25 Best Keynote Speakers Globally on AI and Decision Making

Last updated: July 2026

This directory compiles 25 currently active, independently verified keynote speakers on artificial intelligence and executive decision-making, spanning academic decision-intelligence research, former Big Tech AI leadership and independent AI strategy advisory. Selection prioritised documented expertise and recent public activity over speaker-bureau fee tiers or follower counts.

Contents: Why AI and Decision Making Matters · How This List Was Compiled · The 25 Speakers · A Note on My Own Work in This Space · Notable Voices We Almost Included · Common Mistakes to Avoid When Booking · Implementation Guide · Frequently Asked Questions · Final Thoughts

Why AI and Decision Making Matters

As of July 2026, 88% of organisations globally use AI in at least one business function, according to McKinsey's most recent State of AI survey. The technology is widespread. What is not widespread is the capacity to use it well.

AI does not make decisions. It makes predictions. The decision about what to do with those predictions, about which predictions to trust, which contexts they apply in, and what trade-offs to accept, remains irreducibly human. The organisations that understand this distinction, and that invest in building genuinely better decision making alongside their AI capability, are the ones pulling ahead.

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects that AI will displace roughly 92 million existing jobs while creating approximately 170 million new roles by 2030, a net gain of 78 million that only materialises if the people and organisations leading the transition make consistently good decisions along the way.

That governance gap is real and current. Only one in five organisations has a mature governance model for autonomous AI agents, and 31% still have not put AI on their board agenda at all, according to Deloitte's State of AI in the Enterprise report. The keynote speakers in this directory help organisations close that gap.

How This List Was Compiled

Each speaker on this list was selected on the basis of a documented, fact-checked contribution to the intersection of artificial intelligence and decision making, a current active public presence, and evidence of genuine impact on executive audiences. Rather than beginning with the most familiar names or the largest speaker bureaus, the search deliberately prioritised speakers with strong original work and active publishing presence rather than simply the highest fees or the most-booked speaking profiles. Every entry below was re-verified in July 2026 against each speaker's own site, current employer or recent public appearances.

Where AI decision-making expertise sits across the 25 speakers in this directory, compiled from the entries listed here, not from a survey, as of July 2026.

Of the 25 speakers below, 5 hold current university faculty positions (at Wharton, Rotman, Oxford and UCL), 5 are former senior AI executives at Google, AWS, Microsoft or IBM who now run independent practices, 14 founded and run their own advisory, research or technology companies, and 1 holds a current corporate innovation leadership role. That spread is compiled from the entries listed here, not from a survey, and it reflects something real about where AI decision-making expertise currently sits: less inside any single institution than most event organisers assume.

The 25 Speakers

1. Cassie Kozyrkov, Kozyr

Few speakers on the planet can claim to have created an entire academic and commercial discipline. Cassie Kozyrkov did exactly that when she founded the field of Decision Intelligence at Google, where she served as the company's first Chief Decision Scientist from 2018 until her departure in 2023. During her tenure she personally trained more than 20,000 Googlers in data-driven decision making and AI, and guided more than 500 Google projects through the implementation of decision intelligence best practices. She is now CEO of Kozyr, her AI advisory and education firm.

Her keynotes are the most rigorous available on the intersection of AI capability and human judgment. She gives executive audiences a working definition of Decision Intelligence, a sharper diagnostic for why AI projects stall, shared language for debating AI initiatives, and specific frameworks for building governance structures that improve decision quality rather than just processing speed. She has delivered on all seven continents and in more than 40 countries, is a LinkedIn Top Voice, and has been featured in Forbes. "What data gets you is superhuman memory and superhuman attention," she said in a February 2026 interview with JetBrains.

2. Ajay Agrawal, Creative Destruction Lab / University of Toronto

At the Rotman School of Management, Ajay Agrawal holds the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and founded the Creative Destruction Lab, which has become the world's largest AI startup incubator. As co-author of Prediction Machines and Power and Prediction (with Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb), he developed one of the most durable and useful frameworks for understanding AI's economic implications: AI makes prediction cheaper, and when prediction becomes cheap, everything that depends on prediction changes. He was named to the Order of Canada for this body of work.

His keynotes give executive audiences a lens that most AI speakers do not provide. Rather than explaining what AI can do technically, he explains which business decisions AI will fundamentally transform and why. His work on prediction, judgment, and the economics of AI helps boards and C-suite leaders make investment decisions about AI with clarity rather than anxiety.

3. Ethan Mollick, Wharton School

Ethan Mollick is the Ralph J. Roberts Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI. He is one of the most widely followed practical AI educators in the world, and his research on how generative AI is actually being used in workplaces today gives executive audiences evidence where most AI speakers offer only assertion. His next book, Co-Existence, is due in October 2026.

His keynotes are unusual in the AI speaking market because they are built on genuine empirical research. He studies what happens when real organisations give real people AI tools, and he reports what actually changes in productivity, creativity, and decision quality. For sceptical executive audiences who want evidence rather than enthusiasm, he is one of the most credible voices on the conference circuit.

4. Brian Solis, ServiceNow

As Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow and author of nine books on business transformation and digital anthropology, Brian Solis brings one of the longest track records in the field of understanding how technology reshapes human behaviour and organisational culture. Global Gurus named him a World's Top Futurist for 2026, an award that also recognised his book Mindshift. His recent keynote work focuses explicitly on what he calls the AI Mindshift, the cognitive and leadership shift required for organisations to capture value from AI rather than simply implementing it.

His keynotes are particularly effective when the event goal is changing how executive audiences think about AI rather than educating them on specific tools. He connects AI to customer behaviour, leadership identity, and organisational reinvention in ways that land differently with mixed audiences than purely technical presentations do. He delivered a keynote at SXSW 2026 covered by Worth Magazine.

5. Mike Walsh, Tomorrow

As CEO of Tomorrow and author of The Algorithmic Leader, Mike Walsh has spent more than a decade interviewing leaders of AI-native organisations across dozens of countries. His keynotes draw directly on that field research to explain what leadership actually requires when algorithms, data, and AI agents are embedded in every business decision.

His approach is distinctive because it frames AI not as a technology problem but as a leadership problem. The question he helps executive audiences answer is not "what is AI doing?" but "what does leadership mean when AI is part of how decisions get made?" His forthcoming Harvard Business Review Press book, co-authored with Deloitte's Global AI Leader Nitin Mittal, focuses on agentic AI and digital labour, drawing on interviews with the leaders of the world's largest organisations. "Intelligence is no longer scarce," he told credit union leaders at a Velera industry event in April 2026.

6. Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton School

Kartik Hosanagar is the John C. Hower Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School and Co-Director of Wharton Human-AI Research. His book A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence examines how algorithms shape individual and organisational decisions, and what leaders need to understand about algorithmic thinking to stay in genuine control of the systems they deploy.

He explores how algorithms occasionally go wrong, why trust in AI systems develops or breaks down, and what the governance implications are when organisations delegate decisions to systems they do not fully understand. His keynotes at events like the CommerceNext Growth Show in June 2026 focus on the emergence of AI as the gatekeeper for discovery and recommendation, and what that means for leaders making decisions about competitive positioning.

7. Sinead Bovell, WAYE

Sinead Bovell is the founder of WAYE, a tech education company preparing young people and organisations for a future shaped by emerging technologies. An eleven-time United Nations speaker certified in AI ethics by MIT, she currently serves as an expert adviser to the UN AI Advisory Body. Vogue dubbed her the AI educator for the non-nerds.

Her keynotes are particularly powerful for organisations navigating generational workforce dynamics alongside AI transformation. She addresses one of the most underserved questions in the AI keynote market: if AI handles all the entry-level work, how do junior employees develop the experience and judgment to become senior experts? Her work on equitable AI adoption and ethical algorithmic decision making is grounded in both technical literacy and genuine policy expertise.

8. Pascal Bornet, Independent

Pascal Bornet is a globally recognised author and speaker on AI, automation, and agentic intelligence, with more than 20 years of experience at McKinsey and EY implementing AI initiatives for organisations worldwide. His book, Agentic Artificial Intelligence: Harnessing AI Agents to Reinvent Business, Work and Life (2025), explores the SPAR framework he uses to explain how autonomous AI systems function. He has been active at major conferences in 2026 including PegaWorld and Cisco Live.

His keynotes are particularly strong for organisations at the stage where AI is moving from chatbot to autonomous agent, executing multi-step business workflows with minimal human oversight. He connects the shift to agentic AI directly to the decision making structures organisations need to put in place before deploying systems that can take consequential actions on their behalf.

9. Azeem Azhar, Exponential View

Azeem Azhar is the founder of Exponential View, one of the most influential newsletters and podcasts for understanding the business and societal impact of emerging technology. His book Exponential: Order and Chaos in an Age of Accelerating Technology provides the strategic context that many AI keynotes lack. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, and a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and spoke at SXSW London in 2026.

His keynotes give boards and strategy teams the macro context for their AI investments by explaining why linear forecasting fails in exponential environments and what analytical frameworks replace it. He draws on his ongoing Exponential View research to provide material that reflects the current state of implementation rather than historical snapshots.

10. Heather E. McGowan, Independent

Heather E. McGowan is one of the most recognised future-of-work strategists globally. LinkedIn named her its number one global voice for education, and Forbes named her one of its 50 Leading Female Futurists. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has said she is "the oasis" when it comes to insights on the future of work.

She is the co-author of The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage (with Chris Shipley).

Her keynotes are built on a core insight that resonates deeply with organisations navigating AI transformation: the purpose of learning has changed. "What we automate atrophies," she said in an August 2025 interview with the American Association for Physician Leadership, explaining that when AI can do more of what humans used to do, the defining human capability becomes the ability to learn and adapt continuously.

11. Sol Rashidi, Sol Rashidi LLC

Sol Rashidi helped launch IBM's Watson and became one of the world's first Chief AI Officers. A former Fortune 100 executive with senior roles at several global companies including Estée Lauder and Merck, she has led more than 200 AI deployments worldwide. Her book Your AI Survival Guide gives enterprise leaders practical frameworks for navigating AI adoption without destroying organisational culture or decision-making quality.

Her keynotes are intensely practical. They focus on the specific decisions that boards and executive teams face when moving from AI strategy to AI implementation: which AI investments to make, how to evaluate AI vendors, how to build operating models that generate real return on AI investment, and how to govern AI adoption in a way that builds rather than erodes trust. She is a three-time TEDx speaker.

12. Amanda Johnstone, Transhuman

Amanda Johnstone is the founding CEO of Transhuman, a mental health and emotion-AI technology company. She was named a TIME Next Generation Leader in 2019, the first Australian to receive the honour and one of only ten globally that year. LinkedIn named her a Top Voice in Artificial Intelligence, and CEO Magazine recognised her as its Startup Executive of the Year.

Her keynotes are particularly effective for mixed audiences that include both technology enthusiasts and technology sceptics, because her communication style makes AI concepts accessible without oversimplifying the implications. Drawing on her work applying emotion AI to mental health and suicide prevention, reaching more than 80 countries, she addresses the people-first dimension of AI decision making that most technical AI speakers cannot.

13. Ross Dawson, Ross Dawson Consulting

Ross Dawson is one of Australia's most established voices on the intersection of humans and AI, and the author of five books including Thriving on Overload and the acclaimed Living Networks. His keynotes focus on how organisations can thrive with AI by building on what makes them distinctly human rather than treating AI as a replacement for human capacity.

His approach to AI and decision making centres on the idea that the quality of human judgment is not diminished by AI but can be enhanced when the human-AI relationship is designed well. He has delivered keynotes and executive workshops in more than 30 countries across six continents, and for Australian and Asia-Pacific audiences in particular, he is one of the most trusted voices on the strategic and human dimensions of AI transformation.

14. Dan Chuparkoff, Reinvention Labs

Dan Chuparkoff brings direct operational experience from Google, McKinsey, and Atlassian to his keynotes on AI and practical decision making for business audiences, and is now CEO of Reinvention Labs. His flagship keynote, AI and the Future of Everything, is built as a deliberately non-hype guide to what AI is good at, what it is not, and how to pair its strengths with human expertise for better decisions, creativity, and execution.

He is particularly effective with mixed-maturity audiences where some leaders are over-excited about AI and others are anxious, because his approach acknowledges both responses and provides practical frameworks that work regardless of where individuals sit on that spectrum. His ability to customise content with industry-specific use cases makes him a strong choice for organisations wanting practical AI guidance without technical depth.

15. Richard Foster-Fletcher, MKAI.org

Richard Foster-Fletcher is the Founder and Executive Chair of MKAI.org, a global responsible-AI organisation established in 2019. A former AI and CX Director at Oracle, he advises the UK Parliament, the United Nations Environment Programme, and Fortune 500 boards on ethical AI implementation. His keynotes are known for a counterintuitive approach that challenges audiences to examine how AI actually reshapes human judgment and organisational culture rather than simply accepting the efficiency narrative.

He focuses on governance-first AI strategy, helping executive teams understand the specific decisions they need to make about accountability, transparency, and human oversight before they deploy AI systems in consequential contexts. His advisory roles across UK Parliament and UN channels give his governance work a credibility that purely commercial speakers cannot match.

16. Daniel Susskind, Oxford

Daniel Susskind is a Senior Research Associate at Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI and the author of A World Without Work and co-author of The Future of the Professions. He is one of the most intellectually honest voices in the AI keynote market because he does not offer easy reassurance about the future of jobs or the decisions that AI will transform. His next book, What Should My Children Do? How to Flourish in the Age of AI, is due in 2026.

His keynotes present the evidence on AI's labour market impact with academic rigour and help executive audiences think seriously about what structural workforce changes actually mean for their organisations over a five to ten year horizon. For boards and senior leadership teams that want to govern AI adoption with genuine responsibility for their people, Susskind provides one of the most important perspectives available.

17. Ayesha Khanna, Addo AI

Dr Ayesha Khanna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addo AI, a global AI solutions firm headquartered in Singapore, and, since January 2026, also the founder of Amplify, an AI upskilling venture. She was named one of Southeast Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes and is recognised in Edelman's Top 50 AI Creators. She has advised boards and leadership teams at SMRT, Pfizer, Singtel, SOMPO, and government agencies across Asia on AI strategy and data-driven decision making.

Her keynotes combine global AI strategy with deep expertise in the Asia-Pacific market, making her particularly valuable for multinational organisations with significant regional operations. "Adoption is more important than execution," she said on Info-Tech Research Group's Digital Disruption podcast in September 2025, addressing why so many enterprise AI pilots stall before they scale.

18. Allie K. Miller, Open Machine

Allie K. Miller was formerly the Global Head of Machine Learning Business Development for Startups and Venture Capital at Amazon Web Services, and launched IBM Watson's first multimodal AI team. She was named to the TIME100 AI 2025 list and has delivered more than 200 talks on artificial intelligence to organisations including Google and Nvidia. She now leads Open Machine, the AI advisory firm she founded.

Her keynotes focus on the practical AI adoption decisions that organisations face right now, not the theoretical landscape of five years hence. She helps business leaders understand what AI is genuinely ready for in the next six to twelve months, what is still hype, and how to make investment decisions about AI that generate real return rather than impressive demonstrations.

19. Cathy O'Neil, ORCAA

Cathy O'Neil is a mathematician, data scientist, and the founder of ORCAA, a consultancy that provides algorithmic auditing services. Her book Weapons of Math Destruction, winner of the Euler Book Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award, examines the specific ways in which AI decision systems in hiring, lending, criminal justice, and healthcare can cause serious and disproportionate harm. She is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

Her keynotes address the accountability dimension of AI decision making that many AI strategy speakers overlook: the ways in which algorithmic systems encode bias, amplify inequality, and make consequential decisions that no human could interrogate or reverse. For executive audiences responsible for AI governance and risk, she provides one of the most grounded and practically challenging perspectives available.

20. Brian Evergreen, The Future Solving Company

Brian Evergreen is a global AI strategy adviser and the author of Autonomous Transformation. As Microsoft's former Global Head of Autonomous AI Co-Innovation, he helped Fortune 500 companies implement AI agents that redesign how workflows and decisions function across the organisation. Edelman named him one of its Top 50 AI Creators for 2025, and he was named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class the same year.

His keynotes address the governance and decision-making questions that organisations must answer before deploying agentic AI: what decisions can the agent make independently, what requires human approval, how do you audit what the agent has done, and how do you maintain meaningful accountability in a system that can act faster than human oversight can operate.

21. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, ManpowerGroup

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. His book I, Human explores how AI is reshaping the way people think, feel, and make decisions, and what that means for leadership, organisational culture, and talent strategy.

His keynotes bring the behavioural science dimension to AI and decision making that most technology-focused AI speakers do not provide. He examines how cognitive biases interact with AI systems, how AI changes what leadership competencies matter, and why the psychological conditions for AI adoption are as important as the technical infrastructure.

22. Elin Hauge, Helianthus AS

Elin Hauge is an AI strategist based in Oslo, Norway, and co-founder of Helianthus AS, whose work connects artificial intelligence to sustainable and profitable business decision making. She is a regular speaker at European executive events and brings a perspective on responsible AI adoption shaped by the rapidly shifting regulatory landscape created by the EU AI Act.

Her keynotes help executive audiences understand how to make AI investment decisions that are simultaneously commercially sound and governance-compliant, without treating these as competing objectives. "The future of artificial intelligence has to be human-more, not humanless," she wrote in a June 2026 article. She is particularly valuable for European organisations and for multinational businesses with significant European operations.

23. Noelle Russell, AI Leadership Institute

Noelle Russell is the Founder and CEO of the AI Leadership Institute, a five-time Microsoft AI MVP with direct operational experience from Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. Her keynotes help organisations build their first AI strategy with practical implementation roadmaps rather than abstract frameworks, and she is particularly effective for organisations at the early stages of their AI journey who need guidance on where to start.

Her work focuses on democratising AI decision making, helping organisations build AI literacy and strategic capability across their leadership teams rather than concentrating AI knowledge in a small technical team. For events focused on organisational readiness and capability building, she is one of the most practically useful speakers available.

24. Nikki Greenberg, Real Estate of the Future

Nikki Greenberg is a futurist and CEO of Real Estate of the Future, who helps organisations envision what their industries look like when AI is fully embedded in how decisions are made, and then work backwards to build practical roadmaps for getting there. She was named Speaker of the Year in the Trends and Technologies category at the 2025 Speaker Awards, and was a Top 3 finalist for Best AI and Technology Speaker the same year.

Her keynotes combine the long view of AI's transformative potential with specific, near-term decision frameworks that leadership teams can act on. She is particularly effective for organisations in industries, including real estate, infrastructure, and urban planning, that are beginning to grapple with how AI changes fundamental assumptions about how value is created and where decisions need to be made.

25. Zack Kass, Independent

Zack Kass spent three years as OpenAI's Head of Go-to-Market, building out the company's sales, solutions, and partnerships teams during the period generative AI moved from research breakthrough to enterprise infrastructure. His book, The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential, reached the LA Times and USA Today bestseller lists after its January 2026 release. He continues to advise Fortune 1000 boardrooms, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Samsung.

His keynotes argue that AI will expand human potential rather than eliminate it, when institutions are designed responsibly, and draw on more than 500 meetings inside Inc. 5000 boardrooms to ground that argument in what he has actually seen organisations get right and wrong about AI decisions.

A Note on My Own Work in This Space

In full transparency, I offer this service myself, so I have kept my own work separate from the list above. My most-requested keynote in 2026 is Leading Humans in the Age of AI, drawing on my work as a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and the author of Step Up or Step Out. It sits alongside the kind of broader leadership facilitation work covered in my directory of leadership consultants for nonprofits. If your organisation needs the leadership and team dynamics work that determines whether an AI investment actually changes how people decide and behave, that is exactly the kind of team I specialise in helping, and you'll find how to reach me at the end of this article.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

The speakers above represent the 25 this list is most confident in on both factual accuracy and active contribution to the AI and decision making conversation. Several other voices are doing genuinely important work in adjacent areas. Bernard Marr, the UK-based author of more than 20 books on AI and technology, provides some of the most accessible enterprise AI strategy content available. Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist at Futurist.com, is particularly strong for organisations wanting hopeful, research-driven AI foresight.

David Snowden, founder of The Cynefin Company, brings a complexity-based approach to AI and human decision making that is genuinely distinct from the mainstream AI keynote market. Rumman Chowdhury of Humane Intelligence is one of the most important voices on responsible AI governance globally.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Booking an AI and Decision Making Keynote Speaker

The most common mistake organisations make is booking an AI speaker who is excellent at explaining what AI is rather than what to do about it. In 2026, most executive audiences have already absorbed the basic AI narrative. What they need is specific, actionable guidance on the decisions their organisation faces in the next twelve months. Ask every prospective speaker: "What will our people do differently on Monday morning as a result of your keynote?" If the answer is vague, look elsewhere.

The second mistake is confusing follower count with relevance. Some of the most practically useful AI and decision making speakers in this list are not the most famous names in the space. The correlation between a speaker's social media following and their ability to shift how an executive team thinks and acts is weaker than most event planners assume. Focus on credibility, specificity, and fit with your audience's actual challenges.

The third mistake is not customising. A generic AI keynote delivered at your industry conference does less than a specifically tailored keynote delivered at a smaller event. The best speakers in this directory will research your industry, your organisation's AI maturity, and your specific strategic challenges before taking the stage. Confirm this in writing before you book.

The fourth mistake is ignoring the human side. Deloitte's 2026 data on AI governance bears this out: only one in five organisations has a mature governance model for autonomous AI agents. The AI transformation challenge in most organisations is not fundamentally a technology problem. It is a leadership, culture, and communication problem.

The technology works more often than the organisations deploying it do. Speakers who address only the technical dimensions of AI strategy leave the hardest part of the change challenge unaddressed, which is also why team dynamics under AI transformation is increasingly booked as its own, separate session rather than folded into a general AI keynote.

Implementation Guide: How to Choose and Book the Right Speaker

Start by defining the specific decision-making outcome you need from your event. Are you trying to help your board make better AI investment decisions? Reduce executive anxiety about AI adoption? Build shared language across a leadership team where technical and non-technical leaders struggle to communicate?

Help middle managers redesign their teams around AI tools? Each of these outcomes requires a different speaker.

Match the speaker's primary expertise to your organisation's stage in the AI journey. If your leadership team is still in the awareness phase, speakers like Ethan Mollick, Heather McGowan, and Amanda Johnstone provide evidence-based and accessible frameworks. If you have already invested in AI and are struggling with implementation quality, decision governance, or culture, speakers like Cassie Kozyrkov, Cathy O'Neil, and Richard Foster-Fletcher address the specific failure modes that emerge at the implementation stage. Event organisers focused specifically on the workforce and future-of-work angle may also want the companion directory of keynote speakers on AI and the future of work.

Fees for globally recognised AI and decision making keynote speakers vary widely, and international travel is one of the larger swing factors event organisers underestimate. Budget three to six months for booking lead times on high-demand speakers, and always ask for client references from events with audiences similar in profile to yours. The most useful references come not from the bureau or the speaker's website but from a conversation with the event organiser who booked them most recently.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the best keynote speaker globally on AI and decision making?

Cassie Kozyrkov, the founder of Decision Intelligence and Google's first Chief Decision Scientist, is widely regarded as the most credible keynote voice on the intersection of artificial intelligence and decision making. She created the field and trained more than 20,000 professionals at Google on its principles. The right choice for a specific event depends on whether the audience needs deep technical credibility, practical leadership frameworks, or both.

What is decision intelligence and why does it matter for executives?

Decision intelligence is the applied field that bridges data science, AI, and management science to improve how individuals and organisations make decisions. It matters for executives because AI does not make decisions; it makes predictions. The quality of the decisions made around those predictions, about which predictions to trust, which risks to accept, and which AI investments to prioritise, remains human.

How much does an AI keynote speaker cost?

In the Australian market, emerging AI speakers typically charge AUD $3,000 to $7,500, established professional speakers charge AUD $10,000 to $30,000 for a one-hour keynote, and tier-1 internationally recognised names exceed AUD $50,000, according to Speaker Advisor's 2026 fee guide. Many organisations find that combining a keynote with a workshop or facilitation session delivers better value per dollar than a standalone presentation. Organisations booking specifically within Australia and New Zealand can also see the region-specific directory of AI keynote speakers for Australia and New Zealand.

Can AI keynote speakers present effectively to non-technical audiences?

Yes, and for executive events this is actually the most important criterion. The speakers in this directory were selected specifically for their ability to make AI decision making concepts accessible to audiences who do not have technical backgrounds, without requiring prior AI knowledge.

What are the most in-demand AI and decision making keynote topics in 2026?

The four most requested topics in 2026 are: how to make better AI investment decisions at the board and C-suite level; how to maintain human judgment and accountability when AI is embedded in high-stakes processes; how to build decision-making governance structures for agentic AI systems that can act autonomously; and how to lead people through the uncertainty and anxiety that AI-driven change creates.

What should boards ask before deploying autonomous AI agents?

Boards should ask what decisions the agent is authorised to make independently, what requires human sign-off, how the agent's actions get audited after the fact, and what happens when the model or the risk tolerance needs to change. Only one in five organisations currently has a mature governance model for this, according to Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report, which is why several speakers in this directory build their keynotes specifically around this governance gap, and why organisations building a dedicated session around it often draw on the directory of AI ethics and governance keynote speakers.

Final Thoughts

The best AI and decision making keynote speaker for your event is the one who moves your specific audience from where they are to where they need to be. In 2026, most executive audiences have absorbed the basic AI narrative. They do not need to be convinced that AI matters. They need specific, practical, credible guidance on the decisions their organisation faces right now: which AI to trust, how to govern it, how to lead their people through the change, and how to make the investment decisions that will determine whether their organisation captures value from AI or merely costs it.

The 25 speakers in this directory represent strong voices globally on exactly those questions. Whether an event needs the rigour of Cassie Kozyrkov's Decision Intelligence framework, the economic clarity of Ajay Agrawal's prediction lens, or the governance honesty of Cathy O'Neil's algorithmic accountability work, the right voice exists in this list for the specific event brief.

Organisations that get AI right over the next three years will be the ones that make consistently better decisions about it: which AI to adopt, how to govern it, and how to bring their people with them through the change. If you'd like to talk through which of these speakers, or which combination of keynote and facilitation, fits your event, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

I'm Jonno White, a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, keynote speaker and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, certified through Patrick Lencioni's Table Group, and the author of Step Up or Step Out, with more than 10,000 copies sold. I host The Leadership Conversations Podcast and work with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world.

Sources

McKinsey. (2025). The State of AI. McKinsey & Company.

World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025. World Economic Forum.

Deloitte. (2026). The State of AI in the Enterprise. Deloitte.

Speaker Advisor. (2026). 2026 Guide to Australian Conference Speaker Fees.

Next Read: 50 Best Keynote Speakers on AI Strategy for Executives (2026)

Your executive team needs to understand artificial intelligence. Not the algorithms, not the architecture, not the code. They need to understand what AI means for your business model, your competitive position, your workforce, and your strategic decisions over the next three to five years. That is why finding the right keynote speaker on AI strategy for executives has become one of the most consequential booking decisions event organisers and leadership teams make in 2026.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/keynote-speakers-ai-strategy-executives