Book Zack Kass through The Keynote Curators

Biography

Zack Kass is a global AI advisor, researcher, keynote speaker, the former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI, and bestselling author of The Next RenAIssance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential. 

At OpenAI, Zack led the teams responsible for sales, partnerships, and customer success, turning the company’s cutting-edge research into real-world business solutions. 

As an executive advisor, he has personally advised leaders spanning dozens of industries in 124 cities across 20 countries. He works with Fortune 1,000 boardrooms and leadership teams—including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Amgen—to help leaders deploy AI at scale and navigate the rapidly evolving landscape.

His mission is to ensure that individuals, businesses, and governments are active participants in the AI-powered future by making AI technology both understandable and actionable. He is recognized as one of the foremost thinkers in applied AI, with insights featured in Fortune, Newsweek, CNN, Entrepreneur, AdAge, and Business Insider.

Beyond his advisory work, Zack currently collaborates with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and The University of Virginia, studying the future of work and intelligence. He is also the AI for Conservation Fellow at Conservation International.

He holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently lives in Santa Barbara, California with his family.

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Videos

Speech TopicsExpand each topic to learn more

Intelligent Transformation

While most organizations focus on deploying new tools, intelligent transformation requires a more fundamental question: what becomes possible when intelligence is no longer the constraint? Drawing on years spent advising Fortune 500 executives navigating AI adoption, Zack explores how leaders can rethink not only how work gets done, but where people create value, and what their organizations can become. He addresses the professional identity shifts that make transformation difficult and shows leaders how to build trust, accountability, and agency with their teams. Zack’s keynote is followed by a live, consultative Q&A where he applies these concepts directly to your sector's pressing challenges and real-time audience questions, leaving audiences with practical frameworks for turning abundant intelligence into progress. 

The Automation Boundary

If you could automate everything in your life and business, where would you stop? Zack introduces the Automation Boundary, a framework for distinguishing between the friction that holds us back and the friction that helps us grow. Rather than asking what AI can automate, he explores what it should and should not, and why the answer will shape the future of work, education, relationships, and society. This presentation is capped off by a live Q&A where he applies these concepts directly to your sector's pressing challenges, leaving audiences with a clear model for deciding what to automate and what to preserve.

The Next RenAIssance

AI is the most powerful tool we've ever built for expanding human potential and human flourishing. But that outcome isn't guaranteed. Rather than painting a utopian or dystopian future, Zack draws on 15+ years at the frontier of AI to demonstrate how technology expands what's possible, but human choice determines where it leads. This talk is followed by an open Q&A session designed to address the specific questions and strategic choices facing your audience today, leaving them with practical frameworks, renewed optimism, and a compelling reason to build the future. 

The Intelligence Briefing (Fireside / Q&A)

A dynamic, conversation-driven session tailored to the questions that matter most to your audience. Drawing on his experience at the forefront of AI and advising leaders across industries, Zack applies his perspective to the specific forces shaping your organization, industry, and community. From the future of work and education to leadership, economic opportunity, and the societal implications of increasingly capable AI, no two conversations are the same. Moderated by a host or driven directly by audience questions, the session gives participants the opportunity to explore the issues most relevant to them and hear Zack think through what they mean in real time.

Testimonials

Zack helped us plan our entire AI strategy. He just gets it.
– John Murphy | President | The Coca-Cola Company
Your performance was 1st class. Great insights, and you pitched at the right level for our audience. Everyone said it was the best session of the day! It was brilliant.
– Jeff McMillan | Chief Analytics and Data Officer | Morgan Stanley
Zack is easily the most business-savvy AI expert I know.
– Josh Tobin | CEO | Gantry
We recommend all of our clients talk to Zack about their corporate AI strategy. He's seen it all and can connect dots faster than anyone.
– Arjun Prakash | Co-founder & CEO | Distyl AI
Few people understand how to apply AI to real-world problems as well as Zack. He's been in the industry for so long and has a remarkable knack for helping people learn what he knows.
– Lukas Biewald |CEO & Co-Founder | Weights & Biases
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Insights from Zack Kass

Watch our full conversation here: Will AI Make Us More Human?

"We build a technology that solves most of our problems that is equivalent to us intellectually and obviously much more scalable, and that in the process we basically solve a bunch of problems that we've been working on for a long time, and our brains simply start devolving."

- Zack Kass

"And at the same time, the standard of living should be continuing to improve (with AI), and it's better to be born today than it has ever been to be born. This is just a fact, and this trend should continue.

- Zack Kass

"In the future, not be able to attach to our sense of self the same connection we had to our jobs as every human in most of human history has done so."

- Zack Kass

"I really worry that if we're not careful, we will simply sort of devolve to a WALL-E state (...) because we simply say, 'You know what? The most interesting thing we can do is eat food and consume content.'"

- Zack Kass

"We will blur the lines between what is real and what is not. And we will actually lose our way by sort of missing the whole point of what AI should be."

- Zack Kass

"Every Industrial Revolution saw a net increase in 50%, at least 50% new jobs per capita. The world came online twice, and it's gonna come online again."

- Zack Kass

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