Top AI Keynote Speakers for Higher Education {Ranked by Institutional Track Record, Not Follower Count.}
The AI keynote speakers actually shaping how universities adopt AI in 2026. Ranked by institutional track record, not follower count.
Three things event teams actually care about
Do they take keynote bookings?
Fame is irrelevant if the speaker never appears outside their own company's events.
Do they customize for your audience?
A stock lecture is a video you could have streamed. Customization is what you're booking.
Have they operated AI in the real world?
Not just researched or invested in it — deployed it inside real organizations.
Why this {list is different}
Alex Goryachev advises the California State University system on AI adoption and governance. He has been Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University since 2022. Before that, he shaped Cisco's 1.1 billion dollar innovation portfolio across 14 countries. This ranking applies the same lens to the voices shaping higher-ed AI strategy: real institutional experience first, public profile second.
Top 10 Speakers {Ranked)
Alex Goryachev — {the bookable practitioner}
Goryachev is the rare higher education AI speaker whose credentials are institutional rather than observational. He has been Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University since 2022, and since 2025 he has advised the California State University system on AI adoption and governance across 22 campuses and 460,000 students, including the $17M ChatGPT Edu deployment that made CSU one of the largest institutional AI rollouts in American higher education.
Before that, he spent nearly two decades at Cisco, where he served as Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers. He shaped a $1.1B innovation portfolio that generated more than $400M in revenue and built innovation centers across 14 countries on 5 continents. That background is why his campus sessions tend to skip the technology explainer and go straight to the harder material: how institutions actually change, and what governance looks like when it has to survive contact with a faculty senate.
He has delivered more than 310 keynotes across 6 continents, with 98% of clients saying they would recommend him, measured through Talkadot. Sessions are built around the institution's real situation, whether that is a system office writing its first AI policy or a board that needs a straight answer about what the licensing spend is buying.
Ethan Mollick
Mollick studies how people actually work with AI, not how vendors say they should. His research at Wharton's Generative AI Labs tracks the gap between policy documents and classroom reality, and his writing reaches more working faculty than any single university's internal memo ever could.
His book Co-Intelligence reframed the assignment for millions of managers and instructors: AI is a team member to direct, not a search engine to query. That framing now shapes how provosts talk about AI literacy requirements.
He treats every new model release as a fresh experiment rather than a settled verdict, which is the posture higher-ed leaders need most: certainty is the wrong goal when the tools change every semester.
C. Edward Watson
Watson sits inside the organization that sets curricular standards for hundreds of member institutions, which means his AI guidance reaches deans and curriculum committees before it reaches the general public.
His work with AAC&U on AI-integrated general education has pushed the conversation past plagiarism detection and toward a harder question: what should a degree actually certify when a model can draft the essay.
He speaks to the accreditation and assessment audience specifically, translating fast-moving AI capability into language that survives a faculty senate vote.
Phillip Dawson
Dawson has spent his career on assessment integrity, which made him one of the first researchers to treat generative AI as an assessment-design problem rather than a discipline problem.
His work at Deakin's CRADLE center asks the question most universities avoid: if a task can be completed by AI in seconds, was it measuring the right thing to begin with. That reframes the entire conversation from catching cheaters to redesigning what counts as evidence of learning.
His research now informs assessment policy well beyond Australia, cited in U.S. and U.K. institutional guidance on AI-resistant task design.
Tricia Bertram Gallant
Bertram Gallant ran a campus integrity office years before generative AI made the job harder, so her read on the problem starts from institutional process, not panic.
Her work through the International Center for Academic Integrity has shaped how hundreds of U.S. campuses write AI-use policy, favoring clear expectations over blanket bans that students route around anyway.
She argues that policy written for a static syllabus cannot govern a tool that changes capability every few months, and that the real fix is teaching judgment, not tightening enforcement.
Lance Eaton
Lance Eaton works on generative AI inside a large research university. Policy questions arrive faster than anyone can answer them there. He holds a PhD in higher education from UMass Boston and a master's in instructional design. He has spent years on the practical side of teaching and learning, not the commentary side.
He writes the AI+Edu=Simplified newsletter. He has published on institutional AI policy in EDUCAUSE Review, including how campuses build a generative AI policy across departments that disagree with each other. That cross-campus focus sets his material apart from most AI talks. He treats faculty resistance and student use as things to understand, not problems to manage away.
For provosts, CTL directors, and academic integrity committees, Eaton is useful because he has sat through the same governance meetings his audiences sit through. He speaks regularly at higher education conferences. His frameworks are built for institutions that need something workable by next semester.
Jenay Robert
Jenay Robert runs the research that most higher-ed AI strategy decks borrow from without saying so. She has authored or co-authored the EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Studies since 2024, including the 2025 edition, "Into the Digital AI Divide." It surveyed institutions on AI strategy and leadership, policy, use cases, and workforce readiness. In January 2026 she published "The Impact of AI on Work in Higher Education," a study of how staff and faculty actually use these tools, not how leadership hopes they do.
The findings are why she belongs on a stage in front of provosts and cabinets. In her 2026 study, 92 percent of institutions reported some kind of work-related AI strategy, and 94 percent of respondents said they had used AI tools for work. Only 54 percent were aware of any institutional policy governing that use, and only 13 percent of institutions measure return on investment for the AI tools they have bought. Those numbers reframe the conversation from should we adopt AI to we already adopted it, and nobody wrote it down.
What distinguishes Robert is that she does not sell a platform or a prediction. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction from Penn State, and came out of Teaching and Learning with Technology there. She reads institutional data with a teaching background, not a vendor's one. For a campus that keeps arguing from anecdotes, she supplies the sector-wide baseline that ends the argument.
Lev Gonick
Lev Gonick runs enterprise technology at Arizona State University. He is in charge of infrastructure, applications, and analytics at one of the largest universities in the country. Before ASU, he served as CIO at Case Western Reserve University for more than a decade. He co-founded DigitalC, a nonprofit focused on broadband access and connected infrastructure.
His perspective is operational. ASU's approach to making AI tools broadly available across the institution has drawn attention from other campuses trying to solve the same problem. Gonick has spoken publicly about how that rollout worked and what it required behind the scenes. He speaks internationally on technology and the future of education.
For trustees, CIOs, and cabinet-level leadership, Gonick is the rare speaker who has signed the contracts and owned the outcomes. He talks about AI adoption as a systems and procurement problem, which is closer to what most institutional leaders are actually wrestling with.
David Ebert
David Ebert became the University of Arizona's first Chief AI and Data Science Officer in April 2025. He reports to the senior vice president for research, innovation and impact. His mandate is unusually concrete for an AI leadership role: build a new Data Science Institute, coordinate a university-wide AI and health initiative, help develop a computer science engineering program, and pursue federal research funding. He also holds the Computer Science Engineering Endowed Innovation Chair. It was created by a 3.5 million dollar anonymous gift. He also has a tenured faculty appointment in electrical and computer engineering.
He had already done a version of this job once. At the University of Oklahoma, he served as chief AI officer and associate vice president for research and partnerships. He directed the Data Institute for Societal Challenges as Gallogly Chair Professor there. Before that, he was Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue. He also directed the Department of Homeland Security's Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments center. He is an IEEE Fellow and received the IEEE Computer Society VGTC Technical Achievement Award.
That combination is rare on higher-ed AI panels. Ebert is a working researcher with genuine technical standing. He has also had to answer for budgets, org charts, and federal grant pipelines at two large public universities. Institutions weighing whether to create a chief AI officer position, and what that person should actually own, get a candid account from someone who has stood up the function twice, not theorized about it.
Joseph E. Aoun
Aoun has led Northeastern since 2006 as its seventh president. He wrote the book on this topic before most people had a reason to care. "Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" came out from MIT Press in 2017, years ahead of ChatGPT, and MIT Press published a revised and updated edition in 2024. Its central idea is humanics: a curriculum built on technological literacy, data literacy, and human literacy. Under his tenure, Northeastern grew into a global system spanning 13 campuses in North America and the UK, with co-op placements in more than 140 countries. He holds a PhD in linguistics and philosophy from MIT and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For higher-ed leaders, the value is that he has already put a version of this idea into practice. His 2025 speaking run makes that concrete. He proposed Northeastern's model as a framework for the AI generation at a Johns Hopkins AI leadership summit in June. He keynoted the IACAC conference in Boston in July alongside Northeastern's chief enrollment officer. He closed out October with a fireside keynote at the Times Higher Education Global AI Summit in Toronto, where he put the stakes plainly: what's at stake for us in higher ed is to remain relevant in the age of AI. He argues institutions should give early adopters more room instead of resisting change, and reminds audiences that AI does not understand context.
He is the only sitting university president on this list. Everyone else here speaks as faculty, researcher, technology executive, or industry practitioner. Those are legitimate vantage points with real limits. Aoun speaks from the seat that has to fund the strategy, defend it to trustees and faculty governance, and live with the enrollment consequences. Presidents and provosts tend to listen differently to a peer who signs the budget than to a consultant who does not.
What Event Organizers and Leaders Say — 98% Recommend Alex
Eye-opening, refreshingly human, and capable of building a shared vision around agentic AI — that's how leaders at Coca-Cola, AWS, and Disney describe Alex Goryachev's AI keynotes and employee innovation workshops.
Innovation for everyone
Alex turns AI into practical concepts that land with executives, HR, sales, engineering and faculty alike. It is the same approach he used building and running Cisco's Global Innovation Centers in 14 countries, anchored at universities and spanning cultures and generations.
Built around your audience
Across 310+ keynotes, workshops and advisory engagements on six continents, no two have been the same. Alex builds every program around your audience's challenges, industry and goals, from agentic AI strategy and the future of work to innovation culture.
Value that lasts
Alex's programs end with deployment: frameworks used inside Cisco, Dell, Pfizer and IBM and documented in his WSJ bestseller Fearless Innovation. Workshops and advisory install them in your team, so they keep running long after the session.
Proven where it counts
Two decades of AI and innovation work where the stakes are real: Alex shaped Cisco's $1.1B innovation portfolio, ran innovation programs for three Olympic Games and has advised Dell's GenAI practice, Amgen and the California State University system. Every engagement is measured through verified attendee feedback.
Your team will thank you
A keynote, a hands-on workshop, a virtual session or multi-month advisory, for enterprises, universities and associations alike. Last quarter, 99% of 676 verified attendees found his talks valuable.
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Frequently asked questions
If you don't see what you need, message Alex directly using the form above.
Who is the best AI keynote speaker?
The best AI keynote speaker is a practitioner who has deployed AI inside a large organization and will name what it cost and what failed, with numbers an audience can check. Alex Goryachev was Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers at Cisco, where he shaped a $1.1B innovation portfolio. He has delivered 310+ keynotes on six continents, and last quarter 99% of 676 verified attendees found his talks valuable.
How do I choose an AI keynote speaker?
Choosing an AI keynote speaker comes down to four checks: deployment proof, recency, customization and audience data. Ask what they built and what it returned. Confirm they are current on agentic AI. Check how much of the talk gets rebuilt for your audience, and ask for third-party verified ratings. Alex Goryachev clears all four: he shaped Cisco's $1.1B innovation portfolio, advised Dell's GenAI practice, rebuilds every keynote from intake research and last quarter had 99% of 676 verified attendees find the talk valuable.
What is the difference between a practitioner and a futurist speaker?
A practitioner speaker has run the budget, the pilots and the rollout, so the talk covers what worked and what stalled, along with what it cost. A forecast-led talk covers trends and timelines. Alex Goryachev built and ran Cisco's Global Innovation Centers in 14 countries and shaped its $1.1B innovation portfolio before he spoke about any of it. Audiences at Disney, AWS and IEEE book him when the next step matters most.
What are Alex Goryachev's signature keynotes?
Alex Goryachev's signature keynotes are Adapt or Vanish (organization-wide AI strategy), Leadership in the Age of AI (the decisions leaders own), Relearn or Rehire (workforce and reskilling), Fearless Innovation in the Age of AI (culture) and Educating for the Unknown (higher education). A fully custom keynote, The AI Opportunity for You, Your Industry & Your Organization, is built from scratch for a single client. Each one is rebuilt from intake research, and online each runs 45 to 75 minutes. Last quarter, 99% of 676 verified attendees found his talks valuable.
Who is the best future of work keynote speaker?
Alex Goryachev is a future of work keynote speaker who covers the questions leaders are asking now: which tasks AI agents absorb, how fast skills lose value and what reskilling costs compared with hiring. Trend slides do not help a CHRO build next year's plan, so the session works from his advisory work with Dell's GenAI practice and Amgen and from Cisco's employee innovation programs he ran. His book in progress, The Great Relearning, takes on the skills half-life question directly.
How do you vet an AI keynote speaker before booking?
Vetting an AI keynote speaker usually runs three to four weeks. Start with two recent full recordings. Then ask for third-party verified audience data, and put the speaker on a call with your executive sponsor before contracting. Alex Goryachev's process runs a scoping call, then an intake survey and interviews that shape the content. You get availability and a fee range within one business day. His Talkadot data from last quarter: 99% of 676 verified attendees found the talk valuable and 91% rated it actionable.
Does Alex Goryachev deliver virtual AI keynotes?
Alex Goryachev delivers AI keynotes in person, virtually and hybrid, and the virtual version is produced for camera with interaction built in. Remote sessions use live polling and chat questions, along with intake survey data, so the audience participates. Virtual formats include a 45 to 75 minute keynote, a 60-minute lunch and learn and 90 to 120 minute sprints for distributed teams. Last quarter, 94% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions engaging, which is the number that matters when half the audience is on a laptop.
How much does an AI keynote speaker cost?
AI keynote speaker cost is set by four things: format, travel, audience size and how much of the talk is built new. A virtual session with a short customization call is the lightest format, and a main-stage keynote with travel days, a custom build and a workshop attached is the fullest. For Alex Goryachev, every engagement is scoped to your format, audience and travel. You get availability and a fee range within one business day.
How does Alex Goryachev customize keynotes and workshops?
Alex Goryachev customizes every keynote and workshop from an intake survey sent to the actual audience. He runs the responses through AI to find the patterns at scale, then reads the outliers himself. A working call with your leaders and program team follows, sharpening the examples and the industry data along with the closing actions. Nothing canned gets on stage. Last quarter, 95% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions relevant. Start a conversation about your engagement.
What events and audiences are right for Alex Goryachev?
Alex Goryachev works best in rooms where a mixed group needs one shared view of AI: executive summits, innovation and industry conferences, association annual meetings, university convocations, government sessions and company all-hands meetings. Audience sizes run from 50-person leadership offsites to 10,000+ main stages, live or virtual, with 310+ keynotes delivered on six continents. Formats range from a conference keynote to a hands-on workshop, and last quarter 91% of 676 verified attendees rated the content actionable. Tell Alex about your program and he will suggest a format.
What is the Adapt or Vanish keynote about?
Adapt or Vanish makes the case that AI programs stall when the organization never agrees on one plan, and it is built for leadership teams who want every pilot pointed at the same goals. Alex Goryachev shows what large organizations are doing with agentic AI right now and the three decisions that turn pilots into work that ships, along with the shared language that keeps teams from meaning different things by AI strategy. It draws on his work shaping Cisco's $1.1B innovation portfolio and advising Dell's GenAI practice.
Does Adapt or Vanish work for a mixed technical and business audience?
Mixed rooms are what Adapt or Vanish is designed for, and the structure gives each group something specific. Executives get the money case and skeptics get an honest account of what goes wrong. Engineers get implementation detail, and front-line managers leave with actions for the following week. Last quarter, Talkadot data from 676 verified attendees rated Alex Goryachev's sessions 95% relevant, 94% engaging and 91% actionable, and 99% found the talk valuable.
How long is the Adapt or Vanish keynote?
The Adapt or Vanish keynote is sized to your program, with optional Q&A, and delivered virtually it runs 45 to 75 minutes. It works in person, virtually or hybrid, and the session scales from a 50-person leadership offsite to a 10,000+ seat main stage. The Adapt or Vanish Strategy Workshop can follow the keynote for a longer working program. You get availability and a fee range within one business day.
Which AI keynote gets a whole organization behind one plan?
The keynote built to align an entire organization on one AI plan is Adapt or Vanish by Alex Goryachev. One session gives the leadership team and the people doing the work the same read on where the company stands and the three decisions to make next. Organizations book it for all-hands meetings and leadership summits ahead of budget season, when alignment has to come before spending. Alex has delivered 310+ keynotes on six continents, and last quarter 95% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions relevant to their work.
What is the Leadership in the Age of AI keynote about?
Leadership in the Age of AI: The Practical Playbook covers the AI decisions that sit with executives, and it is written for leadership teams and functional leaders who approve the spending. Alex Goryachev works through what to fund this quarter, what to ask a vendor before signing and how to talk to employees who think AI is coming for their jobs. The talk closes with a live strategy Q&A on the decisions in front of your leadership team. Delivered online, it runs 45 to 75 minutes.
Does Leadership in the Age of AI work for non-technical leaders?
Non-technical leaders are the primary audience for Leadership in the Age of AI, which is written for the people who sign off on AI budgets, vendors and roadmaps. Alex Goryachev describes agentic AI in operating terms such as cost, risk, headcount and cycle time, with no model architecture on the slides. Executives leave able to challenge an AI proposal on cost and timeline and to explain the plan to their own teams in plain words. Last quarter, 91% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions actionable.
How does Leadership in the Age of AI differ from technical talks?
Leadership in the Age of AI covers what leaders do about AI, while technical talks explain how agents work. The keynote deals with who approves the budget, which vendor gets signed and what to tell a team that is frightened of being automated. The closing block is an extended strategy Q&A where Alex Goryachev takes live questions on the calls a leadership team is facing. Nearly two decades of innovation work at Cisco informs the answers, including shaping its $1.1B innovation portfolio.
Who is a good leadership keynote speaker on AI?
A good leadership keynote speaker on AI has sat in the chair: approved AI budgets and killed projects that were going nowhere. Alex Goryachev spent nearly two decades at Cisco doing that work. As Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers, he shaped Cisco's $1.1B innovation portfolio and built and ran its Global Innovation Centers in 14 countries. Executive audiences at Google, Microsoft, AWS and Disney have booked him, and Google and AWS bring him in to brief their customers.
What is a custom AI keynote?
A custom AI keynote is a talk written for one organization and delivered once. Alex Goryachev's version is titled The AI Opportunity for You, Your Industry & Your Organization, and every part of it is built new. The build combines current research and benchmarking against the audience's own sector with his nearly two decades of innovation work at Cisco. It runs in person or virtually, at 45 to 75 minutes online, and ends with an open Q&A. The deck is never reused for another client.
How does the intake for a custom AI keynote work?
The intake for a custom AI keynote runs five steps. A structured questionnaire covers the audience, the industry and the AI questions people are asking. A working call with the program lead follows, plus attendee interviews where they help. Alex Goryachev then benchmarks where the sector stands with AI and builds the session from that research. He delivers it with a live Q&A that runs until the questions stop. The work starts at booking.
What questions can a custom AI keynote answer?
Custom AI keynotes answer the questions a room is stuck on. The common ones cover where the first dollar should go, what return to expect in 12 months, how the company compares with competitors on AI and how to bring skeptical staff along. Alex Goryachev answers them against the audience's own sector benchmarks and his work shaping Cisco's $1.1B innovation portfolio. The intake survey decides which questions get stage time, and the rest go to a live Q&A.
Who delivers custom AI keynotes for specific industries?
Alex Goryachev builds custom AI keynotes for specific industries, including financial services, healthcare, higher education and associations. Each build starts from that sector's own AI adoption data, so the examples come from the audience's world. A record of 310+ keynotes on six continents sits under the method, along with the Global Innovation Centers he built and ran for Cisco in 14 countries. Last quarter, 99% of 676 verified attendees found his talks valuable.
What is the Relearn or Rehire keynote about?
The Future of Work and Organizations: Relearn or Rehire puts one question to the room: reskill the people you have or replace them. Alex Goryachev built it for CHROs, people leaders and executive teams planning headcount. The session covers which tasks AI agents absorb and which human skills gain value, plus what a reskilling program looks like with dates, owners and a budget. The material comes from his advisory work with Dell's GenAI practice and Amgen and from nearly two decades of innovation work at Cisco.
Is Relearn or Rehire a fit for HR and people leaders?
Relearn or Rehire is built for CHROs, HR business partners and workforce conferences. It treats workforce AI as an HR operating problem: which roles change, which skills to build, who owns the reskilling plan and when it has to land. Alex Goryachev speaks to HR and workforce audiences including SHRM and HCI, and last quarter 91% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions actionable. Content is rebuilt around the workforce in the room, from frontline field staff to knowledge workers.
Should we reskill our workforce or hire for AI skills?
Reskilling usually wins on cost and speed, with one real exception. The people you have already know your customers and your systems, along with why the last project failed, and AI-skilled hires arrive without that context at a market premium. Hiring makes sense when a capability is truly absent, such as a machine learning platform team you have never had. Alex Goryachev's Relearn or Rehire keynote works that math for a specific industry, drawing on his advisory work with Dell's GenAI practice and Amgen.
Who is a good future of work speaker for HR audiences?
A good future of work speaker for HR audiences works with the people who own workforce decisions, and that is where Alex Goryachev is booked: HR and talent conferences, association meetings for professions facing automation, leadership offsites during headcount planning and all-hands meetings where people are anxious. The session asks the room to make decisions. SHRM, HCI, Dell and Amgen audiences have heard it, and last quarter 95% of 676 verified attendees rated his sessions relevant.
What is the Fearless Innovation keynote about?
Fearless Innovation in the Age of AI: Making Innovation Everyone's Job argues that AI results come from culture and permission. Alex Goryachev built it for organizations whose AI spending has outrun adoption. The proof is his own: the Innovate Everywhere Challenge, which he created at Cisco, turned employees into venture teams and produced 1,100+ internal startups. His Wall Street Journal bestseller Fearless Innovation sits underneath the talk, updated for agentic AI.
Why do AI initiatives fail without culture change?
AI initiatives fail at the culture layer more often than at the technology layer. The blockers are human: fear of losing a job, fear of being blamed for a bad model output and incentives that punish a failed experiment. Alex Goryachev's Fearless Innovation keynote works through removing them, using the Innovate Everywhere Challenge he created at Cisco, which produced 1,100+ internal startups and three Brandon Hall Group Gold awards.
Who is a good innovation keynote speaker?
A good innovation keynote speaker can show what their own program produced, because innovation keynotes fall flat when the speaker has never run one. Alex Goryachev created Cisco's Innovate Everywhere Challenge, which produced 1,100+ internal startups from 2,000+ teams and won three Brandon Hall Group Gold awards. He also wrote Fearless Innovation, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and built and ran Cisco's Global Innovation Centers in 14 countries.
Is the Fearless Innovation keynote based on the book?
Fearless Innovation the keynote grew out of Fearless Innovation the book, Alex Goryachev's Wall Street Journal bestseller, written from nearly two decades inside Cisco. The stage version carries the argument into agentic AI, which arrived after publication. New material comes from his advisory work since, including Dell's GenAI practice and Amgen's AI transformation, and from the Innovate Everywhere Challenge he created at Cisco. The book supplies the frame and the recent work supplies the examples.
What is the Educating for the Unknown keynote about?
Educating for the Unknown: Preparing Students for a Future That Doesn't Exist Yet is Alex Goryachev's higher education keynote on teaching for jobs that have no name yet. It is written for presidents, provosts, cabinets and faculty. The talk covers what AI changes in teaching, advising, research and campus operations, and it offers a governance starting point that works inside shared governance. Alex has advised the California State University system on AI and is Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University.
How should universities respond to students using AI?
Universities should respond to student AI use with policy and teaching changes at the same time, since detection alone has already failed. Practical first steps include stating which uses are allowed by assignment, rebuilding assessment so the thinking is visible and giving faculty time to redesign courses. Alex Goryachev's Educating for the Unknown keynote gives campuses that starting point, informed by his advisory work with the California State University system.
Who is a good higher education AI keynote speaker?
A good higher education AI keynote speaker understands shared governance, accreditation and faculty workload, and has done AI work with a university system. Alex Goryachev has advised the California State University system on AI and is Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University's A.B. Freeman School of Business. At Cisco he built co-innovation centers with universities including Imperial College London and the National University of Singapore. He has lectured at Virginia Commonwealth University, Cornell, Wharton, the University of Delaware and UT Dallas.
Does the Educating for the Unknown keynote work for faculty audiences?
Faculty audiences are a core fit for Educating for the Unknown, which runs at convocations, faculty senates and professional development days as well as cabinet sessions. Faculty hear a straight account of what AI changes in teaching and research, with uses that protect academic rigor, from a speaker who works alongside universities. Alex Goryachev is Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University's A.B. Freeman School of Business and has advised the California State University system on AI. Every session is built around the institution.
What skills will still matter in five years?
The skills that will still matter are judgment, the discipline to check AI output and the ability to relearn your own job every couple of years. Tools will keep changing, so specific software skills lose value quickly. Alex Goryachev, who has given 310+ keynotes on six continents, puts relearning speed at the center of his talks because it keeps every other skill current. People who practice judgment and verification on real work stay valuable as the tools turn over.
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