AI in Business Keynote Speakers

Start with the question in the room

Every business audience has one question about AI sitting under all the others. In some rooms it's "what do I do first?" In others it's "will this cost my staff their jobs?" or "should we be worried at all?"

Work out which question your audience is asking before you look at a single speaker. It decides almost everything else, from the kind of speaker you need to how you brief them.

The quickest way to find out is to ask. Send registered attendees a two-question survey a month before the event: what do you use AI for now, and what do you most want to know? You'll get a clearer answer than any planning meeting can give you, and the speaker will be glad of the data.

Practitioner or futurist: the real difference

AI speakers mostly fall into two groups. Both are useful. They just do different jobs.

A practitioner uses AI inside a business they run. Their talk is built from what they did, what it cost, what broke and what they would do again. The value is that the audience can copy it. The limit is that the examples come from one business, and the speaker may not cover the wider research.

A futurist or researcher studies where AI is heading. Some are academics with decades of research behind them. Others track technology across many industries and explain the patterns. Their value is perspective. They help a room see the bigger shifts and think about strategy. The limit is that people can leave inspired but unsure what to do on Monday.

On this page, Alex Tran, David Caruso and Adam Franklin sit on the practical side. Toby Walsh is the researcher. Amanda Johnstone, Steve Sammartino and Paul Spain are futurists, and Su-Yen Wong brings the view from the boardroom and from advising CEOs.

When a practitioner is the right call

Book a practitioner when your audience runs or manages businesses and wants to act. Chambers of commerce, franchise networks, industry associations and seller groups usually fall into this camp. These people sign off on spending, so they want to know what a tool does and what it takes to set up.

A good practitioner talk names real tasks. Answering customer questions at 2am. Following up quotes that went cold. Checking cash flow without waiting for the bookkeeper. Writing product descriptions in bulk. When the audience recognises their own week in the examples, they lean in.

Within the practical group, look for the closest match to your crowd. Alex Tran spent about ten years running his own online stores before co-founding IntellextAI, which builds AI agents and chatbots for ecommerce, so he fits online sellers. David Caruso has rebuilt BuyFactory.direct, a group of 90+ brands, around AI since early 2026 while holding headcount flat. He talks about AI as a staff member, which fits rooms of small and mid-sized business owners. Adam Franklin works in AI advisory through Bluewire Media and has talks aimed at professional services firms.

One disclosure, since it matters here. BuyFactory.direct uses IntellextAI chatbots across hundreds of its store websites, and that working relationship is why Alex and David are both featured in this directory.

When a futurist or researcher is the right call

Book a futurist or researcher when your audience needs to think before it acts. Leadership offsites, strategy days, board events and large conference openers often need this. The people in the room are setting direction, not choosing an app.

A researcher like Toby Walsh, Scientia Professor of AI at UNSW Sydney, can explain what AI can and can't do in plain language. That matters when your audience is split between hype and fear. He lists a talk called Many Fears About AI Are Wrong, and another on the ethical challenges in AI.

Futurists cover more ground. Steve Sammartino's talks run from AI to robotics and retail. Amanda Johnstone speaks on the agent economy and the AI-transformed workforce. Paul Spain covers AI in organisations as well as cyber risk and digital trust. Su-Yen Wong speaks on the future of work and on technology, strategy and leadership, drawing on her work with CEOs and boards.

The test is simple. If your attendees will go home and make a decision in the next quarter, a futurist gives them the frame. If they will go home and try something next week, a practitioner gives them the steps.

Or book one of each

Plenty of good programmes do. Put the big-picture speaker in the morning to set out the questions. Put the practical speaker after lunch, when people are ready for steps. The two talks support each other, and the audience gets the why and the how on the same day.

If you go this way, tell each speaker who the other one is. A practitioner can then pick up a point the futurist raised and show it working in a real business. That joined-up feel is hard to get any other way.

Check what the speaker actually does with AI

A lot of people now call themselves AI speakers. Some have built AI tools, run businesses on them or studied AI for years. Others mostly repeat the articles your audience has already read. You want the first kind.

For a practitioner, ask what their own business uses AI for right now, and what they tried that didn't work. A real operator answers both quickly and with detail. For a researcher or futurist, look at their books, their published talks and their research or advisory work.

Check facts on the speaker's own website. Treat numbers on bureau pages as the speaker's own claims unless you can see them backed up somewhere else. And ask for a recording. Not a showreel, a full talk from the last six months. AI moves too fast for a two-year-old video to tell you much.

How to brief an AI speaker

A good brief is the difference between a talk that fits your room and a talk written for someone else's. Keep it to one page and cover these points.

Who is in the room. Industry, business size, job titles and roughly how many people. A room of 40 franchise owners needs different examples from a room of 400 corporate managers.

Where they are with AI. Share your survey results. If half the room has never opened an AI tool, the speaker needs to start lower. If most use one daily, the basics can go.

The one question. Tell the speaker the question your audience most wants answered, and ask them to answer it plainly somewhere in the talk.

What people should walk away with. Be specific. "Two jobs each owner can hand to AI this month" is a brief. "Get them excited about AI" isn't.

Words to avoid. If your members switch off at jargon, say so. Ask for plain names for tools and plain descriptions of what they do.

The programme around them. Who speaks before and after, and what they cover. This stops two speakers telling the same story an hour apart.

Ask for fresh material

An AI talk ages faster than almost any other kind of keynote. Tools and prices change, and what was hard last year is easy now. Ask the speaker when they last updated the talk and whether they'll refresh it close to your date.

Practitioners have an edge here, because their examples come from work they're doing now. Researchers and futurists keep up in other ways, through new research and client work. Either way, it's a fair question.

Agree the rules on selling

Some of the best AI speakers run AI companies. That's often why they know the subject so well. It also means you should agree on selling before the day.

Put it in the brief. No product pitch from the stage. Results and lessons are welcome and the company can get one mention, but the talk should help someone who never buys a thing from them. Most good speakers already work this way and will be glad you raised it.

Plan the tech and any demo

A live AI demo can be the best five minutes of a conference. It can also be the worst, if the venue Wi-Fi drops halfway through. If your speaker wants to show something live, organise a wired connection or a dedicated hotspot and test screen sharing in the room. Ask them to have a recorded backup ready too.

For virtual and hybrid events, run a tech check the day before. Make sure remote viewers can read the screen. Small text on an AI tool can be impossible to read on a laptop at the back of a room, or on a phone at home.

Make room for questions

AI talks draw more questions than most, because people want to ask about their own business and their own staff. Leave at least 15 minutes for Q&A, and more for a smaller room.

Have a few questions ready in case the floor is slow to start. What was the first job you handed to AI? What went wrong? What would you never hand over? What should someone do this week if they've done nothing so far? Those four draw out the detail people remember.

Compare like with like on cost

Speaker fees vary a lot, and most speakers quote per event. On this page only David Caruso publishes a fee band ($3,500 to $5,000 AUD, quoted per event), so for everyone else you'll need to ask. When you compare quotes, check what's included: preparation time, a tailored version of the talk, a workshop or breakout, travel, and whether you can record the session.

A half-day workshop after a keynote can be good value on an AI topic, because people want to try the tools with someone who knows them. Ask whether the speaker offers one.

After the event

Send attendees a short follow-up within a week. List the tools and ideas the speaker mentioned, with links where you have them. People forget the names of tools quickly, and that email is often what turns a good talk into something people actually use.

Then ask the room what they tried. That tells you more about the talk than any feedback form, and it tells you who to book next year.