About
Dr. George Tilesch is a distinguished figure in the field of artificial intelligence, with an illustrious career that spans 25+ years. His expertise in AI strategy, policy, and governance is recognized globally. He has been dedicating his focus to AI exclusively since 2015.
George held prestigious positions as a senior executive at Microsoft, EY, Ipsos, and served as a trusted advisor to world leaders, governments, and top-tier Fortune 50 companies in the US, the EU, the UAE, and New Zealand, amongst others. He has been a co-author to the AI C-Suite Toolkit by the World Economic Forum (2022) one of the most seminal CEO guidebooks in the first wave of AI implementations.
His guidance has been sought after for developing cutting-edge AI and innovation strategies across all continents. As a double citizen of the US and Hungary, Dr. Tilesch has lived in Silicon Valley since 2010, and has primarily been an AI connector in the transatlantic space as well as the Middle East.
As the Founding President of the California-based PHI Institute for Augmented Intelligence (2019), George has been at the vanguard of steering Responsible AI development and diffusion, ensuring that Augmented Intelligence principles remain at the core of technological progress.
He is also the co-author of the influential book “BetweenBrains: Taking Back our AI Future,” (2020) which has made a substantial impact on the expanding leadership discourse surrounding the steering of artificial intelligence, achieving Top 5 bestseller status in some of its national editions. His work as a thought leader in Responsible AI has established him as a key voice in the conversation on AI as socio-technical systems.
As Chief AI Expert of EY AI Confidence (est. 2024), his wealth of knowledge and experience is instrumental in shaping the ethical and strategic direction of EY’s AI advisory and technical offerings. His commitment to Responsible AI ensures that EY’s solutions not only lead in innovation but also adhere to the highest standards of ethics and governance.
George has received a “Professor et Doctor Honoris Causa” award from his alma mater, Universitas Quinqueecclesiensis (UP), where he originally got his Juris Doctorate in 1997. He is now also teaching Chief AI Officers at the CAIO Program of the Abu Dhabi School of Management as a Global Executive Fellow. He is Chief Curator of the Humans in Charge international RAI conference and the AI Ambassador of AI Summit Budapest as well as of the John von Neumann Computer Society. A regular keynote at global AI conferences and corporate events, his latest recognition was the Forbes AI Top 25 list.
Augmented Intelligence,
in the public interest
George Tilesch is a global thought leader on AI — known for bridging what AI technologies make possible and how leadership, institutions, and society can responsibly navigate the AI Age while becoming augmented versions of ourselves. His work spans executive decision-making and public-interest governance: making AI legible to leaders, credible to regulators, and meaningful to the people whose lives it shapes
Equally at home in corporate leadership and AI policy and diplomacy, George brings a rare, integrated perspective: how AI creates competitive advantage, how it changes power and trust, and how to steer it toward beneficial outcomes worth wanting. His central stance is clear: AI is best understood — and best governed — as Augmented Intelligence: designed to expand human agency, capability, and dignity.
A life of servant leadership, spanning boardrooms, cathedras, stages and retreats
George’s biography is unusual by design: he moves between corporate leadership and advisory, AI policy and diplomacy, authorship, and teaching — because AI itself now lives across those boundaries. As Founder & President of the PHI Institute for Augmented Intelligence, he has helped shape the conversation from “what AI can do” to “what AI should do — and how we govern that choice.”
He is also an accomplished author and educator, with contributions spanning books, executive-level guidance, and teaching roles for incoming top AI leaders. Across formats — advisory work, lectures, public programs — his signature is the same: principled realism, fluent in both the language of institutions, the hearts of communities, and the realities of AI implementation.
Guidance and counsel
for leaders who prefer
clarity to mythology
George’s briefings and lectures are designed for senior rooms where nuance matters: boards, ministries, regulators, universities, and cross-sector summits. He speaks to the real tensions, but also the solutions — innovation and accountability, speed and safety, autonomy and control — with the kind of clarity that allows diverse stakeholders to share a call to action, even when they disagree on ideology.
His speaking draws on lived senior experience across ecosystems: corporate strategy, global AI governance, and the cultural translation required to build trust. The result is not performance; it is truthful navigation — a way for leaders to see what is happening, what is coming, and what responsible advantage looks like as AI becomes the primary driving force of the century.
