Cassie Kozyrkov

Cassie Kozyrkov is a statistician and educator credited with popularising "decision intelligence," a discipline that reframes data science and AI around the practical goal of improving human decision-making. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, she began university study in economics and mathematical statistics at Nelson Mandela University at the age of fifteen, later completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and pursuing graduate study in psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Duke University, specialising in neuroeconomics, a combination that shaped her later focus on how humans actually use data to decide.

Kozyrkov joined Google and, from 2016, worked within its Office of the CTO, where she was appointed the company's first Chief Decision Scientist. In that role she built and led a team advising Google's own product and engineering organisations on the statistically rigorous, human-centred use of data and machine learning, and she became one of the most visible teachers of applied statistics and AI literacy inside the company.

Beyond her internal role, Kozyrkov became a prolific public educator, writing extensively for Harvard Business Review, Forbes and her own widely read essays, and speaking at major technology and business conferences including Web Summit. Her explanations of statistics, machine learning and AI risk, pitched deliberately for non-technical executives and general audiences, earned her recognition as a LinkedIn Top Voice in data science and analytics and made "decision intelligence" a term now used well beyond Google.

Kozyrkov left Google in 2023 after roughly seven years shaping how the company thought about data-driven decisions, and went on to found Kozyr, where she continues to work as an AI advisor, decision strategist and keynote speaker, helping organisations build sound judgement into their use of AI rather than treating it as a purely technical problem.

Her core argument, that the hardest part of AI adoption is not building models but making good decisions with their output, has influenced how a wide range of businesses structure their data and AI functions, and she remains one of the most sought-after public speakers translating statistical and AI concepts for business leaders.