Maria Sukhareva

Maria Sukhareva

Principal AI Expert · Founder, AI Realist · Nuremberg, Germany

"An independent voice on enterprise AI, EU digital sovereignty, and responsible adoption — cited in Forbes, Die Welt, and the Australian Financial Review."

Maria Sukhareva is a principal AI expert with 15+ years of experience in natural language processing, machine learning, and generative AI. She is the founder of AI Realist, an independent analytical and advisory practice covering enterprise AI, AI governance, and the EU AI Act.

In her professional career she has held senior and principal AI roles at Siemens AG and BMW Group, leading enterprise AI strategy, LLM pipelines, and C-level briefings across DAX 40 organisations. She holds an M.Sc. in Natural Language Processing from Saarland University as a DAAD scholar, and has published 20+ peer-reviewed papers in computational linguistics.

AI Realist reaches 35,000+ LinkedIn followers and 5,000 newsletter subscribers with long-form, evidence-based analysis — regularly cited by journalists, researchers, and AI practitioners across Europe and beyond.

35k
LinkedIn followers
DACH enterprise, tech, and policy audience
5k
Newsletter subscribers
Substack · AI Realist
20+
Media outlets
Forbes, AFR, WELT, Computerworld & more
10+
Podcast appearances
DataTalks.Club, Impact of AI, BARC & more

Enterprise AI Strategy

What real AI adoption looks like beyond the pilot — strategy, governance, and delivery in large organisations.

EU AI Act & Governance

Practical implications of the EU AI Act for European organisations, risk classification, and compliance.

Generative AI & LLMs

How large language models actually work, where they fail, and how to evaluate vendor claims critically.

AI in Financial Services

Risk, auditability, hallucination, and regulatory compliance for AI in banking and financial services.

European Sovereign AI

Digital sovereignty, European AI strategy, and the geopolitics of open-weight models and cloud dependency.

Responsible & Ethical AI

Evidence-based takes on AI safety, bias, transparency, and what "responsible AI" means in practice.

Lead AI Strategist, Corporate Security — Siemens AG (2026–present)
Principal Key Expert for AI — Siemens AG & Siemens Financial Services (2024–2026)
NLP Specialist & Data Scientist — BMW Group (2018–2020)
Research Scientist, NLP — TU Darmstadt & Goethe Frankfurt (2011–2017)
M.Sc. Natural Language Processing — Saarland University · DAAD Scholar
20+ peer-reviewed publications in NLP and computational linguistics
Cited in Forbes (Nvidia GTC 2026) and Die Welt
Keynote speaker: Enterprise AI & ML Conference, AI Infrastructure Summit
Founder, AI Realist — independent AI analysis since 2025
Forbes Australian Financial Review WELT Computerworld InfoWorld Business Insider Puck News Freethink RCR Wireless News 150sec Cybernews Gary Marcus (Substack) Reworked PYMNTS Smart Girl Stories DataTalks.Club BARC Data Culture Podcast

Let's work together

For media enquiries, interview requests, podcast invitations, speaking engagements, and brand partnerships — reach out directly.