Thinking with AI: How to use AI without losing your brain

I have been researching the effects of AI in our thinking and learning for the past four years and leading training programmes for ten. I'm an award winning writer on the topics of AI, which I publish on my substack.

In my day to day job, I lead live trainings and workshops on different topics of AI, from Responsible AI, Cyber Security and Data Governance.

This session is an academic project where I am acting independently, not representing my employer.

I am a behavioural scientist (PhD, Warwick Business School) and an independent researcher working at the intersection of cognitive psychology and AI-augmented decision-making. 

I am the co-creator of the SCAN framework, which helps people determine when to delegate tasks to AI, when to collaborate with it, and when to do without any AI help.

I also co-founded BehSci Meets AI, a London-based community exploring how behavioural science and AI can be designed to strengthen, rather than replace, human judgment.

I am an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science and Head of the AI Lab at Kazakh-British Technical University (KBTU), Almaty.

My research is at the intersection of cognitive science, AI governance, and human-AI interaction.

My work asks a question that is increasingly urgent for professionals everywhere: as we delegate more thinking to AI, what happens to our capacity to think for ourselves?

I am a co-developer of the SCAN framework, a structured approach to scaffolding cognitive autonomy in AI-augmented environments. Beyond academia, I advise UNESCO and the United Nations on AI governance, have consulted Kazakhstan's Parliament on its National AI Law, and co-chairs the Cognitive Science subcommittee of the IEEE Global AIS Flourishing Initiative.

I am also Research Lead for SANA-1, Central

I am the Managing Partner of Human Behaviour AI, a consultancy helping organisations keep their workforce in the driving seat alongside AI.

My perspective was shaped by a previous career as a high-stakes professional poker player. Since 2015, I’ve worked with game-theory solvers and AI tools to improve decision-making under uncertainty, pressure, and incomplete information. That experience taught me a simple lesson: the strongest results come when human judgment and machine intelligence work together.