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Eric Solomon
Dr. Eric Solomon helps organizations stay distinctive and human as AI accelerates the work. The cognitive psychologist and AI leadership speaker spent fifteen years building brands at YouTube, Google, Spotify, and Instagram, and founded The Human Operating System.
Dr. Eric Solomon is a cognitive psychologist and brand strategist who helps leaders stay distinctive and human as AI accelerates the work.
Eric holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and spent fifteen years building brands at YouTube, Google, Spotify, Instagram, and Bonobos. He teaches at Fordham's Gabelli School of Business, writes for Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today, and is the founder of The Human Operating System. His first book, DRIFT: How to Live an Intentional Life in a World That Wants to Choose for You, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press.
Eric's work sits where psychology, strategy, and leadership meet. He helps teams see where judgment is getting built into their systems, decide what their work is actually for, and keep hold of their choices as defaults and automation pile up. Recent audiences include leaders at Suntory Global Spirits, ISACA, and the Council of Europe, along with a TEDx stage.
Audiences walk away with a shared language for moving from "more" to "better," practical ways to protect judgment and originality as AI reshapes creative and strategic work, and a clearer sense of how to lead through uncertainty without defaulting to the middle.
Book Eric when your audience needs to think clearly about AI, attention, and the choices that still belong to people.
Topics, sessions and talks
Every organization is optimizing. Faster output, more content, more experiments, more of everything. The result is that entire categories now look and sound the same. Drawing on fifteen years inside YouTube, Google, Spotify, and Instagram, Eric shows leaders how the pursuit of more produces sameness, and what it takes to hold a standard instead of a speed. Audiences leave with a shared language for deciding what their work is actually for.
AI has made everyone faster at producing the same thing, which means the tools are no longer the advantage. Whatever your team has access to, so does everyone else. Eric argues that what still separates organizations is judgment, and that judgment has quietly moved out of the moment of review and into the moment of configuration. This session gives leaders a way to see where judgment is getting encoded in their systems, who is encoding it, and who is exposed when it goes wrong. Practical, specific, and built for people who buy and deploy this technology rather than just type into it.
Nobody decides to drift. It happens through a thousand small defaults, each reasonable on its own. Drawing on his forthcoming book from St. Martin's Press, Eric maps the five currents that pull people and organizations off course (meaning, urgency, performance, the feed, and AI) and the capacities that let you navigate them. A session about authorship: how it dissolves into systems without anyone choosing it, and how to keep hold of it.
What actually makes a team work is not chemistry or perks. It is whether people believe they can speak up without paying for it. Eric draws on Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety and on his own years running teams inside YouTube, Google, Spotify, and Instagram to show what that looks like in practice, and why belonging outperforms efficiency over time. Leaders leave with a clearer sense of what they are actually measuring when they measure a team.
Chronic burnout is often treated as a personal failing, but it’s usually the result of systemic imbalance. Dr. Eric Solomon reframes burnout not as weakness but as data, offering science-backed tools and stories to help people reconnect with meaning in their work. With a distinctive mix of candor, research and empathy, he offers a path towards resilience that doesn’t ask us to do more, but to do what matters differently.
Dr. Eric Solomon's fifteen years building brands at YouTube, Google, Spotify, Instagram, and Bonobos, combined with his advisory and executive coaching work, give him operational credibility on AI and leadership. For teams moving fast, that means practical tools for keeping judgment and originality intact.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
To book Eric Solomon, email eric.solomon@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Dr. Eric's availability and speaking fee. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and about your audience.
Dr. Eric Solomon builds his talks around named frameworks, such as the five currents that pull people and organizations off course (meaning, urgency, performance, the feed, and AI), and grounds them in examples from fifteen years building brands at YouTube, Google, Spotify, and Instagram.
Dr. Eric Solomon specializes in resisting AI-driven sameness, protecting judgment as AI speeds up decisions, staying intentional amid digital drift, and the psychology of teamwork. He holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, spent fifteen years building brands at YouTube, Google, Spotify, Instagram, and Bonobos, and founded The Human Operating System.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
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Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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