Your next user is not a person. It is their agent.
Agents are a new class of customer. Catalogues, entitlements and contracts must become machine-readable. Experience design now includes users who never see your interface.
The Human Operating Model · a thesis for the next service economy
IT services were designed for a world that no longer exists.
I help leaders redesign what comes next: as an operator, on stage, and in writing.
Shift Right.
Experience architecture, human value, by design
01 · Experience modesAI → human
01 · AI
Self-heal, by default.
Agent executes within policy.
02 · AI +
Guided self-help.
Agent and user clarify intent.
03 · Human + AI
Assisted resolution.
Human validates and steers.
04 · Human
White-glove moments.
Human owns the experience; agents handle the admin.
02 · Service sensor layerSignal → change
Source 01
Signals from users
Source 02
Signals from systems
Source 03
Signal→Insight→Decision→Change
Signals from the business
03 · Software-defined service fabricTrust controls
01
Intent
02
Policy
03
Telemetry
04
Agents
05
Knowledge
Trust controls · Confidence · Audit · Rollback
17,000+
Readers on LinkedIn
IT Oxygen
Influencer 2025
HDI Top 25
Thought Leader 2025
SITS · SDI Spark · itSMF
Main stages, 2025–26
01 · The answer
The differentiator of service is human.
Software will define the service. AI will run it. And people will be why customers choose yours. Not human as fallback. Human as differentiator.
Read the manifesto01
Software defines the service.
Provisioned in code, assured by telemetry, resolved by agents. The operating model becomes a product you ship. AI lands or stalls right here.
02
Humans differentiate it.
When every provider runs on the same models, competence is a commodity. What remains is trust, judgement, language, confidence.
03
Shift right.
Deploy human brilliance at the moments of dread, judgement and consequence, and let software absorb the rest.
02 · The talks
The speaking page
The argument, made live.
AI lands or stalls in the operating model.
64% of UK organisations say they are using AI. Only 24% have reached anything close to mature adoption. The gap is not technology. It is organisational design.
The full briefWhat "service" means when AI is in the room.
Smart glasses. Agents acting on a user's behalf. Ambient intelligence woven through every tool a workforce already pays for. Most IT functions are still writing acceptable use policies for ChatGPT.
The full briefA profession built to manage change is the worst at handling its own.
ITSM has become brilliantly organised at describing yesterday. We mistake legibility to ourselves for value to our customers. Comfort bureaucracy for governance.
Read it in fullThe language we use is the architecture of the experience we deliver.
Strip every acronym and framework reference out of your service catalogue, then show it to a customer. If they cannot tell you what they are buying, you have built a glossary for insiders.
The full briefRecent stages, SITS 26 main stage · SDI Spark 26 keynote · itSMF UK 2025 · PropelX London Now booking Q3 & Q4 2026 →
From the audience
"As masterful as ever. He owned that stage. Not just the brilliant material, but a genuine public speaking masterclass."
Audience reaction · SITS 26, main stage
By far the best speaker we saw, very relevant and inspirational.
Audience reaction · SDI Spark 26By far the most engaging and thought-provoking talk I watched across both days of the conference.
Audience reaction · SDI Spark 26His own line for what he does: "I'm not interested in predicting the future of service. I'm interested in helping organisations design it."
03 · Telemetry · the thinking comes from the work
£550M
Services portfolio under his accountability
~300
People across five service functions, UK-wide
68
Customer NPS, alongside 20% services growth, in year one
80+
Delivery partners orchestrated through one operating model
The arguments on this site are not commentary. They are working notes, tested daily against thousands of customer environments, and revised when reality wins.
04 · The radar
The full radar
What hits service next.
The face becomes the endpoint.
AI glasses at consumer prices. Support turns ambient, and the distance between question and answer collapses. How do you write a BYOD policy for someone's face?
Competence becomes a commodity. Judgement becomes the market.
The floor rises for everyone at the same speed. Most AI strategies are a detailed plan to become average, faster. The ceiling stays human.
05 · The thinking
View all writing
Arguments, signals, field notes.
In conversation
Watch and listen.
The Guest List: the argument, at length.
Sixty-five minutes in conversation with FRONT&CENTRE. The Human Operating Model argued in full: why shift left has expired, where AI actually lands in service, and what human beings are for when software runs the routine.
Coming soon
For event organisers
Put the argument.On your stage.
Book Mark to speakPress & speaker kit · One-sheet PDF ↓ · Replies within 48 hours
For the profession
Working notes.As they happen.
Free · Occasional · Unsubscribe any time · Read past dispatches · The Field Kit →
07 · About Mark
Mark examines the organisational choices that determine whether technology creates value or merely creates more work.
He is a Global Services Director accountable for a £550M services portfolio and around 300 people. Two decades on both sides of the managed services relationship shape how he thinks about operating models, service design and the human judgement no amount of automation replaces.
More about Mark