Yuval Noah Harari

Why organisations work with Yuval Noah Harari

• The NEXUS framework – which distinguishes self-correcting from self-reinforcing information networks – gives boards and governance teams a precise conceptual tool for evaluating AI strategy and regulatory exposure, grounded in historical evidence rather than prediction.
• Sapiens introduced the argument that large-scale human cooperation is built on shared fictions. For leadership teams, this reframes how institutions, legal systems, and monetary frameworks actually hold power – and what causes them to fail.
• Direct conversations with heads of state including Macron, Merkel, and Rutte put his arguments at the level of active geopolitical decision-making, not commentary. Audiences engage with someone whose thinking is tested at the highest levels of governance.
• His Distinguished Research Fellowship at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk anchors his arguments on AI in active institutional research on civilisational-scale risk – not opinion or futurism.
• The 100,000-year historical lens is genuinely rare in this space. It gives senior audiences a method for distinguishing structurally permanent change from cyclical volatility – applicable immediately to strategy, regulation, and organisational design.

Biography highlights

• Professor of History, Department of History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; PhD from the University of Oxford, 2002
• Author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and NEXUS – published in more than 65 languages; Sapiens held the Sunday Times bestseller top three for 96 consecutive weeks and ranked #10 in the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (2024)
• Distinguished Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge
• Two-time Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (2009, 2012); Moncado Award, Society for Military History (2011); Handelsblatt German Economic Book Award for Homo Deus (2017)
• WEF Davos keynote speaker in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2026; CBS 60 Minutes profile (2021)
• Regular contributor to the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Times, and Nature

Biography

Organisations making decisions about AI governance are operating without historical context. The scale of information networks has changed before – with writing, printing, and broadcasting – and power has reorganised around each transition. What makes AI structurally different is not its speed or scale, but the fact that, for the first time, the network itself can generate and act on information without human instruction.

Yuval Noah Harari is a Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Distinguished Research Fellow at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. His four major works – Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and NEXUS – form a sustained argument about the relationship between information, power, and human agency, tracing it from the deep past to the governance decisions of the AI era.

NEXUS, published in 2024, made that argument most directly relevant to organisations. Harari’s central distinction – between information systems that are self-correcting and those that reinforce existing power – gives leaders a practical framework for evaluating AI governance, regulatory exposure, and institutional design. The book argues that how organisations and governments navigate this distinction is the defining question of the current period. NEXUS reached number two on both the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller lists within a week of publication.

Harari has held public conversations with heads of state including Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Mark Rutte on the future of AI and information. He has delivered keynote addresses at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2026, and contributes regularly to the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, and Nature. His books have been translated into more than 65 languages.

Key speaking topics

• Artificial intelligence and information governance
• The history and future of information networks
• Geopolitical risk and global power
• Long-term civilisational change and strategic foresight
• Human agency and technological disruption
• Shared fictions, institutions, and how societies hold together
• AI regulation and democratic resilience

Ideal for

• Boards and C-suite leadership teams navigating AI governance, information strategy, or long-term geopolitical risk
• Policy, government affairs, and strategic foresight functions at senior level
• Global conference and forum audiences at CEO, minister, or board director level
• Technology strategy and corporate affairs teams working on the societal and regulatory implications of AI

Audience outcomes

• A macro-historical framework for reading which changes are structurally significant vs cyclical – applicable to strategy, governance, and regulatory positioning
• Practical understanding of the NEXUS distinction between self-correcting and self-reinforcing information systems, and its implications for AI governance design
• Clearer thinking about where power resides in information networks, and what that means for institutional and organisational decisions
• Historical context for positioning AI decisions within the longer pattern of how information technologies have redistributed political and economic power
• Sharper questions to bring back to leadership, board, and regulatory conversations already underway