The Best Speakers for Agentic AI in 2026
Agentic AI has left the panel-discussion stage. Autonomous systems now plan, decide, and execute real commercial work, and the leaders who can explain that shift to a boardroom are in short supply. This is the working shortlist of voices worth booking in 2026: people who turn “agents” from a buzzword into an operating model your organization can act on.
The quiet shift is not AI – it’s that core business functions are crossing a threshold from human-orchestrated to machine-orchestrated systems.
Fifteen voices defining the agentic era
01
Tim Cortinovis
Forbes-recognized “tech visionary” and Thinkers360 Top 10 Thought Leader in Agentic AI whose keynote shows leaders how autonomous AI agents are moving sales from human effort to machine-orchestrated revenue systems. His sessions combine executive-level strategy with vivid business storytelling, practical agent use cases, and a clear organizational roadmap for turning AI from a promising tool into a governed workforce that creates pipeline, qualifies opportunities, and executes real commercial work.
02
Ian Khan
Thinkers50 futurist whose agentic AI strategy keynote includes a live demonstration of autonomous AI completing real tasks on stage plus an organizational readiness diagnostic. His positioning is strong on future readiness, AI-IQ, and turning AI from abstract trend into executive action plan.
03
Andrew Ng
DeepLearning.AI founder and one of the most influential educators in AI whose agentic AI work focuses on workflows that plan, use tools, reflect, and execute multi-step tasks. His agentic AI design patterns have become a reference point for technical and business audiences alike.
04
Ethan Mollick
Wharton professor and author of Co-Intelligence whose talks translate AI agents into practical implications for work, education, leadership, and organizational design. His agentic AI framing is especially strong around what happens when AI systems can complete hours of knowledge work autonomously.
05
Allie K. Miller
AI leader, advisor, investor, and global keynote speaker known for making AI strategy concrete for executive audiences. Her strength is connecting AI agents, enterprise implementation, and leadership fluency without turning the room into a PhD seminar. A rare gift.
06
Pascal Bornet
Keynote speaker and author on AI, automation, and agentic AI whose work sits at the intersection of intelligent automation, human-centered transformation, and enterprise productivity.
07
Kathleen Walch
AI adoption and governance keynote speaker, PMI AI leader, and co-creator of CPMAI, with a strong focus on making AI execution trustworthy, governable, and scalable. Thinkers360 ranked her number one in its 2026 Agentic AI leaderboard.
08
Noelle Russell
AI executive, practitioner, and keynote speaker focused on responsible enterprise AI, board-level AI oversight, and the move from pilots to scalable business value. Thinkers360 ranked her among the top agentic AI thought leaders in 2026.
09
Shawn Kanungo
Shawn Kanungo — globally recognized innovation strategist, bestselling author of The Bold Ones, and one of the most in-demand AI keynote speakers, known for translating the “Agentic Revolution” into bold, cinematic, business-ready narratives. His talks focus on how AI agents shift organizations from command-based tools to autonomous systems that monitor, decide, and act, moving humans from operators to orchestrators.
10
Azeem Azhar
Founder of Exponential View, global futurist, and keynote speaker who frames AI agents as part of the broader exponential economy. His work is particularly strong on how agentic systems reshape work, coordination, and competitive advantage.
11
Zack Kass
Former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI and AI futurist whose keynotes help business and government audiences understand AI’s strategic and societal impact. Less “agent architecture,” more “what this means for leaders when the future arrives wearing sneakers.”
12
Cassie Kozyrkov
Google’s former Chief Decision Scientist and a highly regarded AI keynote speaker on decision intelligence, AI-first organizations, trust, and human judgment. Her angle is crucial for agentic AI because autonomy without better decision design is just faster confusion.
13
Ben Goertzel
Founder of SingularityNET and long-time public voice on AGI, decentralized AI, and autonomous intelligent systems. He is a frequent keynote presence in AI agents and AGI contexts.
14
Andreas Welsch
AI advisor, author, former SAP AI executive, and keynote speaker positioned strongly around agentic AI for business leaders. His work emphasizes turning AI hype into measurable enterprise outcomes.
15
Jensen Huang
NVIDIA founder and CEO whose public keynotes have become some of the most influential stages for the agentic AI era, especially around AI agents, AI infrastructure, physical AI, and the shift from software as tools to software as autonomous work systems.
Looking for an agentic AI keynote?
If your event needs a speaker who connects autonomous agents to revenue, governance, and the decisions executives actually have to make, let’s talk.