About
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Luke F. Walton is the founder and CEO of Surmado, a company building managed AI systems for small businesses. He also writes about the ethics of artificial intelligence and records as Scoobert Doobert. He is based in San Diego.
He is currently co-writing the novel The Signatories with Jonathan Gillie, a 2026 Page Turner Fiction Book Award finalist.
Music credits may appear under Luke Francis Walton or Scoobert Doobert; research and business work appears under Luke F. Walton. Full credit and identity information is in the press kit.
Selected work
A few representative credits. More are collected on Press.
- Co-writer and co-producer: bed, “Kare Wa 3.0,” opening theme for the Fuji TV × Skybound drama Heart Attack, which won a ContentAsia Silver Award in 2025. Apple Music Japan Fuji TV
- Sound producer: CHAI, “WHOLE (まるごと),” theme song for the NHK drama Koisenu Futari, which received the 59th Galaxy Award Special Prize. Sony Music Japan Sub Pop Galaxy Award
- Sound producer: CHAI, “MY DREAM (夢のはなし),” theme song for the film Sakana no Ko / The Fish Tale. Sony Music Japan
- Mixer: OKAME, DEBUT (2026). Apple Music
- Studio profile: Scoobert Doobert in Japan's Sound & Recording Magazine (サンレコ). Scans
- Author: the Answerability papers and the open-source Answer Engine, a reference implementation for citation-grounded AI answers. Research
- Interviewed: Max Horwich, “Masks, Monsters, and Memes: In Conversation with Scoobert Doobert,” in Critical Meme Reader: Global Mutations of the Viral Image (Institute of Network Cultures, 2021). DOI
Surmado
Surmado builds and operates AI systems for small businesses, centered on an agent called Scout. Walton founded the company and built its early product before assembling the current team.
The company is headquartered in Phoenix, with offices in San Diego and Los Angeles.
Research
Walton's research focuses on authorship and answerability in automated systems: what happens to responsibility when an AI shapes a decision that no person fully authored.
His 2026 paper “The Decision No One Authored: The Answerability Gap in Generative AI” develops the idea of an answerability gap, where a person can retain formal control over an AI-assisted decision without having performed the judgment on which it depends.
Related work covers meaningful human control, AI oversight, answer engines, and the design of systems that preserve human answerability. Papers, preprints, and work in progress are collected under Research; the academic record is on his CV.
Music
As Scoobert Doobert, Walton writes, performs, produces, and mixes music. He has been releasing records since 2006 and has close to 300 compositions registered with BMI.
His production work includes CHAI's “WHOLE,” theme to the NHK drama Koisenu Futari, and “MY DREAM,” theme to The Fish Tale. He later co-wrote and co-produced bed's “Kare Wa 3.0,” the opening theme to the Fuji TV drama Heart Attack, and mixed OKAME's 2026 debut album.
His own recordings have appeared in campaigns for Coors Light, Lexus, and rhode. He was a 2016 International Songwriting Competition semifinalist, named with Kerri Medders and Brandon Woodward for “Fall Away” in Adult Contemporary, Pop/Top 40, and Unpublished. Exist Elsewhere won the 2013 Macworld/iWorld iNDIE iNNOVATION Championship. Big Hug was nominated for Best R&B, Funk or Soul Album at the 2022 San Diego Music Awards (Times of San Diego), and “Don't Worry” reached #1 on egoFM's ego 42 chart in Munich and appeared in 91X's Top 91 of 2021.
Before Scoobert Doobert, he was half of the alternative-pop duo FEiN, played guitar and co-wrote in Exist Elsewhere, and fronted The Luke Walton Band. He was part of the inaugural class of USC Thornton's Popular Music Program.
The full discography, production credits, and archive are on Music.
Love Music More
Walton hosts Love Music More, a podcast and newsletter about the craft, history, and philosophy of music.
Guests have included engineers and producers Andrew Scheps and Craig Bauer. Spotify for Creators ranked the show in the top 10% of podcasts on Spotify in 2025.
He was also once filed under museum doppelgängers by the Getty and the internet.
Music industry
From 2018 to 2024, Walton worked at NAMM, ultimately as Associate Director of Marketing for The NAMM Show. His work covered the music-products and pro-audio industries while he continued recording, producing, and performing.
His trade writing for NAMM, ProSoundWeb, and Gearspace is collected under Writing.
Apps
Walton has also published several independent iOS apps, including Private Workout Logger, Stop Political Spam Texts, and A New Word Every Day. They are collected under Apps.
Speaking
Walton speaks on practical generative AI, agentic workflows, and responsible adoption.
Recent engagements include the 2026 AI for Marketers Summit, where he was a keynote panelist for “AI Maturity in 2026: Building and Enabling the Modern Marketing Team,” and the 2025 Social Media Strategies Summit panel “The AI Playbook for Social Media Teams.”
Education
Walton studied in the inaugural class of USC Thornton's Popular Music Program and holds an MBA from San Diego State University. He has professional working proficiency in Japanese.