License to Act

Luis Lancos and Antonio Vieira Santos
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Artificial intelligence agents are entering banking, payments, insurance and healthcare. Someone has to decide what they are allowed to do.  License to Act talks to the executives, regulators and builders who make those decisions. They tell us where agents run inside their organisations today, how they govern them, and what it would take to become a Thinking Organisation: one that understands its own context well enough to improve how it works.  Each episode places a guest somewhere on the road from assistants, to pilots, to processes that run end to end, to organisations where agents do the work and people step in where it matters. We look at that road through four questions. What gets redesigned in the processes, and what stalls? What happens to people, their roles, their skills, their trust and their fear? How much governance is enough, and does it scale? What do the rules assume, and where do they have no place for an agent?  Every episode ends with the same question: who grants the license to act, who sets its limits, who monitors it, and who can take it away?  Our guests work in banks, payment institutions, insurers, healthcare providers and charities, and they are accountable for the results. They talk about what works, what failed, and what they are still unsure about. There are no vendor pitches.  Hosted by Luis Lancos and Antonio Vieira Santos. Sponsored by DataWhisper

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    How pharmaceutical factories learn to trust artificial intelligence

    Software that adjusts a pharmaceutical production line while it runs has to convince operators, quality teams and inspectors that every change is safe. Felix Müller has spent years working on that problem.  Felix Müller is the CEO and co-founder of Plus10, a German company that spun out of Fraunhofer research in 2019. Plus10 builds software that learns how a machine behaves from live pressure and temperature curves, spots a process drifting before it produces scrap, and shifts it back. It works in pharmaceutical and medical production, where tools must meet good manufacturing practice rules.  Felix explains why every update to a learning model needs a written explanation of what changed and how much more confidence it adds, and why an update with no benefit isn’t allowed. He describes the parallel models that check the live one. He also describes human review as a temporary step. Operators spend 6 to 8 weeks judging the system’s recommendations, then it runs on its own, because people asked to approve something 20 times an hour stop thinking critically about it.  We also talk about why pilots fail in regulated industries, why his most useful testers are the sceptics on the shop floor, why factories now automate because they can’t staff nights and weekends, how agents fit when guardrails must keep every recommendation inside the rules, and whether the European Artificial Intelligence Act helps European companies. Felix has advice for students too: he still spends 2 to 3 hours a week learning, as a chief executive.  We closed by asking whether we should hold artificial intelligence to higher standards than humans. Felix says an independent body would have to set and watch those standards, and he doesn’t yet know who that would be.  Hosted by Luis Lancos and Antonio Vieira Santos. License to Act is sponsored by DataWhisper, which does not appear in the conversation unless a guest raises it.  Support the show

  2. Oct 2

    Why AI Adoption Fails Without Governance, Data, and Training

    AI agents are moving from experiment to enterprise reality, but the real challenge is not adoption - it's control. Antonio Vieira Santos and Luis Lancos sit down with Derek Hickey to unpack what it actually takes for organizations to move from assisted AI to agentic AI without losing governance, trust, or direction. Derek brings more than 30 years of technology leadership across financial services and now the charity sector, giving him a rare view into how two highly regulated industries are approaching AI very differently. From data readiness and budget pressure to regulatory risk and release cycles that are shrinking from weeks to days, he shows why some organizations are accelerating fast while others are still getting their foundations in place. You’ll discover: Why charities are adopting AI more slowly, even though the technology is now cheaper and more accessible than ever How financial services are choosing platforms, defining strategy, and building use cases before scaling The rise of AI Review and Design Authorities, and why guardrails matter more than speed How roles are changing as engineers become reviewers and principal developers shift into approval and oversight Why “AI literacy” and internal champions are becoming essential for safe, effective adoption Antonio pushes on the practical realities of governance, board expectations, and the gap between talking about AI and actually making it useful.  Luis frames the big strategic question: are organizations building a new layer on top of legacy systems, or fundamentally changing how the organization thinks? Derek’s answer is clear: if you want AI to work, you need clean data, trained people, transparent board conversations, and a strategy that leads technology instead of letting fear drive it. He makes the case that AI is no longer optional, but it only creates value when it is introduced with the right controls, use cases, and accountability. This conversation is essential listening for leaders, technology teams, board members, and anyone responsible for turning AI ambition into something safe, measurable, and real. If you’re about to approve your first AI agent, this episode gives you the questions you need to ask before you say yes. Support the show

  • 2 Episodes

About

Artificial intelligence agents are entering banking, payments, insurance and healthcare. Someone has to decide what they are allowed to do.  License to Act talks to the executives, regulators and builders who make those decisions. They tell us where agents run inside their organisations today, how they govern them, and what it would take to become a Thinking Organisation: one that understands its own context well enough to improve how it works.  Each episode places a guest somewhere on the road from assistants, to pilots, to processes that run end to end, to organisations where agents do the work and people step in where it matters. We look at that road through four questions. What gets redesigned in the processes, and what stalls? What happens to people, their roles, their skills, their trust and their fear? How much governance is enough, and does it scale? What do the rules assume, and where do they have no place for an agent?  Every episode ends with the same question: who grants the license to act, who sets its limits, who monitors it, and who can take it away?  Our guests work in banks, payment institutions, insurers, healthcare providers and charities, and they are accountable for the results. They talk about what works, what failed, and what they are still unsure about. There are no vendor pitches.  Hosted by Luis Lancos and Antonio Vieira Santos. Sponsored by DataWhisper

Information

  • Creator
    Luis Lancos and Antonio Vieira Santos
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 License to Act
  • Show Website
    License to Act