About
Kenneth Cukier is an award-winning journalist, book author and keynote speaker. He is the Deputy Executive Editor at The Economist, and travels the world exploring what’s next in AI.
Kenneth Cukier
Kenneth Cukier is the Deputy Executive Editor at The Economist. He is the author of several books on technology and society, notably “Framers” on the power of mental models and the limitations of AI, with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Francis de Vericourt, as well as “Big Data: A Revolution That Transforms How We Live, Work and Think” with Viktor. It was a NYT bestseller translated into over 20 languages, and sold over two million copies worldwide. It won the National Library of China’s Wenjin Book Award and was a finalist for the FT Business Book of the Year. Kenn also coauthored a follow-on book, “Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education”.
Previously, Kenn was a foreign correspondent for two decades in Europe, Asia and America. He was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2002-04. and an associate fellow at Said Business School at Oxford in 2016-24, where he led a seminar series on AI and business. Kenn’s writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, among others. He has been a frequent commentator on CBS, CNN, NPR, the BBC and was a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on data-driven development.
Kenn has been active with many philanthropies. He is a board director of The Open String Foundation, which provides classical instruments to underprivileged children. He was a trustee of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in 2018-24, and a board director of International Bridges to Justice, which fosters legal rights in developing countries, in 2007-18. Earlier, he served on the board of advisors to the Daniel Pearl Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Kenn is a regular keynote speaker, with talks at TED, World Economic Forum, NATO Innovation Fund at the Munich Security Conference, Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, McKinsey & Co, Schroders, GE, Visa, IMF, World Bank, US State Department, Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute, Royal Statistical Society, and the universities of Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge, among others. He is represented by Karen O’Donnell at Chartwell Speakers.
Kenn is working on a new book on AI and spirituality, building on a set of online courses he runs at Woodbrooke Centre, a Quaker learning and research institute.