In the third episode of Connected, Ben Hollebon takes a deliberate swerve from the promised tools-and-approaches episode to talk about something more fundamental: how the Digital Transformation Programme is being run.

Four operating principles shape every decision the programme makes. The programme listens first, and keeps listening — fourteen Chair-level conversations across the Connexion to date, plus a wider mass-engagement layer that's now bringing voices in from districts the conversations haven't reached. It works in the open — drafts, thinking and decisions all out on the website as they happen, not when they're polished. It uses the tools that are available, including AI, in ways it can be honest about. And it's building everything to last beyond any one of us.

Ben names two pastoral concerns about AI authenticity that District Chairs raised independently this week, and explains why those concerns belong inside the programme, not outside it. He sets out the wider Church conversation on AI ethics — across the AI Working Group, and into Conference. And he shares the question that one colleague put to him in five plain words — "we ship it, and… then what?" — and why it shapes the way the programme designs everything it builds.

This episode is for anyone who wants to understand the working method behind the programme, and how to engage with it.