The Human Capabilities That Matter Most When Machines Get Smarter
If AI can access any fact instantly, analyze data faster than any human, and optimize decisions at scale, what’s left for us? Quite a lot. Curiosity. Intuition. Discernment. Imagination. Judgment. Lived experience. And the courage to sit with uncertainty. As AI reshapes how knowledge is created, distributed, and applied, the real shift isn’t technological – it’s behavioral. Competitive advantage now comes from how you think, question, and decide.

What You'll Learn

• How to lead through inquiry when “having all the answers” has become commoditized.

• How to protect cognitive sovereignty: The daily discipline of thinking for yourself in a world designed to think for you

• How to build teams defined not by what they produce, but by who they are and how they think

• How to act decisively without certainty – and why tolerating ambiguity is now a core competency

Much of what leaders rely on today (e.g., how we work, measure success, make decisions, and even define our identities) was built for a world that no longer exists. The problem isn’t a lack of learning; it’s the assumptions, habits, and routines that quietly anchor us to the past. This keynote focuses on the practical mindset and behavioral shifts that allow people to unlearn with intention, navigate disruption, and reclaim judgment.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the knowledge that made you successful can become the biggest obstacle to what comes next

• How certainty becomes a liability in periods of massive recalibration

• The unlearning habits and leadership practices required to navigate continuous disruption

Why Agency and Identity Are the Leadership Advantages AI Can’t Replace
Picture a tug-of-war. On one side: exponential technological acceleration. On the other: industrial-era systems, entrenched thinking & bureaucratic structures built for stability — not change. As the rope pulls tighter, organizations are being stretched thin. The gap between what AI makes possible and how we’re prepared to evolve is widening. We’re caught between two realities: the world that’s emerging and the outdated mindsets we’re defending.

This keynote is a guide to leading in that gap: Not by trying to close it faster, but by developing the Agency and Identity (A+I) required to approach it with courage and conviction.

Leaders face a challenge: the systems, assumptions, and leadership models we inherited were designed for a different era. Navigating what comes next requires a new relationship with how we think, decide, and define ourselves at work.

What You’ll Leave With:

• Why industrial-era organizations trained us to behave like resources, not humans, and what it takes to unlearn that mindset

• How to build organizations defined by who their people are, not just what they produce

• Why the next leadership shift isn’t from knowledge to intelligence, but from intelligence to wisdom – and why that shift is becoming a strategic imperative

Jared applies lessons learned from his personal evolution as a futurist, through the lens of several current trends, to help each person in the audience become their own version of a “reformed futurist.” This session is about distinguishing the signals that really matter from all the noise in what are unprecedented times. It will ultimately shake people up with a healthy dose of common sense, and it will better prepare them for the uncertainty of an unpredictable future.

The concept of escape velocity, borrowed from physics, refers to achieving a rapid enough rate of speed to escape the gravitational pull of a larger object. For years, Jared has applied this frame to the fact that the larger object was represented by our old, often industrial, ways of doing business. Now, given the rise of AI, this concept is even more critical. We’re faced with escaping the gravitational pull of AI itself, as it promises to reshape business and society. Jared introduces their proprietary ESCAPE framework, which lays out six “AI illusions” as we integrate AI into all aspects of our personal and professional lives.

In an increasingly tech-fueled world, where AI is both dominating the conversation and the workplace, it’ll be as important as ever to lock in on the two pillars that makes us uniquely human (agency + identity), and learn how to optimize them so that people not only stay relevant, but win the future. The idea of “humans in the loop” still portends AI in the captain’s chair, with us as the sidekick. Instead, the future must be characterized by humans as the loop: Humans directing with intuition and strategic intent, while AI serves as our sidekick. Human “intelligence,” or smarts, will not be enough of a differentiator. AI is evolving as a distinct form of intelligence – sometimes far more capable. Instead, Agency + Identity (A+I) will be the keys to retaining human relevance and unlocking human potential.