Delivered in Madrid
Rahim has delivered an AI leadership workshop in Madrid. Of the twenty-two city pages on this site, Madrid is one of the few outside London and the Emirates that describes work done in the city itself rather than method carried to it.
How to read this. The client is not named and no date is published. It was a workshop rather than a conference keynote, and it is not presented as one.
What Spain told its judges
On 28 January 2026 the Consejo General del Poder Judicial adopted Instrucción 2/2026 on the use of AI in judicial activity, published in the state gazette two days later. It binds every judge and magistrate in Spain.
Its first principle is control humano efectivo. The use of AI in judicial activity shall always be subject to real, conscious and effective human control by judges, sin que dichos sistemas puedan operar de forma autónoma para la toma de decisiones judiciales, la valoración de los hechos o de las pruebas, o la interpretación y aplicación del Derecho: such systems may not operate autonomously to take decisions, to assess facts or evidence, or to interpret and apply the law.
Three words are doing the work: real, conscious, effective. Not present. Not documented. And the instruction adds that drafts generated by AI shall in no case be considered automated decisions, which forecloses the obvious workaround. The preamble names what is being protected: the intellective and volitional capacities that form the core of the function of judging.
It is a sectoral instrument and this page says so. But it is the most precise available statement of a line that every profession is currently drawing badly, which is why it travels beyond the courts. The general version is at what is meaningful human oversight.
And what Spain told its works councils
Spain did something else first, and it is the reason a Madrid audience should recognise this argument. The 2021 law usually called the Ley Rider gave works councils a right to be informed of the parámetros, reglas e instrucciones underlying algorithms or AI systems that affect decisions on working conditions, access to and retention of employment, including profiling.
The preamble is the quotable part, because it names the mechanism rather than the harm: algorithms deserve attention because those alterations are occurring de manera ajena al esquema tradicional de participación de las personas trabajadoras en la empresa, outside the traditional scheme of worker participation. Note it is a collective right owed to the works council, not an individual one, and it applies to all employers rather than only to platforms.
One correction worth having before a Spanish AI briefing is written, because it circulates widely and is wrong. AESIA, the Spanish AI supervision agency, is seated in A Coruña, not in Madrid, by the royal decree that created it. Nor could the common claim that it is the first national AI supervisory agency in the European Union be verified at any primary source, so it is not repeated here.
Where Spain actually sits on adoption
Spanish enterprise AI use is 20.3 per cent on Eurostat’s 2025 figures, thirteenth in the Union and almost exactly the EU average of about 20. Not a laggard and not a leader.
That middling position is more useful on a stage than a superlative would be. It means a Madrid audience is in the same place as most of Europe, which makes the argument about what happens next rather than about catching up. The comparison across countries, with the caution that national and Eurostat figures measure different populations, is at AI and work by country.
Who books this in Madrid, and who should not
Boards and executive committees, banks and insurers, the large listed corporates and the IBEX headquarters, professional services firms, and the legal profession for whom the January instruction is directly binding. Delivery is in English.
If the room needs Spanish, say so early and the honest answer comes back quickly, including a recommendation elsewhere where that is the right one.
The three keynotes a Madrid room can book
Keynotes run 30 to 90 minutes, in person or virtual. A 30-minute main-stage version of each talk is available for conferences; the full argument needs 40 or more. The sector examples change for the room; the argument does not. All three, with the showreel, are at keynotes, and the programme copy is at the speaker pack.
Drift versus Design
Drift versus Design: why most organisations hand their judgement to AI without deciding to, and how to design your way through instead.
Most organisations are adopting AI by drift: a thousand reasonable decisions that add up to judgement nobody chose to give away. Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills, shows leaders which mode they are running, where AI sharpens judgement and where it weakens it, and hands them the controls.
We Are Superheroes
We Are Superheroes: AI is the suit. The human decides.
AI makes everyone faster, stronger and more capable. It does not decide; people do. Through a family story across four generations and three continents, Rahim Hirji hands the audience the seven human skills that grow more valuable as the tools spread. They arrive thinking AI is the story and leave knowing they are.
WTH (What the Human)
WTH (What the Human): a live test of a board's own judgement.
Business is being rewired as AI arrives, and human judgement is leaving with it. In three acts, Rahim Hirji shows a board what AI is changing in how organisations run, then ends with a live test of the board's own judgement, in the room and in real time. Nobody forgets the result.
Where these sessions happen in Madrid
- IFEMA Madrid
- 200,000 square metres across thirteen halls, eighty-five rooms and two convention centres. Where FITUR and the city's largest events happen. Note IFEMA publishes conflicting capacities for the Palacio Municipal auditorium, so treat any single figure with care.
- La Nave, Villaverde
- 13,000 square metres with an auditorium seating 636, in a converted industrial building. South Summit's venue and the right register for a technology audience.
- Hotel ballrooms, Paseo de la Castellana and Salamanca
- Where most corporate and financial convening in Madrid actually happens. Flat floors, so settle riser height and screens early.
One caution and one calendar note. The Palacio de Congresos on the Castellana has been closed since 2012 and is still listed as a Madrid venue by directories. And DES is in Málaga, not Madrid, which is a common error in a Spanish events plan. August in Madrid is genuinely empty in a way that few European capitals still are.
