Mark Read is to launch a conference that aims to bring together start-up companies and investors involved in artificial intelligence with business and marketing leaders.Read, the former chief executive of WPP, will host the debut, invitation-only event, which is called Prompt, at the Design Museum in London on 9 June.He describes Prompt as “a curated series of events bringing together founders, technologists, creatives, business leaders, marketers, musicians and artists to discover what the future will hold”. Read took inspiration for the name from the idea that an AI prompt is “where human creativity meets technology”.The half-day agenda features industry speakers include Debbie Weinstein, president of Google in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and James Wise, a partner at Balderton Capital and chair of the UK government’s recently-launched Sovereign AI Unit, which is investing in the sector.There will be also speaker sessions with the founders of a string of early-stage AI businesses, including Aaru, a synthetic research platform, Profound, an AI search company, and Tano, an AI creator marketing company.Read said: “I launched Prompt because I could see the opportunity to bring AI leaders together with business and marketing leaders. There's not a venue that does that today and what I hear from CEOs and CMOs is a desire not only to embrace AI but also to know who they should be talking to. They know the [large language] model companies but it's the companies building applications on top of these models that can help them.”The UK capital is a good location because “investors see the UK capital as the second most dense hub for AI talent after San Francisco” globally, according to Read. “We need to embrace this and build on the skills we have here,” he said.Prompt is taking place at the same as London Tech Week in London.Read is not the first former agency group CEO to launch a technology-focused conference. Maurice Lèvy, the emeritus chairman and former chief executive of Publicis Groupe, co-founded VivaTech in Paris in 2016 and it has grown into a huge, public event, which takes place annually in June.WPP announced Read was stepping down as chief executive of WPP after seven years in June last year. He went on to become non-executive of chair of Kantar Media, now known as Fifty5Blue after a rebrand at the start of 2026.This story first appeared on Campaign UK.