Zack Kass
Most organisations have run AI pilots. Almost none have rebuilt how work actually gets done. The gap between board ambition and operational reality is where competitive position is now being lost, and senior teams are running out of room to keep treating AI as an experiment rather than an operating model.
Zack Kass is the former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI who advises Fortune 1,000 boards on how to move AI from pilots into operating advantage, and the author of The Next Renaissance.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Zack Kass
- He built the commercial engine inside OpenAI that translated frontier research into deployed products, which is a different vantage point from any external futurist or consultant.
- His “Unmetered Intelligence” framework gives boards a concrete way to plan for AI as infrastructure, not as a vendor decision, and it travels into capital allocation conversations rather than staying inside the IT function.
- He works directly with the leadership teams of named global organisations, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, and Amgen, so the room recognises that the playbook has been pressure-tested against companies they compete with.
- His Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, is a USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller, which gives a CHRO or CIO a coherent reference for their executive team and not only a keynote.
- He is a recurring voice on Bloomberg and CNBC on AI risk, capital, and workforce impact, so the credibility check a buyer does after the call confirms the brief.
Biography highlights
- Former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI; built the sales, partnerships, and customer success teams.
- Author of The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential (Wiley, 2026); USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller.
- Executive-in-Residence, University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.
- Founder of ZKAI LLC; author of the “Unmetered Intelligence” white paper.
- Advisor to Fortune 1,000 leadership teams including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford.
- Recurring AI commentator for Bloomberg and CNBC; bylined contributor to Fortune.
- B.A., University of California, Berkeley.
Biography
OpenAI’s research only became a market because someone had to translate model weights into contracts, support, and adoption inside the world’s largest companies. That commercial scaffolding was built by the team Kass led as Head of Go-To-Market, and it is the unusual seat that shapes what he now offers to boards.
The proposition is operational. Most leadership teams have approved AI pilots. Few have made the harder decisions about where intelligence sits in the workflow, who is accountable for outcomes, and what gets reorganised when cognitive capacity stops being scarce. Kass writes about that shift in his Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, and codifies it in his “Unmetered Intelligence” framework, which treats AI as infrastructure on the order of electricity rather than as a product category.
The advisory base is concrete. Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford have all worked with him directly, and the case studies that surface in his keynotes are drawn from those rooms. Bloomberg and CNBC use him as a recurring voice on AI risk and capital allocation, and his Fortune writing pushes the same argument into wider business debate. He is also Executive-in-Residence at UVA McIntire, which keeps the research and the boardroom work on the same circuit.
What boards take from him is a sharper read on the next two to three years of AI deployment, written in the language of operating decisions rather than technical features. The choices around workforce, capital, and capability sequencing are no longer theoretical for most executive teams, and Kass is one of the few voices who has watched them get made from the inside of the company that triggered them.
Key speaking topics
- Applied AI strategy for Fortune 1,000 leadership teams
- The Unmetered Intelligence thesis
- AI deployment beyond pilots
- Workforce redesign in the age of AI
- The Next Renaissance: AI and human potential
- AI risk, regulation, and board governance
- Capital allocation and AI infrastructure
Ideal for
- CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, and CHROs setting enterprise AI strategy
- Boards and audit committees pressure-testing AI risk and governance posture
- Senior leadership offsites focused on AI deployment and workforce redesign
- Industry conferences for financial services, technology, healthcare, and consumer goods
Audience outcomes
- A clearer line between AI experimentation and the operating decisions that follow it
- A board-ready framing for AI as infrastructure, drawing on the Unmetered Intelligence thesis
- Specific reference points from named Fortune 1,000 deployments rather than generic case studies
- A defensible position on AI risk, capital allocation, and workforce impact to take back to executive teams
Talks
A keynote drawn from his Wiley book, framing AI as the platform for the next wave of human productivity, creativity, and economic expansion.
Key takeaways:
- A historical lens for what changes when intelligence becomes abundant
- The corporate behaviours that distinguish the winners of the next decade
- A working argument for techno-optimism that boards can actually use
A practical mapping of where leadership teams should focus AI investment over the next 24 to 36 months.
Key takeaways:
- Where AI moves from pilot to operating advantage by function
- How to sequence capability, data, and governance investments
- A test for distinguishing durable AI bets from vendor noise
The applied case for AI in education, healthcare, and public services, drawn from Kass’s advisory work and OpenAI experience.
Key takeaways:
- Where AI is already changing outcomes in education and healthcare
- The institutional choices that decide whether benefits scale
- A clear position on the optimist case without ignoring the risks