The Rise of Slow AI
21 June 2025
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In a world sprinting toward automation, acceleration, and scale, it’s tempting to believe that speed is everything. AI headlines dominate with stories of breakthroughs, disruption, and systems learning faster than we can think. But at Gathered & Found, we’re asking a different question:
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What if the future of AI isn’t faster, but deeper?
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What Is “Slow AI”?
“Slow AI” isn’t about resisting technology. It’s about redefining our relationship with it. Inspired by movements like slow fashion and slow food, Slow AI is a call for intentional, ethical, and human-centered innovation.
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Instead of chasing every new tool, we ask:
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Does this tech align with our values?
Will it support thoughtful creativity, or simply accelerate noise?
Who benefits and who might be left behind?
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Slow AI urges us to adopt technology mindfully, not just rapidly.
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Why Now?
AI is transforming everything, including how we write, create, work, and relate. But in this tidal wave of change, many individuals and small teams feel overwhelmed. There’s pressure to “keep up,” even if the tools don’t align with their vision, ethics, or needs.
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We're seeing:
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Creatives sacrificing originality for efficiency
Brands automating without intention
Communities adopting tools they don’t understand or trust
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That’s where mindful innovation becomes not just idealistic, but essential.
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What Slow AI Looks Like in Practice
‍At Gathered & Found, we believe AI can be used with care and context. Here’s how we embody Slow AI in our work:
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Curation over automation: Choosing quality over quantity when integrating AI tools
Transparent processes: Sharing when and how AI is used in our workflows
Human in the loop: Prioritizing human judgment and empathy in decision-making
Learning before launching: Understanding a tool deeply before rolling it out
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And most importantly, we see AI as collaborative, not competitive, and a partner rather than a replacement.
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Join the Movement: Our AI Innovation Workshop
If this resonates, we'd love to invite you to take part in our AIÂ Innovation Workshops.
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We’re hosting hands-on and reflective AI Innovation Workshops designed for founders and thoughtful technologists who want to explore how AI can enhance and not hijack their work. We believe the future of innovation belongs to those who take the time to listen, question, and create with care. The real magic lies in how we gather (pun absolutely intended) and not just what we build.
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To find out more, contact us via our website or email hello@gatheredandfound.co.uk
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Testimonials
Gathered & Found were able to deliver a great, experienced, culturally right fit for what we were looking for at FreeMarketFX covering a whole range of Service Design, User Experience, Front and Back end Engineers. This enabled us to scale our team capability very quickly, something we would not have been able to do ourselves. The team supplied were heavily motivated and experienced within the Fintech space and have helped deliver some great outcomes. I would definitely recommend the G&F calibration.
Greg Sherwin
CIO & CTO FreeMarketFX
I’ve been partnering with Gathered & Found while working for several companies now and I have systematically been impressed by their responsiveness, flexibility, overall ease to work with, forward thinking and the consistent level of their engineers and consultants. It has been a real pleasure working with them over the last years.
Nicholas Goubert
CPTO, Ocean Technologies Group
Gathered & Found have completely changed how we approach delivering our most critical projects. We usually have to wait 6 weeks for skilled engineers and delivery managers, but with G&F that timeframe has been turned on its head. Not only do they provide incredible consultants that deliver great work, but they find great culture-fits and their team understand exactly what we need for each engagement.
Engineering Director
Global Insurance Firm
As Founders who have never built a mobile app before, Gathered & Found were incredible at taking us through the entire process and making it very understandable from the outset. They supported us with complete app design, user experience and app development, and delivered an incredible product that will completely change our loyalty and rewards capability. Their Engagement team were also brilliant at keeping us updated with all developments and we honestly couldn’t be happier with the final product. We highly recommend them to any F&B or Retail businesses that need a supportive and amazing tech partner.
Tom Stock
Founder, Burger & Beyond
We brought in Gathered & Found for a critical engagement that required highly talented engineers. Our previous consulting partners had done a decent job, but were struggling with the complexity of delivering the initiative at scale in a regulated environment. The G&F squad that we received was extremely high bar and allowed us to keep in-line with our roadmap and ultimately delivered a great piece of work ahead of schedule and under budget. We are very pleased to have them as part of our wider partner team
Investment Bank
CIO
Gathered & Found have consistently exceeded our expectations with regards to delivering talented consultants that genuinely understand our business and mission. Their consultants are very well versed in our way of doing things and hit the ground running straight away. They have enabled us to deliver a number of high priority projects over the past 3 years, largely due to their ability to rapidly deploy great consultants into our teams and projects extremely quickly
Global Insurance Firm
Transformation Director
