An upcoming talk by Daniel Westlake
William Gibson famously wrote: “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed”. His novel ‘Neuromancer’ may be 40 years old - but the AI revolution it predicted is already here and that too is not evenly distributed.
Software engineers and web developers have been early adopters of AI-powered tools. This started with AI-powered code completion and suggestions, but now includes AI IDEs, AI agent pair programming and AI agent team orchestration. It truly is an exciting time to be a developer right now.
But with all this excitement and rapid change comes the risk of the unknown. We are charting new ground, but will the benefits outweigh the costs? How can we shape our organisation’s use of AI to gain many of the benefits whilst mitigating most of the risk? The answer is guardrails.
Cursor’s Managing Director Daniel Westlake will lead this talk for Digital Lincoln. It won't be about Azimov’s laws or guardrails that will prevent AI developing the next super weapon or super virus. Instead, he will be talking about AI at an organisational level with a particular focus on software development:
What can we do as developers to champion the cause of AI with our clients and teams?
As early adopters, how can we set an example of what good AI adoption looks like?
What safeguards are the legal team looking for as we roll out more AI tools?
How can I explain the benefits of more AI cost to the accounts team?
How can we benefit from AI tooling whilst maintaining quality standards and control?
How can we ensure that AI doesn’t affect skills and training?
In this talk, Daniel will attempt to answer some of these questions. He will make suggestions on what guardrails, systems and processes your team can adopt to ease the pain of AI adoption. What can be done to minimise risks and how we can bring the wider team onboard with a brighter vision for AI, one that we all can benefit from?
Tuesday 27th January 2026, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Mosaic Digital Hub, Silver Street, Lincoln
