Tracy Moore on data & AI in 2024 and beyond
"AI only changes the world when skilled people use it to build safe, useful products."
Next time someone blithely tells you that AI is new, you can chuckle politely and point them towards Tracy Moore. The definitions have changed a lot, the techniques a fair bit too but the commercial intent hasn’t. Tracy has been using data & AI to drive commercial success in top line customer growth and bottom line profitability for more than 15 years.
She is also a wickedly good strategist and storyteller. If you can’t quite find the words and the framing to make the narrative compelling, fear not, Tracy can. And that is if anything more critical now as many new people enter the field expecting magic.
Tracy, 2024 has been another busy year for data & AI. What’s one development / milestone / news story that really caught your eye?
Dario Amodei’s essay “Machine of Loving Grace” really stuck with me—it’s expansive, and so many parts of it keep replaying in my head. One idea that hit home was the need to think about the systems AI is applied to and the fundamental constraints within them. He uses the example of cell research, where no matter how fast AI can iterate experiments, cells can only grow and evolve at their natural pace. It made me reflect on how this applies to teams using tools like Copilots—they’re seeing value at the task level, but the real challenge is breaking through the bottlenecks to deliver value at the system level. How do we make that leap? That’s the puzzle I’ve been turning over.
You’ve been working in and around data & AI for a while now. Many things have changed! But tell us about something that was true when you started out in this space and is still important today.
I’m a huge believer in the power of curiosity and scepticism. LLMs can feel like magic with their seemingly endless capabilities, but turning that potential into real, tangible value? That takes a lot of digging and questioning. Curiosity helps us uncover the hidden gems, while skepticism keeps us sharp, spotting the “wonky” bits that could lead to negative outcomes. It’s a balance—embrace the magic, but always keep an eye on the risks.
It’s been a heady couple of years with 2024 almost as frothy as 2023. What's one common misconception about AI that you wish would go away?
That it’s some kind of magical force that’s going to replace scientists, engineers, and designers. If all those brilliant humans disappeared tomorrow, we’d just have a fancy toolkit gathering dust on the virtual shelf. AI only changes the world when skilled people use it to build safe, useful products. It’s powerful, but it’s not a replacement for talent—it’s an amplifier.
The festive season is almost upon us, so many readers will have a bit of extra time to read / learn / reflect. Who do you follow to stay up to date with what’s changing in the world of data & AI?
So many! Ethan Mollick’s One Useful Thing and Data Runs Deep (you! 😉) are my go-tos for accessible, practical insights—I recommend them to everyone. I’ve also been loving Melanie Mitchell’s podcast series Nature of Intelligence from the Complexity team at Santa Fe Institute. It’s super thought-provoking and keeps me grounded, especially when faced with all the wild benchmarks claiming the latest LLM has surpassed humans at something. It’s a great reminder to stay curious but also practically skeptical!
Leaning into your dystopian side for a moment, what’s your biggest fear for/with/from AI in 2025?
Probably Sora and the advanced video generation models being released. I respect the guardrails OpenAI is implementing, but it’s not the Terminator-style existential risks that keep me up at night—it’s how AI could accelerate the worst aspects of human nature. Think back 10 years to social media: we didn’t fully grasp the risks of election interference, social polarization, or the harm to teenagers. Social media amplified both the good and the bad in society. Advanced video generation feels like it could follow the same path—amazing potential, but also a powerful tool for manipulation, disinformation, and harm if we’re not vigilant.
(Q6) And now channeling your inner optimist, what’s one thing you hope to see for/with/from AI in 2025?
I think we’re on the verge of a gear shift. AI is moving from something that mainly excites people in the tech industry to being truly mass market. The work being done by Google Gemini and Apple Intelligence is a big part of this—they’re about to bring AI’s capabilities right into everyone’s phones, making it part of daily life in a way we haven’t seen before. People will interact with AI multiple times a day, and this will raise the bar for how all digital products should work—smarter, more automated, and more insightful. It’s going to be an exciting ride!
You can follow Tracy on LinkedIn and she has been known to frequent the odd Melbourne based meetup here and there too.