​Patrick Moore is the Chief Information Officer at Hazell Bros and a Director of Pantheon AI, with more than 17 years in IT. That work has kept him on the front line of new technology, and he’s the person who has to make it actually work inside a business.

​Ever wondered whether you could run AI on your own machine? You can, and it’s closer than you might think.

​Most of us first meet AI through a chat window owned by someone else. That works fine until the data is sensitive, the connection drops, or the token bill starts to climb. Local AI flips that around. The model runs on hardware you control, and your data stays put.

​It can all feel a bit out of reach so this session is here to change that.

​What’s covered

​Patrick will walk us through local AI from the ground up:

• ​Why you’d run AI locally, with real examples like handling sensitive client information

• ​A quick tour of how AI got here, and why it’s moved so fast in the last five years

• ​The buzzwords decoded (parameters, context, quantisation, fine tuning), in plain English

• ​How a local setup fits together: the model, the software that runs it, and the hardware underneath

• ​What kit you need for different jobs, with rough costs

• ​Where models come from, how licences differ, and why model origin matters

​What you'll walk away with

​A clear first step. You’ll have a simple way to size up your own use case (how many people will use it, how sensitive the data is, which hardware tier fits), something you can try this week on an ordinary laptop, and a short list of resources to keep going.

No technical background needed. If you’ve been curious about local AI, or you’ve got a problem to solve and aren’t sure where to start, this one’s for you. As always, bring ALL the questions.