AI Adoption Speakers: Who To Book When You Need People To Actually Use It

AI adoption speakers deal with the gap between buying the licences and seeing anything change. Most organisations have the tools. Fewer have people using them on real work, and fewer still can point to an outcome that would not have happened anyway.

What should an AI adoption session achieve?

An AI adoption session should send people back to their desks with something specific to try. That means the speaker demonstrates on realistic work, addresses why previous attempts stalled, and covers the confidence problem, which is usually the actual blocker rather than the technology.

The second thing to check is whether the speaker builds with the tools or talks about them. Founders and practitioners give an audience the texture of a real workflow, including the parts that do not work, and that credibility is what stops a room from quietly dismissing the session. Our piece on why teams break under AI covers what goes wrong when that credibility is missing.

Five practitioners here carry a full session or workshop, followed by five who cover the change and creativity side of adoption. If the question is risk rather than rollout, see our AI governance speakers.

Jess Ramos

Book Jess for

A practical grounding in data and AI for people who are not engineers.

Jess Ramos founded Big Data Energy, teaches on LinkedIn Learning, and has built an audience of more than 700,000 across LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Substack. She came out of data science roles in high-growth startups, so the teaching is drawn from production work rather than theory.

Her session Are You Using AI, or Is AI Using You? examines how everyday clicks and messages become training data, and how the garbage in, garbage out problem scales inside an organisation. She is a strong fit for technical and semi-technical audiences who need to close the gap between concept and execution.

Learn more and book Jess Ramos →

Amanda Spann

Book Amanda for

Getting non-technical teams building rather than waiting for the technical team.

Amanda Spann has built a portfolio of apps without writing a line of code and has taught more than 30,000 entrepreneurs to do the same. Business Insider named her among the 30 Most Important Women in Tech Under 30, and her focus is the non-technical professional with an idea and no route to build it.

Her session Product Roadmapping For Non-Technical Founders covers scoping, avoiding expensive development mistakes and getting to something market-ready. It works well for innovation days, intrapreneurship programmes and any organisation where good ideas stall in a queue for engineering time.

Learn more and book Amanda Spann →

Dominic Tancredi

Book Dominic for

Enterprise-scale AI implementation from an agency that has delivered it 500 times.

Dominic Tancredi co-founded and runs Dom & Tom, a digital product agency with 18 years of work for clients including Coca-Cola, Bloomberg, Hearst and Turner Broadcasting. He has implemented emerging technology at enterprise scale across more than 500 client engagements.

His keynote Harnessing Emerging AI Technologies For Commerce examines where AI is changing commercial models and where it is being oversold. Dom suits audiences in retail, media and enterprise technology who want implementation detail rather than a survey of what is possible.

Learn more and book Dominic Tancredi →

Sebastian Sheppard

Book Sebastian for

Leading technical specialists through a change they did not ask for.

Sebastian Sheppard led engineering in Formula 1 and now works on business transformation, drawing on motorsport and military environments. His frameworks are trusted by aerospace, cybersecurity and F1 organisations across Europe and Latin America.

The reason he belongs on an AI adoption list is that most adoption failures are leadership failures. His session Be The Leader You Always Wanted To Have covers trust, clarity and accountability with technical teams, which is the group most likely to resist a tool imposed from above.

Learn more and book Sebastian Sheppard →

Tom Ridges

Book Tom for

Behavioural science on how adoption actually spreads through a network.

Tom Ridges founded Herdify after leading at Microsoft, and works at the intersection of behavioural science and enterprise technology. His research covers how influence spreads offline through communities rather than only through digital channels.

For adoption programmes, this reframes the problem usefully. Instead of broadcasting to everyone, Tom's work identifies the genuine advocates already inside a customer base or a workforce. He suits marketing audiences and internal communications teams running a change programme.

Learn more and book Tom Ridges →

Five more speakers on change and creativity

Adoption is mostly a behaviour problem. These five cover the human side, from culture and purpose to what creative work looks like once the tools arrive. For the technical end, see our AI and data science speakers for business transformation.

Dr Justin Cohen

Dr Justin Cohen works on human transformation across more than 40 countries and is a Speaker Hall of Fame member. He covers breakthrough performance and the mindset shifts that determine whether a new way of working sticks.

Learn more and book Dr Justin Cohen →

Polly Dhaliwal

COO of Enterprise Nation, a UK Government Small Business Growth Taskforce member and a Top 50 Women in Tech recipient. Polly's session on purpose-led leadership gives managers practical tools for building human-first cultures during change.

Learn more and book Polly Dhaliwal →

Doddz

A digital artist and Meta ambassador who has built story-led experiences for Disney, Nike and Sony. His session Creativity And The Future Of Art explores how creative work evolves once intelligent tools are part of the process.

Learn more and book Doddz →

Jessica Kessler

With 15 years at the technology and media intersection, currently at Audible, Jess covers digital branding, data-driven creativity and creator marketing. She makes technical marketing subjects accessible without flattening them.

Learn more and book Jessica Kessler →

Viola De Girolami

Viola led digital transformation at Warner Bros., McDonald's and Carphone Warehouse and trained in behavioural science. Her session gives leaders a diagnostic for spotting where change stalls and the levers to rebuild momentum.

Learn more and book Viola De Girolami →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an AI adoption speaker and an AI governance speaker?

An adoption speaker gets teams using the tools on real work. A governance speaker addresses regulation, privacy, security and accountability for boards and risk functions. Book the one that matches the question your audience is actually asking.

Should we book a keynote or a workshop for AI adoption?

A workshop generally produces more change, because people leave having done something. Keynotes work well for large all-hands sessions where the goal is permission and momentum. Several of these speakers offer both, so you can pair a keynote with breakout workshops.

Will an AI adoption session date quickly?

The tool demonstrations will, which is why practitioners matter. Jess Ramos, Amanda Spann and Dominic Tancredi all build with these tools daily, so they refresh material close to the event date rather than reusing a deck.

Our team has already had AI training and nothing changed. What now?

That usually points to a leadership or behaviour problem rather than a knowledge one. Sebastian Sheppard works on leading technical specialists through change, and Viola De Girolami diagnoses where transformation stalls. Contact the PepTalk team and describe what happened last time.

💡 Looking for the right speaker for your next event? Let us know what you need and we will find the perfect PepTalk expert for your organisation. Email us at hello@getapeptalk.com or send us a message via the chat. You can also call us on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US). Remember, it's always a good time to get a PepTalk!