Press · Speaking · Interviews
Press, interviews, and speaking
ATAH's author is available for journalist interviews, conference speaking opportunities, panel participation, and background briefings — particularly on AI-to-human handoff, commercial neutrality in AI-mediated discovery, and the implications for insurance, legal, financial, and other regulated and established professional sectors.
Author bio
Grahame Cohen is founder of Epoq and CEO of Epoq North America. He is the author of the ATAH (Agent to Authenticated Human Protocol) specification.
Grahame founded Epoq in 1997. Its first product, Desktop Lawyer, was one of the earliest online legal services on the Internet, helping individuals and small businesses prepare high-quality legal documents through an interactive expert system rather than only through firms. More than twenty-five years later, Epoq's services are used alongside major insurance brands, financial services brands, and other large partners across the UK, US, Canada, and other markets.
ATAH grew from observing the structural gap between AI capability in 2025–2026 and the handoff infrastructure available when professional services are needed. The protocol is published independently under Apache 2.0 with a public Charter, intended to operate on a not-for-profit basis under independent stewardship.
Grahame is available for journalist interviews and as a speaker at insurance, legal-technology, financial-services, and AI/standards conferences on the protocol, the broader AI-to-human handoff problem, and the implications for regulated and established professional categories.
Speaking topics
Indicative topics suitable for conference talks, panels, and roundtables — adaptable to audience and format:
- The broken handoff. Why AI's "see a professional" disclaimer is the largest unsolved interface in AI today, and what an open protocol layer changes.
- Commercial neutrality as infrastructure. Why AI-mediated professional discovery cannot be left to ad-funded ranking, and how provenance-visible, non-ranked matching is designed.
- Insurance implications. Where AI-to-human handoff sits inside the insurance value chain — the licensed agent or broker as the natural handoff point for anything from coverage adequacy to complex commercial programmes and contested claims, alongside the wider implications for underwriting, distribution, and bolt-on professional services.
- Professional bodies in the AI era. Why regulators and licensing authorities have a role in AI-mediated discovery, and what neutral infrastructure looks like.
- Open protocols vs. closed directories. Lessons from OAuth, Verifiable Credentials, and DNS — and why ATAH is being built the same way.
Recent press coverage
Recent interviews and features with Grahame on legal technology, AI in professional services, and Epoq:
- 2025
Risk & Insurance
Interview with Dan Reynolds on the future of legal services as an insurance bolt-on
- 2025
Carrier Management
Feature on Epoq's enhanced US platform and Grahame's lifelong entrepreneurial story
- 2025
Digital Insurance / Dig-In
Meet the insurtech: Epoq — with Grace Crane
- 2025
Insurance Nerds (Profiles in Risk podcast)
Tony Cañas interview on Epoq's legal bolt-on services
- 2025
Insurance Journal
The Future of Independent Agents: Added Client Value Through Bolt-on Services
Quotable framings
Direct excerpts from the specification and EXPLAINER, suitable for citation:
AI is becoming the first call for advice on legal, tax, insurance, and other professional matters. But when human expertise is genuinely needed, the journey usually breaks — leaving the user with a disclaimer and the responsibility to find one themselves.
ATAH defines the trust, consent and handoff layer between AI systems and verified human professionals.
Every data point carries its own verification status. The basis of trust is visible, not collapsed into an opaque score.
The matching engine carries no commercial weighting at any point. Partner integration fees, professional registration fees, AI platform relationships, and any other commercial relationship in or around ATAH have no influence on whether a professional is returned in a match result, on candidate-set ordering, or on the trust signals attached to a professional's profile.
When an AI identifies that human expertise is genuinely required — a lawyer for a contract dispute, an insurance agent for a complex risk, a tax planner for an unfamiliar liability — the journey breaks. The AI typically stops at a disclaimer and leaves the user with a search box. That's not a completed journey. It's a dead end at the moment the user most needs help.
The protocol is appropriately scoped. It does one set of related things and does them well — similar to how OAuth, Verifiable Credentials, and DNS work. Protocols that do one thing rigorously rather than many things partially.
Press contact
For interview requests, partnership conversations, or background briefings, please write directly: