We start with people.
Plenty of people know their way around the latest AI tools. We come to them as cognitive scientists: Ryan’s doctorate is in cognitive science, with research in how people reason, judge and decide, and David’s is in cognitive neuroscience, on how people learn. We build what we recommend, so the training, the systems and the research all rest on how people think and take on something new.
Dr Ryan Jesson
Principal and Founder
Dr Ryan Jesson
I spent years teaching and researching cognitive science inside a university: how people reason, judge and decide, and, in my own research, how people tell real insight from things that only sound profound. Then generative AI arrived, and that problem became everyone’s overnight. A model will always give you an answer, and it will almost always sound right. Knowing when it is, and how to get something better, is a thinking skill, not a technical one. And it’s one that can be learned.
I started Tailored Ideas because I wanted the science to leave the building, to stop living behind paywalls and lecture theatre doors. AI is the defining shift of the moment, and whether it shapes us for better or worse is something we have a say in. I’m invested in helping tip that answer toward better. The tools are in and the access is granted, but people often have trouble finding their “better”. Not because they lack expertise in their role, but because they haven’t yet worked out how to bring that expertise into how they use AI. That’s what I train: helping people see what’s possible and how to get there, so their judgement is steering the model, not the other way round.
I build what I recommend. If you’d told me four years ago that I’d be building apps to help children communicate, websites for businesses, research platforms and more on a daily basis, I wouldn’t have believed it. But here we are! I even run my own practice on the same kind of system I recommend to clients, with AI agents working in my files on every project and client: at the end of the day, I say “close out”, and everything gets updated.
The organisations I most want to do this for are not-for-profits, peak bodies and advocacy organisations, and that’s a deliberate choice. My goal is to give a small team doing good work the capacity of a much bigger one, and to help the organisations that speak for their communities make a stronger case to government. That’s the impact I want this work to have.
Why we work with for-purpose organisations
Senior Specialist
Dr David Maij
What surprised me most about AI is how quickly people take to it when the conditions are right. Give someone an afternoon with a good model, some of their own work and a good teacher, and they walk out doing things they could not do that morning. The harder half comes after that. Leaders have to decide what is allowed and what good use of it looks like, for a technology that keeps changing under them, and nobody has a playbook for that yet. That is the part I work on.
I did my PhD on how people learn, and everything since has been about getting organisations to change what they actually do by putting the science of learning to work. In the Netherlands I’m co-owner of Learning Habit, where we help organisations build a culture where people keep learning from each other. We start with the behaviour they want to see, find out where they currently stand, and work out what it would take to bridge the gap. I founded Education AI to do that same kind of work for AI; we train staff and boards in AI literacy and help them write policy that shapes what a work day actually looks like. I love teaching and writing about AI and playing with it myself, and much of my consulting work uses it to cut the administrative load people carry.
My partner is Australian, and after five years in the Netherlands we moved to Sydney to live closer to her family. Starting over in a new country is a good excuse to build something even better, and Ryan is who I want to build it with. We share the same aim: creating change that lasts, for the people that do the work, and the organisation they do it in.
Where the work has been.
Queensland Alliance for Mental HealthA four-session staff training series, including a hands-on mock policy submission.
ThiessAI capability training, delivered in several rounds over time.- Schools and RTOsProfessional development for staff and leaders, and programs for students.
The University of QueenslandYears of teaching and research in cognitive science, including learning materials and professional development at the Learning Lab.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us about your organisation. You’ll be talking with Ryan from the first call.