Karl Lillrud
Boards have signed off on AI ambitions that the operating business has no idea how to execute. Pilots multiply, vendor decks pile up, and the gap between strategy slides and what customers actually experience keeps widening. The job leaders need help with is choosing where AI changes the commercial model, and where it is noise.
Karl Lillrud is an entrepreneur and AI advisor who helps boards and executive teams turn artificial intelligence from a strategy slide into a working part of the commercial model.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Karl Lillrud
- He speaks about AI from the seat of someone who has run digital commerce businesses since the late nineties and is currently building one. PodManager AI, his AI-driven podcast production platform, is shipping to paying customers as he speaks about AI to other operators.
- His work connects AI directly to revenue mechanics: pricing, conversion, retention, and customer acquisition, the parts of the P&L the C-suite is actually accountable for.
- Nine published books, including “You, Me and AI” and “AI, Your Second Brain: Evolve or Go Extinct”, give leadership teams a shared language for the second-order effects of AI on work, governance, and customer trust, beyond the productivity headlines.
- Membership of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and recognition in Thinkers360’s AI thought-leader rankings signal that the perspective travels at board level, not just at the developer conference.
- The client footprint, including Volvo, Spotify, Klarna, H&M, AstraZeneca, and 3, gives him pattern recognition across regulated and consumer-facing businesses that few AI speakers can match.
Biography highlights
- Founder of PodManager AI, an AI-driven podcast production platform he is currently building.
- Founder of Pricelizer, a Swedish e-commerce startup named to CNBC’s 20 hottest startups list in 2015.
- Author of nine books on AI and digital business, including “You, Me and AI” and “AI, Your Second Brain: Evolve or Go Extinct”.
- Member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council since August 2024.
- Two-time TEDx speaker.
- Recognised across multiple years in Thinkers360’s AI thought-leader rankings and Global Gurus’ Top 30 Motivational Speakers list.
- Public engagement footprint includes Volvo, Spotify, Klarna, H&M, AstraZeneca, Qliro, 3, Tele2, and TUI.
Biography
Most AI keynote speakers have never run a checkout flow at scale. Karl Lillrud has. He has been building digital businesses since the late nineties, founded Pricelizer in 2013 to solve the abandoned-cart problem he kept hitting as an operator, and watched it land on CNBC’s 20 hottest startups list in 2015. He is now building PodManager AI, an AI-driven podcast production platform shipping to paying customers. That operator history, still in present tense, is the through-line for everything he says about artificial intelligence.
His books reflect the same instinct. “You, Me and AI” treats the technology across 54 chapters covering work, creativity, education, governance, and the human-machine boundary, rather than as a productivity story. “AI, Your Second Brain: Evolve or Go Extinct” focuses on how leaders and their teams should actually integrate the tools day to day. The two sit inside a wider catalogue of nine published books, written for people who have to make decisions, not people studying the field.
The institutional signals followed the work. Thinkers360 has recognised him across its AI thought-leader rankings. Global Gurus has placed him repeatedly in its Top 30 Motivational Speakers ranking. In August 2024 he joined the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. Volvo, Spotify, Klarna, H&M, AstraZeneca, Qliro, and 3 sit on a public client list that runs across consumer retail, telecoms, and pharma.
What a buyer is paying for is the translation layer between board ambition and operating reality. Lillrud has been the person trying to ship the next quarter’s numbers, and he is still in the chair, building an AI product while advising executives who have AI strategies they cannot yet execute. The argument lands because he has been on both sides of the table.
Key speaking topics
- Artificial intelligence and the C-suite agenda
- AI in retail and consumer experience
- Digital commerce and customer acquisition
- Innovation and business model reinvention
- Leadership in technology-driven organisations
- AI ethics and governance
- Future of work in the AI era
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees moving from AI strategy approval to execution.
- CEOs, CMOs, and chief digital or commerce officers in retail, telecoms, and consumer brands.
- Innovation, transformation, and AI leads inside large enterprises building the operating model for AI.
- Founder and growth-stage leadership teams using AI as a commercial wedge.
Audience outcomes
- A sharper read on which AI use cases move commercial metrics and which are theatre.
- A vocabulary for discussing AI’s second-order effects on customers, employees, and brand trust at board level.
- Concrete reference points from operators who have shipped AI inside consumer-facing businesses.
- A clearer view of where leadership attention should sit next versus where it can wait.
- Confidence to challenge vendor narratives and refocus internal AI portfolios on revenue impact.
Talks
A keynote on how senior leaders set direction for AI inside operating businesses without ceding strategy to vendors or technical teams.
Key takeaways:
- A working frame for separating AI bets that move the P&L from those that drain attention.
- Language for talking about AI risk and AI value with boards and customers in the same conversation.
- A model for sequencing AI initiatives across the next four to six quarters.
A session built for executive committees translating AI ambition into accountable operating decisions.
Key takeaways:
- The questions a C-suite should be able to answer before approving the next AI investment.
- Where AI changes the commercial model, and where it only changes the cost line.
- How to read vendor pitches and internal proposals with a sharper filter.
A talk on how AI is reshaping pricing, personalisation, and customer journeys in consumer-facing businesses.
Key takeaways:
- Specific points in the customer journey where AI is already shifting conversion and loyalty.
- The trade-offs between automation, brand voice, and customer trust.
- Lessons from operators who have run AI in live commerce environments.
A keynote on where digital commerce is going next as AI, agents, and new buying behaviours collide.
Key takeaways:
- The structural shifts that are remaking acquisition and retention economics.
- What incumbents most often misread about AI-native commerce competitors.
- A view on the capabilities a serious commerce business needs to build now.