Who explains the thing?

Watch any football match and there are two people talking. One calls the action. The other explains it - why that run dragged the defender out of position, why the manager made the change when he did.

The second one isn't playing, and doesn't need to be. Their job is to make the game legible while it's happening.

Business doesn't have that person.

There's a gap opening up in how companies explain complex products, and nobody quite fills it.

In-house product marketers know the features but aren't seen as independent. Engineers know it cold but aren't teachers.
Comms teams work behind the scenes by design.
Keynote speakers want the single big moment, not repeated sessions with custom content.

So who explains the thing?

I've been noticing this with AI especially. The technology is genuinely complex, the hype makes credibility harder, and the stakes are high enough that “just make a video” doesn't cut it.

Companies need to explain themselves to their customers, their investors, their industry and their own employees. That's a lot of explaining.

Some are hiring journalists. Some are borrowing academics. Some are creating hybrid roles that don't fit any job description. Some are calling people like me, which is nice.

You could reasonably say this is just training with better branding. Fair - except the training industry sells competence, and this is something else. Nobody books a co-commentator to improve the team. They book one so the audience understands what it's watching.

I don't know what the role gets called. Expert-in-residence? Explorer-in-residence? Something else beginning with E.

I'm certain there's demand.

On paper there's plenty of supply. In practice, not so much.