Independent advisory, since 2010

Strategy, sovereign AI and AI alignment, advised by people who have built it.

Independent and expert advice to boards, executive teams and governments, supported by the skills needed to incubate that advice and execute it at scale. Small by design. We take on work that matters and that we are willing to be judged on.

founded 2010 based in Australia work sponsored at CEO and board level Founder of the Conscience Graph Project
Practice

Three things we advise on

Strategy

Technology and AI strategy for the board and the executive team: what to build, what to buy, what to stop, and in what order. Decided on evidence, written in plain language, and owned by the people who will carry it out.

  • AI and data strategy
  • Operating model and capability
  • Commercialisation of AI-powered services
  • Independent review of vendor and platform decisions

Sovereign AI

Keeping control of the models, the data and the values an organisation or a nation depends on, without cutting itself off from the best of what is available. Model choice, hosting, law and governance as one decision.

  • Sovereign hosting and open-weights strategy
  • Jurisdiction and regulatory alignment
  • Government and institutional programs
  • With Austral Impact on policy and growth

AI alignment

Making AI systems that act on your behalf trustworthy: values they cannot rewrite, decisions they can explain, and people in the loop where it counts. We originated the Conscience Graph, an open standard for built-in AI governance.

  • Governance and guardrail architecture for agents
  • Transparency, traceability and audit
  • Conscience Graph pilots and sector graphs
  • Regulatory and professional-body engagement
How we work

Advise. Incubate. Execute.

edgelabs was established to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. We are not the people who cite theory. We have been in the engine room and on the front line, and we know how to do it again.

01 Advise

Decide with evidence

Independent, expert advice at board and executive level. We say what we think, including when it is not what was hoped for.

02 Incubate

Prove it small, then grow it

A prototype, a pilot, a graph, a working model, with the people who will own it in the room. Advice that has been incubated is worth more than advice that has been presented.

03 Execute

See it delivered at scale

We stay through delivery, or hand over to a delivery partner such as Choir Digital, until the result is in market and the capability is yours.

Work

Current work

AI alignment / open standard

The Conscience Graph

A layered, weighted, provenanced graph of values that an AI consults before it acts, with a global floor held by a foundation and sector graphs signed by the bodies that own that law. Originated by edgelabs in 2026; paper, schema, 26 published graphs and a working navigator and API. Open to collaborators from any jurisdiction.

Strategy / commercialisation

Choir Digital

Advisory to an Australian AI consultancy on commercialising client-facing solutions built on AI: proposition, delivery method, and the Human+AI methodology that turns a pilot into a product.

Sovereign AI / policy

Austral Impact

Working with Austral Impact and its network to make the case for sovereign AI capability in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere: what to control, what to share, and how to fund it.

Earlier work

Fifteen years, sponsored at CEO and board level

A selection by sector. Client names are left out by agreement; the work is described at the level we are free to share.

About

Founded in 2010. Built by founders and operators.

edgelabs is a specialist advisory firm providing independent and expert advice to its clients, supported by the skills needed to incubate and execute, so that advice is delivered at transformative scale.

The team are founders of listed start-ups in the United States, Europe and Australia and former C-suite executives, supported by specialists in technology, data, product and customer-centred design. We work in small teams, directly with the people accountable for the outcome.

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Principal

Simon Spencer

Founder through company listings, multiple terms as chief technology officer, and architecture, data and strategy roles in banking across three continents. Founder of the Conscience Graph Project. Advisor to Choir Digital. NSW Central Coast, Australia.

Partners

Who we work with

Advice is only as good as the people who can carry it out. These are the firms we work alongside.

Contact

Start a conversation

Tell us who you are and what you are facing. We reply to every message, and we will say early if we are not the right firm for it.