Voices that Matter: Faculty on the frontline of AI
Following Faculty’s acquisition by Accenture, we’re sharing our conversation with Marc Warner, Co-Founder and CEO, recorded as part of our 2025 Voices That Matter Red Book interview series.
Long before ChatGPT became the fastest growing tech app of all-time, setting off an investment frenzy into all things AI, Faculty had a mission to make AI more useful in the everyday and to ensure its safe and widespread adoption.
Over the past decade, the London-based company has helped combat terrorist propaganda, supported the UK’s National Health Service with crucial insights throughout the pandemic and worked closely with some of the biggest AI companies in the world, including OpenAI and Anthropic to ensure the safe application of AI tools such as large language models.
Faculty co-founder and CEO Marc Warner says Phoenix Court has played an essential role in the company’s evolution.
Q: What was Faculty called and what was the initial mission when you launched in 2014?
A: Faculty was originally called ASI Data Science. The initial thing the company did was help academic PhDs become commercial data scientists. We'd noticed that there was this lack of opportunities for PhD students to break into real world data science roles. They needed a job to get experience, and they needed experience to get a job, and it was really hard to break that circle, so we created a programme that would help them get two months worth of real world training and experience so they could go on then to get a job. We always had this sense that we were going to make it something bigger.
Q: Saul Klein said he remembered the first time he met you, he wanted to invest after five minutes. Do you remember what you said?
A: I remember two things. We had a slide where there were five of us. The description below the photos said PhD physics, PhD physics, PhD computer science, PhD computer science. And then for Andy, our CTO who didn't have a PhD, we struggled with how to describe him. We decided to put 'Terrific Guy' in the box below his photo. We thought it was sufficiently light-hearted that we should actually just leave it in for investors as well. Saul loved it.
The other thing I remember was him saying, "you could just hire all these PhDs." I was slightly bemused, and I responded, "We don't want to do that. Most PhDs are rubbish." Then he said “That is exactly the sort of arrogance you're gonna need to build a good business in this space!" It didn't even occur to me at the time that it was anything other than just sensible facts.
Q: Faculty's stated purpose is to make AI useful to the world. What does that look like in practice?
A: These days I talk about it as safe, widespread adoption. Ten years ago there was really just one type of AI organisation, which was a research lab. That was never as exciting to us as finding circumstances where AI touched the real world. Whether that was making products cheaper, government services better, saving lives in healthcare or pharma, these higher order goals always felt like how we wanted to judge ourselves. And so over the last 10 years, we've just spent a tonne of time trying to figure out how to do that really well.
Q: While AI is the focus of Faculty's business, you have a very different model than the likes of OpenAI, Deep Mind and Anthropic. Why have you decided to partner with some of these big AI players, rather than build your own LLMs?
A: Historically, I felt that it was not a good idea to get too heavily involved in building the models. That has changed over time. I think probably the simplest way to frame it, though, is we just really didn’t want to go into research. We wanted it to be about applications. And it took many years of having to spend enormous amounts of money on research to get to the point where applications were relevant. We have always taken the more direct path.
Q: So we've seen valuations of AI companies surge this past year. How is that momentum (and hype) around AI affecting Faculty?
A: It's net good. The more the market focusses on AI and the more CEOs care about investing in AI, the better it is for Faculty, as AI becomes more of a priority. The slight downside is that whenever anything's successful, you'll get many copycats.
Q: How has the relationship with Phoenix Court evolved over the years?
A: LocalGlobe has been a fantastic investor for us. Saul is on our board. They've helped us in a number of ways, from our marketing strategy to hiring and comms. They've helped us with introductions. The list is endless. They're both supportive and challenging. Saul and I have had many debates in our board meetings and I can't think of a time where it didn't make the company better.
Q: What are your thoughts on the recent investments that have been announced by Microsoft, Nvidia, Google into the UK's AI infrastructure?
A: Foreign investment into the UK from the US is a brilliant thing. The more infrastructure there is, the easier it is for us to do our work. But we also shouldn't confuse infrastructure investment with a domestic tech industry. We need to make sure that we have our own AI companies that are thriving.
Q: What is your ultimate goal?
A: Same as always: The safe, widespread adoption of AI. Faculty will continue to drive that forward.