You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow. Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here. -Mark Schaefer
The AI speaker circuit is crowded. Every conference has a roster full of people who discovered ChatGPT in late 2022 and now command five-figure fees to tell audiences what a prompt is. Finding genuinely valuable voices in all that noise takes work.
This list cuts through it. These ten speakers bring real expertise, distinct perspectives, and — critically — something useful for the people sitting in front of them.
1. Mark Schaefer
Most AI speakers focus on the technology. Mark Schaefer focuses on the customer — and that gap is where the most important business questions live.
A globally recognized marketing author, keynote speaker, and faculty member at Rutgers University, Schaefer has spent years studying how technology reshapes human behavior. His newest keynote, Beyond the Prompts: Five Ways AI Rewires Your Customers, is unlike anything else on the circuit. Drawing on cognitive science, social psychology, and consumer research, he maps five profound shifts already underway: the erosion of deep thinking, the rise of AI companionship, the collapse of shared truth, and the reinvention of creativity, among others. His argument — that your customer has already been quietly, profoundly changed — lands differently than another slide deck about implementation.
He has given this speech to associations, universities, and major companies like P&G and McKinsey. One advantage of this talk is that even in highly-regulated industries, the psychology of AI is relevant and actionable.
Schaefer is the author of multiple bestselling books including KNOWN, Audacious, and How AI Changes Your Customers. His speaker ratings are consistently among the highest at every event he attends. For marketing and business leadership audiences, he is arguably the only speaker addressing the psychology of AI with this level of depth and research backing. If you want to understand not what AI does, but what it does to people, Schaefer is your speaker.
2. Paul Roetzer
Paul Roetzer is one of the world’s leading voices on responsible AI for marketing, business, education, and society. He founded the Marketing AI Institute, co-authored Marketing Artificial Intelligence, and created the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON), building the most organized infrastructure for AI education in the marketing world.
He has presented hundreds of AI keynotes and workshops at corporate events and conferences, including ANA Masters of Data & Tech, Content Marketing World, INBOUND, and MarketingProfs B2B Forum. His presentations are deliberately designed to make AI approachable and actionable — not theoretical — which is exactly what most business audiences need. As a speaker, Roetzer is focused on making AI approachable and actionable for marketers and business leaders.
3. Sandy Carter
Sandy Carter is an exceptional keynote speaker, blending deep technical expertise with inspiring leadership insight. With senior roles at IBM and AWS, and as COO of Unstoppable Domains, she delivers practical, real-world strategies on AI and innovation.
Author of the bestselling book AI First, Human Always, Carter has been recognized as a Microsoft MSN Top 10 AI Entrepreneur, featured in Adweek’s AI Power 100, and honored by Constellation Research as a Top AI Business Leader. She has delivered keynote addresses at global forums such as CES, SXSW, and Davos, consistently rated among the top speakers. An accomplished global speaker, she has captivated audiences of up to 50,000 attendees in over 91 countries. Few speakers combine that kind of executive pedigree with genuine energy from the stage.
4. Andy Crestodina
Andy Crestodina occupies a distinct lane: he is the practitioner’s practitioner. Co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, an award-winning digital agency in Chicago, Crestodina has provided digital marketing advice to more than 1,000 businesses over more than two decades, and has written over 600 articles on content strategy, SEO, GA4, AI, and visitor psychology.
He gives up to 100 presentations per year and is a frequent repeat speaker at many of the top conferences. His approach to AI is grounded and immediately useful — he’s interested in what tools and workflows actually do for marketers, not what they might eventually do. He’s been tracking the major disruption in search closely, noting that prospects are increasingly starting with AI, asking questions like “What’s right for me?” or “Who’s the best partner?” — and helping brands understand how to show up in those AI-generated recommendations. For content and digital marketing audiences, Crestodina is a reliable top-rated choice.
5. Ashley Gross
Ashley Gross has been integrating AI into workflows since 2020, well before apps like ChatGPT took center stage, and has helped generate a $25 million pipeline in just three months using AI-powered strategies.
She is the founder of The Prompt Community, where she educates thousands on the safe and effective use of AI through workshops and online courses, and hosts weekly sessions with AI founders discussing the ethics, mission, and responsible use of AI tools. Her keynotes are tailored for tech leaders and executives who are making consequential AI decisions before outcomes are fully proven — a positioning that reflects real organizational reality. She has spoken at HumanX, MIT, and the HFTP Annual Convention, delivering presentations that leave audiences inspired and informed. An emerging voice with a strong practitioner foundation.
6. Allie K. Miller
Allie K. Miller was named one of the most influential people in AI by TIME in 2025. She spent time living in a 20-person AI house in San Francisco alongside researchers and founders from leading AI organizations, and is the founder of Open Machine, having previously led AI initiatives at IBM and AWS. She focuses on converting people from being anxious about AI to seeing it as a source of agency — which makes her particularly effective with audiences in the middle of organizational AI transitions. Her energy on stage matches her LinkedIn presence, which has made her the most followed AI business voice on the platform.
7. Zack Kass
Zack Kass is the former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI, where he built the sales, partnerships, and customer success teams that turned the company from a research lab into a global commercial force, growing revenue from $1 million to over $2 billion during his tenure. He was inside the building when ChatGPT launched.
Having sat in more than 500 boardrooms across 20 countries, he has advised Fortune 1,000 executives on long-term AI strategy. His book The Next RenAIssance became a USA Today and LA Times bestseller. The case he makes — that AI expands human potential rather than threatening it — is an optimistic but well-argued counterpoint to the fear-heavy narratives dominating too many conference agendas.
8. Amy Webb
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist and founder of the Future Today Institute, best known for her rigorous annual technology trend reports. Where many AI speakers speculate, Webb builds scenario frameworks. She gives audiences tools to develop their own anticipatory strategies — reading signals early, building scenario plans, and making technology decisions that remain sound across multiple possible futures. Her combination of rigorous research and sharp presentation style makes her one of the most requested speakers for C-suite and board-level audiences globally. For organizations that need strategic foresight rather than tactical tips, she is the name to know.
9. Brian Solis
Brian Solis is a globally recognized futurist and digital anthropologist who has spent decades studying how technology reshapes organizations. His focus isn’t on tools or tactics — it’s on what it actually means to become an AI-first company, and he gives strategic, tangible direction that translates into actionable strategy. Solis has an unusual ability to occupy the space between the technical and the human, making him effective for audiences trying to understand organizational culture change, not just software adoption.
10. Andrew Ng
No list of serious AI speakers is complete without Andrew Ng. As the founding lead of the Google Brain team and former Chief Scientist at Baidu, Ng helped establish deep learning as the foundation of modern AI. His keynotes are consistently cited as the clearest available introduction to AI strategy for non-technical leaders, and his ability to frame where AI is actually heading — not where the headlines say it is — gives executive audiences a practical lens rather than a science fiction one. He’s the floor-setter: if your event needs to build a shared foundation of AI understanding before getting into strategy, Ng is the place to start.
A Note on Choosing the Right AI Speaker
The best AI speaker for your event depends almost entirely on what problem you’re trying to solve. Roetzer and Crestodina are built for marketing teams ready to act. Ng and Webb are built for leadership teams that need orientation and foresight. Kass and Miller are strong for audiences anxious about change. And Schaefer fills a gap nobody else does: the psychological and behavioral transformation already happening in your customers — which is ultimately the question every marketer and business leader needs to answer.
Whatever your audience needs, avoid the generic. The AI speaker market has enough people narrating the obvious. Book someone with a point of view.
