Ward: “Yes. So at Humanity we have set a bold vision to give a billion years of health back to the world by the end of this decade.
“And we believe we can achieve that because we’ve built consumer tech platforms that reached over a billion people before.
“Frankly, we want to do something that can help the majority of people rather than the privileged few, as too many solutions in longevity are around how to help the wealthy and privileged live an extra 20 years.
“We think there’s a population health problem where we can solve the health crisis of sick care and make it more preventative healthcare.”
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Q: Artificial intelligence is often described as a game-changer for medicine. How is AI being applied in healthcare and preventative health today?
PW: “AI is transforming healthcare as we know it. If you think about how it’s being deployed in drug discovery, it’s helping us find new targets that will enable us to develop new drugs.
“In the area that we’re working in with Humanity, it’s very much around how we can identify biomarkers and early predictors of disease risk and personalise the experience for people, so that they can be healthier way before they get sick or have any symptoms.
“We really see AI as being a transformative technological breakthrough that makes healthcare much more accessible to all.”
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Q: Technology is increasingly seen as a way to level the playing field. What role do you believe it will play in democratising health?
PW: “The role technology plays in democratising health is pretty transformative because it levels the playing field.
“If you look in the longevity field, many of the scientific breakthroughs remain in the labs or are written and published about, but very few people know how to propagate that into the real world to impact people on a population health level of scale.
“Thanks to technology, we can take these breakthrough science and technological initiatives, put them into platforms like an API, an app, or a dashboard, and essentially enable lab groups, health systems, and consumers to benefit from the insights and the personalisation capabilities of what these technologies bring.
“The models that we can create thanks to these technologies mean that we can essentially deploy this at scale.”
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Q: Looking ahead, how do you see technology and AI shaping the future of work?
PW: “The future of work is definitely hybrid, as it has been since COVID. But I think what we’re seeing more of is a shift towards a greater degree of purpose, in the way that people who are looking for jobs are looking for roles where they feel they’re having a positive impact.
“Of course AI will lead to a lot of automation and a lot of jobs will be replaced by robots.
“Frankly, I think we’re going to see a lot of the types of work that we take for granted becoming more valued in society. Jobs like nursing will become really high-value because they’re hard to replace with AI.
“I also think we’ll see a move towards cultures built on human connection, trust, and authenticity, so that people actually stay with those companies.
“They’ll be well looked after and given autonomy to come up with the creative solutions that the modern era of work is going to be putting a high price on.”
This exclusive interview with Peter Ward was conducted by Mark Matthews of The Motivational Speakers Agency.
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