Some of the sharpest thinking on AI doesn't happen at industry conferences. It happens when smart, well-prepared people are forced to argue both sides of a hard question, in public, under time pressure. On April 25, 2026, Taiyo.AI's CEO Dr. Saurabh Mishra returned to London Business School as keynote speaker and judge for the AI Debate 2026, a formal inter-university competition pitting LBS against Cambridge Judge Business School on some of the most contested questions in technology today.
Read next Taiyo.AI at London Business School: AI and the Future of Competitive AdvantageIt was exactly the kind of event we believe the industry needs more of.
The Format: Structured Argument at Its Best
The AI Debate 2026 was organised by the LBS Data Science & AI Club and held at the North Building. Six speakers from each institution defended clear positions across four motions covering AI's impact on employment, creativity, job displacement, and environmental cost. Each debate was formally judged, with independent scoring and live audience voting.
The judging panel brought together a strong mix of academic and industry perspectives. Prof. Nicos Savva, Academic Director of the Data Science & AI Initiative at LBS, anchored the academic side. Anand Rao, Partner at Tiger Analytics, and Scott Ralston, Senior Consultant at Debate Mate, brought applied industry depth. Maeve Devi Carroll rounded out the panel with a perspective that kept the conversation grounded in real-world consequence.
The Keynote: Structuring Judgment in an Age of Accelerating Intelligence
Before the debates began, Saurabh delivered a keynote that framed the day's discussions. The central question he posed is one that runs through everything we build at Taiyo.AI: not whether AI will change the world, but how we develop the judgment to navigate that change well.
The themes he explored — cognitive infrastructure, balancing hype against genuine risk, and the discipline required to make good decisions under uncertainty — were a natural precursor to the debates that followed. As he noted, what matters most is how we structure judgment in a world of accelerating intelligence.
Read next Leading in the Age of Cognitive Infrastructure: Taiyo.AI at SDA BocconiWhy This Matters
Events like this one matter because the quality of the public conversation around AI determines the quality of the decisions that follow. The LBS and Cambridge teams demonstrated something important: with real preparation, structured argument, and intellectual rigour, it is possible to move well beyond surface-level takes on AI. As the organising team noted, what made the difference on the day was weeks of work behind the scenes — coaching sessions, and the discipline of preparing both sides of every motion.
We are grateful to Cassie Leong, Alessandro Condorelli, Shipra J., and the entire LBS Data Science & AI Club for putting together such a well-run and genuinely stimulating event. It is a privilege to be part of conversations that take these questions seriously.
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