07 Apr Navigating the Future of AI and Tech:
Four AI keynote speakers worth a general session slot: Gina Bianchini, Brian Solis, Crystal Washington, and Ayesha Khanna. Each covers a different angle on the same problem, which is what to actually do about AI rather than what it might someday become. All four are available through Collaborative Agency Group.
Here is what each one covers and how to pick between them.
What to Look for in AI Keynote Speakers
The market is crowded with speakers who describe AI without helping anyone act on it. The screening question is simple: does the talk end with the audience knowing what changes on Monday, or only that change is coming?
Two other filters matter. First, audience match. A talk built for engineers will lose a room of association members, and a talk built for general audiences will bore a technical one. Second, shelf life. AI content dates fast, so ask when the deck was last rebuilt, not just when the speaker last spoke.
On budget, most corporate AI keynotes land in the $15,000 to $40,000 range. See our breakdown of keynote speaker fees for what each tier includes.
Gina Bianchini: Community and Network Effects
Gina Bianchini is founder and CEO of Mighty Networks. She works at the point where technology meets human behavior, and her keynotes cover the evolution of digital communities, creator-led platforms, and how organizations use network effects rather than reach.
Best fit for associations and membership organizations, where retention and engagement are the business model, not a marketing metric. Also strong for companies rethinking how customers connect to each other rather than only to the brand.
Brian Solis: Digital Transformation and Customer Experience
Brian Solis is a futurist, digital anthropologist, and best-selling author who has covered digital disruption across multiple technology cycles. He speaks on how AI and automation are reshaping customer expectations, employee experience, and organizational structure, framed through what he calls the Novel Economy.
Best fit for executive audiences and leadership summits. The historical context is the differentiator: he places current AI against prior disruption cycles, which helps senior audiences separate genuine structural change from noise.
Crystal Washington: Translating Tech for Non-Technical Audiences
Crystal Washington works as a technology translator, helping non-technical professionals understand and use current tools. She covers AI, automation, data privacy, and digital wellness, and she is deliberately practical about it.
Best fit for the broadest range of audiences on this list, from executives to front-line staff. Planners who have booked her point to the same strength: she makes the material usable without dumbing it down, which is the hard part for a mixed room.
Ayesha Khanna: AI Strategy, Ethics, and Smart Cities
Ayesha Khanna is co-founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an AI advisory firm. She has advised organizations and governments on AI strategy, and she speaks on human-machine collaboration, smart city infrastructure, and building governance frameworks around increasingly autonomous systems.
Best fit for international organizations, public sector audiences, and any group where AI governance is a live agenda item rather than a future one. Her work across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East gives her a genuinely non-US-centric read on adoption.
How to Choose Between Them
Match the speaker to the decision your audience is facing. If the question is engagement and retention, Bianchini. If it is enterprise transformation strategy, Solis. If your room is broad and non-technical, Washington. If it is governance, ethics, or global deployment, Khanna.
If you want to see more of the roster first, browse our technology speakers and futurists pages, or read how to book a speaker.
The Bottom Line
The best AI keynote speakers close the gap between what the technology can do and what your audience should do about it. Bianchini, Solis, Washington, and Khanna cover community, transformation, translation, and governance respectively, so the right pick depends on the decision in front of your audience rather than on who has the biggest platform. Collaborative Agency Group can narrow it to one before you commit.
Programming an AI session? Tell us your audience, their technical level, and your budget, and we will tell you which of these four fits or recommend someone better suited. No obligation.