Dinner Series by Innovate UK: Roundtable Discussions Capture

Impact

Lorefully helped Innovate UK and its partners capture, structure and amplify the value of the salon dinner series. Lorefully’s findings contributed directly to the published GeoAI Outlook Report.

The outputs gave the project team a practical evidence base that could be reviewed, shared and built on after the discussions had taken place. They made it easier to understand what the GeoAI community was saying across the series, where there was strong alignment, and which themes could support continued engagement.

The work helped connect expert discussion with a wider public-facing publication. Insight from the dinners could be used to support the GeoAI UK Outlook, frame recommendations and communicate the importance of responsible GeoAI adoption to a broader audience.

For Innovate UK and its partners, the value was in turning curated conversation into lasting material. The series created human insight in the room. Lorefully structured that insight into outputs that could support future planning, strategic communication and ongoing audience engagement.

The challenge

The salon dinner format created space for focused, candid discussion between people with different roles in the GeoAI ecosystem. The conversations explored adoption, trust, governance, public-private collaboration, data foundations and the practical conditions needed for responsible use.

For Innovate UK and its partners, the value lay in shaping those conversations into a structured evidence base that could support the GeoAI UK Outlook and continued engagement with the sector.

The opportunity was to capture the richness of the discussion, make areas of alignment easier to see, and create material that could support expert interpretation, recommendations and future planning.

The approach

Lorefully acted as a knowledge capture partner across the series. The discussions were recorded, transcribed, structured and reviewed to create a usable body of evidence from each dinner and across the programme as a whole.

The material was organised through a consistent set of analytical lenses: problem framing, trust and legitimacy, governance and safeguards, human judgement, perceived value, organisational readiness, and risk.

This gave the project team a practical way to compare the direction of discussion across the series while preserving the character of each conversation. The first dinner focused on the problem and purpose of GeoAI, the second on trust and conditions for adoption, and the third on application, value and organisational reality.

AI was used as a supporting analytical tool for transcription, thematic organisation, comparative synthesis and drafting support. Human judgement, interpretation and editorial oversight remained central throughout.

Evidence gathered

The evidence base brought together detailed transcripts, thematic summaries, direct quotations, event-specific alignment assessments and a cross-dinner synthesis.

The cross-dinner analysis showed emerging alignment around problem framing and intent. Participants increasingly positioned GeoAI as a selective, use-case driven capability, best understood through the decisions it can support and the outcomes it can help improve.

Trust and legitimacy were central throughout. Contributors emphasised accountability, explainability, auditability, transparency and clear safeguards, particularly where GeoAI could influence decisions about places, infrastructure, public services or environmental outcomes.

Human judgement was one of the strongest areas of alignment. Across the discussions, AI was positioned as an assistive capability, supporting preparation, analysis and insight while keeping people accountable for interpretation and decision-making.

Organisational readiness also emerged strongly. Skills, incentives, culture, governance and leadership were all treated as practical conditions for adoption. Participants recognised that GeoAI adoption depends on technical capability, but also on the organisational confidence and competence to use it responsibly.

Outputs delivered

Lorefully’s outputs turned the salon dinner series into a structured body of insight that could support reporting, expert review and wider sector communication.

The work supported individual dinner insight reports, a cross-dinner summary and the evidence base behind the GeoAI UK Outlook publication. These outputs gave Innovate UK and its partners a clearer way to compare each conversation, understand the direction of discussion and identify the themes that mattered most across the series.

The cross-dinner summary provided a practical framework for understanding where views were emerging, strong, mixed or still developing. This helped shape a clearer narrative around adoption, trust, governance, organisational readiness, data foundations and public-private collaboration.

The final material also supported recommendations on how the UK could establish and sustain leadership in GeoAI, including the need to adopt and adapt, be more ambitious, leverage long-term investment in data, go deeper on trust, strengthen incentives for innovation and reimagine public-private engagement.