Brian Solis

Most transformations don’t succeed because they’re trying to build tomorrow with yesterday’s assumptions, metrics, and mindsets. When the world changes faster than the organization can adapt, even the best strategies stall in the same place: “We’ve always done it this way.”

In this energizing keynote, Brian Solis introduces the six-stage Mindshift cycle: 1) Receive, 2) Perceive, 3) Weave, 4) Conceive, 5) Believe, and 6) Achieve. The Mindshift framework empowers leaders can use to reframe disruption into possibility, convert uncertainty into strategy, and move from reactive change to intentional reinvention.

Audiences learn how to spot signals early, connect dots others miss, and create the belief and momentum required to lead people through uncertainty, while helping them see the role they play in transformation.  It’s equal parts inspiration and a usable blueprint…helping leaders define a future worth building and then rally their teams to make it real.

Audience Takeaways

• A repeatable 6-stage “Mindshift Cycle” to move from disruption to direction, creatively, faster, with less friction.

• A leadership reframing toolkit to convert uncertainty and resistance into curiosity, clarity, and confident action.

• A practical method to connect dots across trends, signals, and customer/employee truths—so strategy becomes insight-driven, not opinion-driven.

• A way to turn vision into momentum by building belief, aligning stakeholders, and escaping “we’ve always done it this way.”

• A change architecture you can use immediately—to design next steps, communicate the story of transformation, and measure progress beyond activity.

Generative AI rewired the rules of competition. We’ve moved beyond digital transformation into a new era where automation is table stakes, intelligence is abundant, and “business as usual” is a liability. In this rousing keynote, Brian shows leaders how to stop treating AI like a tool or use case and start leading it like a CTRL-ALT-DEL moment, resetting vision, operating models, decision-making, and culture. The point isn’t to do the same work faster or cheaper. The point is to do better work and impossible and unimaginable work…the work you couldn’t do without AI, and that AI can’t do without you. Using his #WWAID lens (“What Would AI Do?”), Brian helps audiences reframe strategy, redesign workflows, and create a future-motivating state people actually want to build.

In this session, Brian will explore…

• The definition of what “AI-first” actually means, and what it changes in strategy, work, and leadership.
• A #WWAID decision lens to rethink priorities, processes, and customer/employee experiences for an AI era.
• How to shift from automation-as-the-goal to augmentation-as-differentiation—where humans own judgment and AI scales execution.
• A practical leadership blueprint to move from pilots and hype to trusted, repeatable outcomes and a culture built for continuous reinvention.

What can we learn from some of the colossal mistakes we have seen from some of the biggest companies in  the world? How can you prevent your company from making the same mistakes?

Digital and AI Darwinism is reshaping markets and behaviors, and it’s only accelerating. Most companies don’t lack ideas, they lack vision, leadership, and culture that can create belief, clarity, and courage. And in this model, AI, humanoids, quantum, and other important trends, can distract from what truly matters.  This keynote is for executives navigating constant disruption, internal politics, and innovation theater.

Brian has published several award-winning research studies that explore successful corporate and culture innovation initiatives, and has advised companies on their innovation strategies.

This session maps how leaders take a step back, assess real threats and unseen opportunities, to set a new vision, build cultures that bring that vision to life, and drive change that puts technology to work, for people…supported by bold vision, modern metrics, and an operating system that turns curiosity into execution.

Audiences will learn how and why… 

• Innovation isn’t an idea problem—it’s a vision + leadership + culture problem that builds belief, clarity, and courage in uncertain times.
• Avoiding “innovation theater” starts with future-forward foresight, by grounding efforts in real threats, real customer/market shifts, and measurable outcomes, not politics or hype.
• Culture is tangible and an actionable management system to make innovation part of the DNA
• Shiny objects and trends (AI, quantum, humanoids, etc.) distract you and how to use and organize around innovative technologies in service (and with purpose) of a clear strategy and human value.
• Leaders can step back to reframe disruption as opportunity, surfacing unseen openings competitors overlook.
• Create an innovation operating system (and learn how to apply the Innovation Flywheel: curiosity → experimentation → modern metrics → execution), so change becomes repeatable and scalable.

In today’s AI + Attention Economy, customers have more power, more options, and more tools to evaluate brands instantly. Expectations are being reset by the best experiences in every category, meaning your real competition is the last great experience your customer had anywhere.

Customers now research, compare, and decide with AI copilots before they ever visit your site, store, or contact center. Attention spans are shorter, patience is thinner, movements faster, but intentional. Brian frames the modern customer as the “accidental narcissist”: not selfish, but self-directed…empowered by technology, and expecting every interaction to be personal, immediate, and validating.

Brian wrote one of the world’s “best customer experience” books of all time. He will introduce a modern formula for competing through experience: BX + CX + UX = X, where X is your Experience Advantage. He reveals how to earn attention and trust, deliver “wow” through “ignite moments,” and create emotional connection at scale.

Audiences will discover: 

• A modern blueprint for competing through experience when attention is scarce and AI shapes decisions.
• How to win attention and how generative AI is reshaping discovery and decision-making.
• How to design “Ignite Moments,” signature interactions that customers love, remember, and choose.
• How to use AI to deliver warmth and relevance at scale—without becoming creepy or robotic.
• How to measure Return on Experience (RoE).

A modern blueprint for competing through experience when AI shapes decisions and attention is scarce How to design for the “accidental narcissist” customer—without over-personalizing or crossing the “creepy line” The Ignite Moments recipe to reduce effort, build trust, and create emotional stickiness across digital + human channels How to use AI to deliver warmth and relevance at scale (and where humans must stay in the loop) A practical way to align teams around BX + CX + UX = X so experience stops being siloed A measurement framework that connects experience improvements to growth, retention, CLV, and RoE

Every year, executives visit Silicon Valley to visit leading tech companies and to meet leading entrepreneurs, especially now with a new breed of AI-Native startups.

AI-Native are a new breed of startups that ship faster with tiny teams, deliver near-instant time-to-value, and generate outsized revenue per employee (RPE) while scaling without scaling headcount, and create moats that keep them competitive as they evolve.

In this is a special session, Brian will bring Silicon Valley to you. He’ll reveal his research around “AInfinite thinking” and what it means to think like an AI Native startup by exploring the mindsets of  founders and investors.

You’ll walk away with a blueprint to learn from AI-Natives: how they build moats, how they structure teams around outcomes, and how they redesign work so humans focus on judgment, creativity, and deep thinking while AI handles analysis, synthesis, and execution.

During his time in Silicon Valley, Brian has helped launch over 1,000 startups, including Airbnb, Uber, Tripit, Twitch, Zappos, Google, Amazon, and Meta. Brian has also advised investors and guided celebrities on their startup investments, including Oprah, Shaq, Adrien Grenier, Katie Couric and Ashton Kutcher. KGO called him a “Silicon Valley staple” and “one of the top people to know in Silicon Valley” by Huffpost.

Audience Takeaways… 

• Adopt the AI-native “Founder OS”: move with speed, customer obsession, and relentless learning.

• • Design a moat beyond the model: compete with proprietary workflows, data advantage, and distributions.

  • Ship to learn, not to impress: prototype fast, measure impact, iterate in-market, and let usage—not committees—decide.

  • Make AI a team sport: rewire how work gets done with human+agent collaboration, clear guardrails, and new operating rhythms.

  • Think like an investor: place disciplined bets, kill zombie projects, and scale what proves traction with focus and conviction.

  • Measure what matters: track time-to-value, adoption, revenue-per-employee, cost-to-serve, and agentic capacity to accelerate ROI and double down where the numbers prove momentum.

The AI-Native playbook for tiny teams that scale outcomes, not headcount
How to improve RPE and compress time-to-value by redesigning decisions, handoffs, and workflows
The new defensible moats: data + distribution + trust + experience—and how to build them internally
A practical path from pilots to an AI-native operating model (roles, workflow, governance)
What to change first to move faster: the work, not the tech

Leaders, the next workforce isn’t about AI replacing people. It’s about people leading teams of AI agents, digital coworkers that can research, plan, execute, and coordinate across systems. But how do you know where human work stops and AI agents take over? The answer is where the org chart becomes the work chart.

In this future-forward keynote, Brian Solis shows what changes when work becomes modular and continuously optimized. Jobs are broken into tasks, tasks are rebuilt into outcomes, and teams become hybrid by design—humans provide judgment, empathy, and accountability while agents handle analysis, synthesis, and execution. This is how organizations compress cycle time, accelerate time-to-value, and scale impact without scaling headcount.

Brian explores why the future of work is a collaborative partnership between CIOs and CHROs, because the agentic enterprise sits at the intersection of architecture and culture. IT can’t deploy it without HR, and HR can’t sustain it without IT. Leaders leave with a clear blueprint for redesigning workflows, governance, and operating models for human+agent collaboration—plus a modern way to measure performance through time-to-value, quality, decision velocity, and cost-to-serve, not activity.

In this insightful session, audiences will understand…

• How to shift from managing org charts to managing work charts as AI agents become part of everyday execution.

• A practical model for decomposing jobs into tasks and recomposing them into human+agent teams aligned to outcomes.

• What CIOs and CHROs must co-own workflow design, governance, skills, and incentives—to make adoption stick.

• How to scale impact without scaling headcount by improving time-to-value, cycle time, decision velocity, and quality.

• The guardrails that keep speed from breaking trust: security, accountability, transparency, and responsible AI governance.