Smart Tech, Real Connection: Laura Jenkins on AI, Growth and Leading with Heart

As Turing Fest 2025 approaches, growth strategist and Marketing Director Laura Jenkins shares her perspective on the future of technology—and why true innovation lies at the intersection of smart automation and human connection. With over £500 million in business impact and a passion for customer-centric growth, Laura unpacks how Generative AI, ethical leadership, and meaningful customer experiences are shaping the next era of marketing, product development, and remote work. Her message is clear: technology should empower people, not replace them—and the future belongs to those who can blend both brilliantly.

1. What new technology do you believe will have the biggest impact on the product development, marketing or tech world in the next 12 to 24 months?

For me it’s Gen AI, yes it’s been around for a bit but the smart thing , the game changer is in its application. Imagine being able to truly know what makes your customers tick! Gen AI has the amazing ability to dive deep into all sorts of customer information, find those hidden clues that tell us what they really want and need. This means we can connect with them on a much more personal level.

Think about helping target content that feels like it was written just for them, or having helpful chatbots that truly understand their questions. And how about knowing just the right time and way to reach out so they feel seen and valued? Or sparking new ideas for our products and helping us build things our customers will truly love. It feels like we’re on the cusp of a more intuitive and customer-focused way of doing things.

2. Reflecting on your experience, what major challenges do you anticipate product/growth/tech will face in the coming years? How do you think leaders should be preparing themselves and their teams to tackle these challenges?

As we all embrace AI more and more, the biggest challenge for me is definitely how to keep that real human touch alive. Not just in how we talk, but in how our products work, how the customer journey flows, and ultimately, in the whole experience we create. It’s going to be crucial to holding onto that genuine human connection as AI capabilities grow.

Ensuring we’re always handling their information with the utmost care and truly cutting through the digital clutter to offer them real value. We’ll all need to be incredibly agile as things evolve rapidly and make a real effort to deeply understand the full story of what our customers value. To navigate this successfully, prioritise putting your customers first in every decision, leverage AI to enhance your connections with them (not just automate interactions), be completely transparent about data practices, invest in truly understanding needs and motivations, foster a culture of continuous learning within your teams. Ultimately, thriving in this new era will be about thoughtfully blending smart technology with a whole lot of heart for the people we serve

3. Considering recent advancements in AI, what are your thoughts on the ethical implications? From your perspective, what are the critical ethical challenges that need to be addressed as AI becomes more widespread?

It’s easy to get caught up and run away with all the exciting possibilities AI offers but it’s so important we pause and think about the ethical side of things. For me, it really boils down to making sure we’re still connecting with people in a real way, even with AI helping out. We need to be super careful with their info and make sure we’re treating everyone fairly and not getting sneaky with all that personalisation power. It’s about being open and honest about how we’re using AI and building trust, so folks feel good about interacting with you. Ultimately, it’s about mixing the smarts of AI with the experience of talented people to create experiences that are genuinely helpful for everyone.

4. How do you envision the integration of emerging technologies like VR or AR evolving in professional environments where you work?

Having been involved in some of the earlier days of AR and VR within smart tech and using it for the likes of gaming customer success and within exhibition demos , I can tell you the potential is absolutely huge! Looking ahead, I reckon we’ll see these technologies popping up more and more, especially in how customers research and how we sell, market and look after customers. Think fun and interactive ways to learn about products initially, like virtual demos you can play with. But down the line, imagine teams collaborating in virtual spaces and customers getting super helpful AR guides right in front of them! It’s all about making things more engaging, efficient, and even a bit playful, and as the tech gets easier to use and shows it’s really making a difference, I reckon it’ll become a pretty standard way of doing things. Exciting times!

5. In your opinion, what is the next big opportunity for tech innovation that you feel is currently being overlooked or isn’t receiving enough attention?

Consumer and FinTech are certainly more established and there is still a huge amount of untapped potential and growth to be had especially in supporting personal or businesses with their finances. For me, the really exciting next wave isn’t necessarily about inventing completely brand new tech out of thin air. It’s more about taking the smart innovations we’ve already got and creatively applying them across sectors. It’s about that smart crossover of existing tech into areas that could really benefit, making everyday life better and tackling some of those bigger societal challenges in fresh, innovative ways. That’s where I see a ton of untapped potential

6. From your own experience, how do you see the continuing evolution of remote work and its technologies impacting your own work-life balance?**

For someone who equally loves the flexibility of working from home and the buzz of face to face interactions, the future of remote work feels like it’s all about finding that perfect harmony. The tech is getting so clever it could give us even more freedom to shape our work around our lives, which is a big win. But it also means we’ll need to be extra careful about keeping work and personal time separate and making sure we still nurture those important team moments. I reckon the ideal scenario will be a smart blend of both worlds, using technology thoughtfully while still carving out time for those valuable in-person team moments.

Okay, so the super-smart stuff isn’t my forte! But knowing we really need to cut down on tech’s energy use, my gut feeling is we’ll see a lot more clever tech helping us be less wasteful overall. Maybe it’ll be in finding smarter, greener ways to power everything. Seems like the clever folks are trying to get tech and nature working better together, and making our tech way more energy-efficient has got to be a big part of that. Hopefully, in ten years, everyday things will be made and powered in a much greener, smarter way. That’s my non-genius take

8. If you could implement changes to the way people work based on your own routines and practices, what specific adjustments would you make to improve productivity or well-being?

If I had my way, we’d totally unleash the robots and smart tech to take over all the boring bits! Ok a bit extreme but my point is use tech to empower people. To free up their time to do what they do best . Like interacting with your audiences, ideating , being creative and solving problems and really getting our teeth into solving stuff that matters.