Dr Nikolay Burlutskiy is Head of Applied AI at the BBC, where he focuses on translating cutting-edge AI research into scalable products used by millions. With more than 15 years of international experience spanning AI research, product development, and enterprise transformation, he has led AI initiatives across media, healthcare, consumer goods, and technology.

Prior to the BBC, Nikolay was Senior Engineering Manager at Mars, where he led the architecture and deployment of the Mars AI Experiences (MAX) platform, an enterprise generative AI capability supporting more than 170,000 associates globally. Before that, he served as Director of ML & AI at AstraZeneca, leading teams applying generative AI and computer vision to accelerate drug discovery, harmonise clinical data, and automate histopathology workflows.

Earlier in his career, Nikolay led AI product development at ContextVision in Sweden, where he helped create AI technologies for cancer diagnostics that ultimately led to the formation of Inify Laboratories, an AI-driven pathology spin-out company valued at ~$40 million. He began his career as an AI engineer at Samsung Electronics in South Korea.

Nikolay holds a PhD in AI, has authored more than 35 peer-reviewed publications and patents, and is an active speaker, conference organiser, reviewer, and contributor to the global AI community.