Thrive

More about the day

4 Keynote Speakers - their keynotes will be sent to you a month before.

(Remember, you don’t have to be geeky. You just have to know some basics. Honestly, don’t let the jargon put you off.)

The Before: The Audit: Where Is the Gain?

Before you automate, you diagnose. Most founders try to “use AI” everywhere. That’s how you waste it.

In this session we: • Map your weekly workflow • Identify repeatable cognitive tasks • Score them by time, frequency, and leverage • Find the 20% worth delegating

Define the agent’s scope (what it does and doesn’t do) • Write its operating instructions • Define inputs and outputs • Build human approval checkpoints • Establish guardrails

You’ll design your digital employee properly. No chaos. No vague “AI assistant.” An agent is not a prompt. It’s a job description.

You don’t leave guessing. You leave knowing exactly what job your first agent will own. This is the clarity session.

Hosted by: Hannah Verrall.

Hannah builds systems that turn big ideas into finished things.

She is the creator of Planned Uncertainty - a way of working that embraces change, rather than fighting it. Designed for fast-moving, high-stakes projects, it helps teams move quickly without losing clarity.

Her background is in delivering complex software at scale, where plans rarely survive contact with reality. Across her career, she has overseen the delivery of over £1 billion (£1.017 billion) worth of working software — not ideas, not decks, but things that actually ship.

What makes Hannah different is not just what she builds, but how she builds it. She takes the best of Agile - speed, iteration, adaptability - and turns it into something more human. Simple. Practical. Repeatable.

At Thrive, she brings that thinking into the world of AI.

The winners won’t be the ones with the best ideas. They’ll be the ones who can turn ideas into reality - again and again.

The before will decide how you win. Hannah will show you how.

The Build: Deploying with OpenClaw/Claude Code/Codex

Now we can take some simple steps… Set up your agent Connect it to your chosen workflow Test it with real data Refine its behaviour Create documentation You don’t watch. You deploy. This is the hands-on lab.

Hosted by: Jon Kaye.

Jon Kaye left private equity to climb his second mountain. Today, he’s a music producer, ghost writer, and one of the voices behind Do Radio. But that’s not why he’s hosting Thrive.

A few weeks ago, Jon showed me something he’d built – in four weeks.

He took every Do Radio conversation 200+ hours– – and turned it into an AI mentor for founders.

You ask a question… It gives you real insights from real founders. It will even find you the clips. I was blown away.

Because while everyone is talking about the opportunity of AI, Jon just went and built it. Something no other radio station has. (Not that I am aware of). Something he had never done before.

So I asked him: “Would you be willing to show everyone how you did it?” He said yes.

At Thrive, Jon will walk you through exactly what he built - and how to build your own.

Real learning. The mistakes not to repeat. Warts and all. But with a finished working product at the end.

Jon will help give you a clear view at what’s now possible if you decide to make it real.

Refine Your turn. Hands on building.

This is the part of the day where you get to build and refine your agent. Dedicated time with the support of other learners - and our keynote speakers.

The ‘How does it grow my business’ bit? We’ve built something. Now what?

In this final session you: Launch the agent into real use Define success metrics Set weekly review rhythm Is this useful to your customer? Can you sell it? You don’t leave with ideas. You leave with a simple but doable plan. This is the leverage session.

The arc is simple: Clarity → Design → Build → Deploy

Hosted by: David Hieatt and Gemma Screen.

David Hieatt

I built brands from nothing with next to nothing, just by understanding a few basic rules of how to sell my story. One sentence at a time.

Bankrupt at 16 and thrown out of college at 18. I joined Saatchi and Saatchi at 21. Had a ball. But after a decade or so, left advertising to go back to Wales and build my own brands. I started howies in 1995 and Hiut Denim in 2012.

Today, I bring together 100 people who change how things are done through The DO Lectures – voted one of the top 10 ideas festivals in the world.

I was an early adopter of AI. Super early. Now, I use it every day as a thinking partner to do my best work.

My goal is to help you get from where you are, to where you want to be and I believe this century defining tool is an essential part of your journey.

I've shared my AI learnings with thousands of busy founders in my Fifth Day workshops and Lazy Discipline AI series.

At Thrive, I'll share how AI agents are helping my business - and how they can help yours.

Gemma Screen

"Don’t let the systems get you down."

Gemma makes sense of messy things: campaigns, ideas, tools, AI, and the processes that somehow grow arms and legs.

She’s the co-founder of Lookout Studio, helping founders win back time, headspace, and clarity. Gemma focuses on making AI and automation feel human and useful. She has supported the DO Lectures behind the scenes since 2022, and co-teaches the Fifth Day AI workshops in London and online. Her work sits in the space DO knows well:

Better questions, simpler systems, and ideas that help people do the work that matters.

Details: Time. Place. Price