Greg O'Brien

I'm a product manager
and a maker.

Over a decade in AI and digital innovation, after studying product and philosophy. My day job is building enterprise AI agents at Mastercard. On the side, I build my own, and think about how AI should be developed safely and ethically.

Based in Dublin·EmailLinkedIn
BuildAll work →
[ STACKCHAN PHOTO ]
Stackchan

An ESP32 desktop companion robot, currently getting taught to have opinions — an experiment in giving an LLM a face and a personality.

Personal · Hardware
[ VIDEO THUMBNAIL ]
"What actually makes something an agent?"

A plain-language look at agents, autonomy, and where the hype gets ahead of the reality.

A crowned robot cheering on a throne while a crowd of smiling robots celebrates around it
The chatbot is dead. Long live the chatbot.

We wanted chatbots that could talk about anything, got them, and now spend our time fencing them back in. I think the complaint was always about being left stuck.

StreamAll entries →
Sep 15Leadership begins where explanation becomes recommendation.
Sep 11Ownership sounds like a decision followed by a next step.
Sep 08Complexity is real, but it does not excuse confusion.
Sep 04Simplicity is often the final result of difficult thinking.

I like meeting other makers and thinkers, and talking about the things we're building. If that sounds like your world too, if you need someone for a stage, or think I'd be useful for a project you're working on, please reach out.

Get in touch

Happy to talk about agents, product, or anything half-built.

Greg O'Brien2026