Tony Fish on Curiosity, Culture, and AI

At SIBOS Frankfurt 2025, tech thinker and entrepreneur Tony Fish brought a refreshing layer of honesty to the AI conversation — cutting through the hype to address the real gaps in understanding. While the industry rushes to deploy AI for cost savings and efficiency, Fish argues that most people are still “talking about something they don’t know.”

He observes that corporate environments rarely allow the time to think deeply about technology’s implications. “There’s no time to sit, read, think, dwell — and without that, you don’t start to understand what the technology is, where it’s come from, or where it’s going,” he said. The result: shallow conversations around a technology that demands nuance, empathy, and cultural sensitivity.

Fish shared a powerful example of how AI’s design must account for cultural diversity. A system built for an American investor seeking maximum profit will behave very differently from one serving a Japanese client prioritising family harmony and social balance. Without these nuances, AI risks imposing one worldview on a global user base.

He also explored how corporate structures themselves constrain creativity. Modern companies, bound by shareholder primacy, are legally designed to optimise for efficiency — not resilience. “The very vehicle we use to deliver innovation demands efficiency,” he noted, contrasting it with the biological world, where resilience comes from making errors and adapting.

For Fish, leadership in the AI era isn’t about efficiency metrics but curiosity — being willing to ask better questions, across every layer of an organisation. “If you only ask questions of your team, you’ll never get the answers you really need,” he said. His message was clear: curiosity, not compliance, will define the next generation of leaders navigating AI’s complexity.