Craig Linton and Anna Hessenbruch on what they've been building: charity dashboards from publicly available data, an email bot with a human still in the loop, and voice AI that translates in real time. Then the bigger question of what AI agents mean for entry-level jobs, and an Oops AI Did It Again about AI-generated charity appeals and what they do to public trust.
- 00:00 Welcome, and what's coming up
- 00:56 Building charity dashboards from publicly available data
- 02:11 The free UK government API catalogue
- 03:43 The national fish population database, and a pun Anna immediately regrets
- 04:34 Craig's first email response bot, and why a human still checks every reply
- 05:34 Voice-to-voice translation in about 90 languages, and where it still trips up
- 06:41 Disclosing you're talking to a bot, and why bots earned their bad reputation
- 07:38 When AI can't understand a Yorkshire accent
- 08:15 AI agents you can delegate to, and why IT teams get nervous
- 11:05 What agents doing junior admin work mean for the jobs pipeline
- 12:12 Oops AI Did It Again: AI-generated charity appeals and the trust problem
- 13:59 Why giving is drifting from institutions to individual faces online
- 18:12 Regulation, and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater
- 18:48 Coming up: the big AI debate
Mentioned in this episode
- UK government API Catalogue. The public sector API directory Craig recommends, covering DWP, DVLA, the Office for National Statistics, the British Geological Survey and more: api.gov.uk. Each API carries its own licensing and access terms, so check before you build.
- The AI GP receptionist that struggles with Yorkshire accents. Craig said on air he'd dig this out for the show notes. Healthwatch Rotherham raised concerns that EMMA, an AI phone receptionist used by GP surgeries, could not reliably understand broad Yorkshire accents or speech affected by an impediment, with some patients giving up and walking in instead: Silicon UK. It was GP surgeries rather than a council.
- Make. The automation platform Craig and Anna both use: make.com. Its AI agents were announced in April 2025, and its plain-English building assistant is called Maia. There is a generous free non-profit plan.
- The Lily Jay Foundation investigation. ABC News Verify in Australia reported finding AI-generated elements in charity videos posted by influencer Lily Jay, and could not verify the orphanage in Uganda: . The foundation has since responded, saying AI appeared only in a small number of introductory clips and denying that it fabricated projects or aid deliveries: .
