Earlybird founder and CEO Claudine Adeyemi-Adams recently sat down with Rob Price on the Futurise podcast (S3E2) for a wide-ranging conversation about voice AI, case management, and what it actually takes to build technology for sensitive public services.

The episode covers ground that rarely gets aired publicly, including Claudine's personal experience of relying on the very services Earlybird now supports, and a very honest take on why leading with "AI" in a sales conversation can backfire.

One Moment Worth Hearing

Claudine shares a story about one of Earlybird's customers where the time saved by frontline staff led to something nobody planned for, and it changed the way that organisation delivered outcomes for the people they support.

Why This Episode Is Worth Your Time

A few things Claudine and Rob get into during the conversation:

• Why Claudine tells prospective buyers to stop framing their problem as "we need AI," and what she asks them instead
• The design question the Earlybird team returns to every time they build a new feature, and why it centres on who might be excluded
• What it's really like for an SME trying to sell into UK public sector procurement, including the frameworks, the relationships, and the parts that haven't changed despite recent reforms
• How Earlybird handles voice AI across dozens of accents and languages in a country where a large proportion of service users do not speak English as their first language

"Walking into a room and saying 'I've got an AI agent that can solve your problems' is very different to 'you need to reduce the amount of time being spent on casework by 20%, and I've got the solution.'"

Claudine Adeyemi-Adams on the Futurise podcast

Listen Now

The full episode is available on Spotify as part of Season 3 of the Futurise podcast.

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