Why do some big successful brands go bust?

Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.

I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.

They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.

And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?

It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.

Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

You're about to listen to the latest series of the Life Scientific.

Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days before anywhere else.

First on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, today it's become obvious that artificial intelligence, AI, is going to play a huge part in our future.

But not everyone's entirely clear or indeed in agreement on how that will pan out.

And a lot of conversations around AI and machine learning still referenced the

idea of a dystopian future where Terminator-style robots are our overlords. But don't panic.

My guest today says that's all rubbish. Neil Lawrence is the Deep Mind Professor of Machine

Learning at the University of Cambridge. A mechanical engineer by training,

Neil's story is one of contrasts. He's worked for both academia and Amazon. He's plied his trade on

oil rigs and helped set up data workshops in Africa. Perhaps most improbably, he's both a keen

cyclist and a petrol head. During his career, Neil's also been involved with deploying AI and machine learning

across fields as varied as movie animation, Formula One strategy and local planning applications.

And he says ultimately all his efforts are about making a difference to our everyday lives,

...