Gerd Leonhard

Why organisations work with Gerd Leonhard

• The androrithms concept – Leonhard’s term for the human qualities (empathy, ethical reasoning, creative judgment) that algorithms cannot replicate – gives leadership teams a governance vocabulary that most AI advisors skip. It moves the conversation from “what can we automate?” to “what must we protect, and why is that a strategic decision?”
• He co-authored The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005), correctly forecasting that streaming would displace ownership as the dominant music model years before the industry accepted it. That verifiable prediction track record is what distinguishes his current AI arguments from speculation that cannot be tested against outcomes.
• The Ten Megashifts framework – mapping ten concurrent technological forces including digitisation, intelligisation, automation and robotisation as a compound system – gives strategy and transformation teams a tool for testing whether their roadmaps account for the full scope of disruption, not just the most visible trend.
• The HellVen scenario construct frames technology futures as a governance choice between radically different outcomes rather than as a prediction. It is a practical tool for boards running scenario planning exercises on AI strategy and long-term institutional risk.
• His 2016 argument that digital ethics would become a mandatory boardroom governance issue was published before AI regulation appeared on any major policy agenda. That argument has since been validated, lending weight to his current positions on AI accountability and corporate responsibility.

Biography highlights

• Author of Technology vs Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine (2016), published in 12 languages; co-author of The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005)
• Founder and CEO, The Futures Agency, Zurich; Visiting Professor, Fundação Dom Cabral, São Paulo
• Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA), London
• Listed by Wired UK as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Europe; named by The Wall Street Journal as “one of the leading media futurists in the World” (2006)
• Views and interviews published in or featured by The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider and Wired UK; TV appearances on BBC, CNN, ARTE and ZDF
• Berklee College of Music alumnus; Quincy Jones Award recipient (1985); former professional guitarist, composer and digital media entrepreneur, San Francisco

Biography

When Technology vs Humanity appeared in 2016, it arrived with a central claim: decisions about what to automate are fundamentally ethical decisions, not just operational ones. Boards mostly disagreed. They are now being forced to revisit that judgment. As CEO of The Futures Agency in Zurich, Gerd Leonhard has spent the intervening years building the frameworks leadership teams are now looking for.

His most distinctive contribution is the distinction between algorithms and androrithms. Algorithms are the machine rules that govern digital systems. Androrithms – his term – are the human qualities that organisations risk losing when they optimise purely for efficiency: empathy, ethical reasoning, creative judgment, intuition. His Ten Megashifts framework maps ten concurrent technological forces as a compound system rather than a sequence of isolated disruptions. It gives boards a structured analytical lens rather than a single-trend narrative.

The credibility of this perspective rests partly on record. Leonhard co-authored The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005), arguing that streaming would replace ownership as the dominant music model years before the industry accepted it. That early, accurate forecast – made when conventional wisdom pointed elsewhere – distinguishes his current AI arguments from commentary that arrives after the fact.

A Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in London and Visiting Professor at Fundação Dom Cabral in São Paulo, Leonhard operates between the academic and advisory worlds. Wired UK lists him among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Europe. His perspective is shaped as much by his career as a professional musician and digital entrepreneur as by any institutional affiliation – a background that gives him a track record of having correctly called the trajectory of technological disruption before it became obvious.

Key speaking topics

• Artificial intelligence and the future of business
• Digital ethics and AI governance
• Technology and human values
• Digital transformation strategy
• Scenario planning for technological disruption
• Human-machine relationships and organisational decision-making
• Sustainability and the future of capitalism

Ideal for

• Boards and C-suite teams setting AI governance policy or approving digital transformation roadmaps
• Chief Digital Officers, CTOs and technology leadership teams seeking frameworks for responsible AI adoption
• Strategy and foresight functions building scenario plans around the compound impact of technological disruption
• Corporate governance, risk and legal teams navigating emerging AI regulation and digital ethics requirements

Audience outcomes

• A practical governance vocabulary for deciding which organisational capabilities should and should not be automated, grounded in the androrithms/algorithms framework
• A structured map of ten concurrent technological forces (the Megashifts) reshaping strategy, operations and competitive positioning simultaneously
• Understanding of how digital ethics is transitioning from a values conversation to a governance and regulatory requirement – and what that means for corporate accountability
• A scenario framework (HellVen) for stress-testing whether current AI strategies are likely to produce outcomes boards would endorse under scrutiny
• A more calibrated perspective on AI’s near-term trajectory, distinguishing intelligent assistance from AGI and assessing which predictions about the next decade are well-grounded