Taryn Southern
Most leadership teams have run their generative AI pilots and now face a harder question: where does the technology actually sit inside the operating model, and which categories of work change shape entirely. The answer is rarely visible from the inside, where vendors pitch tools and consultants pitch frameworks. It comes from people who have built original commercial product with these systems and watched the next layer of human-machine technology arrive in a hospital bed.
Taryn Southern is a creative technologist and Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech who helps organisations understand generative AI and brain-computer interfaces as practical capabilities, not abstractions, drawing on first-hand experience building commercial work with both.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Taryn Southern
- She produced the first solo-artist pop album composed with AI in 2018, when most organisations were still asking whether generative tools could ship anything usable. The lessons on creative workflow integration are now several years ahead of most enterprise practice.
- She runs storytelling and external communications at Blackrock Neurotech, an implantable BCI company, which gives her a working view of the next technology layer beyond generative AI.
- Her documentary work, including “I AM HUMAN” at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, gives her a rare ability to translate frontier neurotechnology into language a non-technical board can use.
- She has keynoted SXSW, Web Summit, the World AI Summit, and NY Times Future of Work, and has been booked by Google, Salesforce, Deloitte, and Gartner. Senior tech audiences treat her as a peer, not a populariser.
Biography highlights
- Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech since 2021, leading story strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M led by Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether
- Released “I AM AI” in 2018, the first solo-artist pop album composed and produced with AI tools including Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA
- Directed and produced “I AM HUMAN,” premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival; subsequent awards include Best Director at Oslo Film Fest
- Three-time Streamy Awards nominee; 2018 Geena Davis Award recipient for innovative female filmmaking
- Keynote speaker at SXSW, Web Summit, World AI Summit, Google’s AI Summit, VidCon, The Next Web, NY Times Future of Work
- Featured in Vanity Fair, Billboard, Fast Company, Wired, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review
Biography
The first solo-artist pop album composed with AI was released in September 2018, before most enterprises had finished their first ChatGPT briefing note. “I AM AI” used Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA, with the lead single “Break Free” reaching the Top 100 radio charts. The interest, for a serious audience, is not the novelty. It is what the project showed about how a working creative integrates these tools into a production workflow that ships.
That production credibility is the spine of the work Taryn Southern now does with senior teams. She has produced more than 1,500 videos across more than a decade of digital media, advised early product teams at YouTube, Google VR, and Snapchat, and directed an award-winning Google VR series. The vantage point is unusual: she has built original commercial product with generative tools at every stage of their maturity.
Since 2021 she has been Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech, the implantable brain-computer interface company. She launched what the company describes as the world’s first BCI museum, oversaw a corporate rebrand and the formation of a BCI Ethics Advisory board, and led communications strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M, with investors including Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether. The role gives her a working view of the technology layer that arrives after generative AI, and the regulatory and ethical questions a board will be asked to take a position on within the next decade.
Her directorial debut, “I AM HUMAN,” premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and followed three of the first patients to receive implantable brain-computer interfaces. The film is the practical bridge in her work with corporate audiences: it shows what the next frontier of human-machine technology looks like in a hospital, in a home, and in the conversations a serious organisation will need to have about it well before the technology becomes commonplace.
Key speaking topics
- Generative AI in creative production
- AI-augmented workflows and creative practice
- Brain-computer interfaces and human-machine integration
- Frontier neurotechnology and ethics
- Storytelling for emerging technology companies
- The future of human and artificial intelligence
Ideal for
- Boards and leadership teams setting AI strategy beyond initial pilots
- Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Communications Officers, and creative leadership integrating generative tools into production
- Innovation, R&D, and strategy leaders tracking neurotech and the post-AI technology stack
- Senior leadership conferences in technology, media, healthcare, and life sciences
Audience outcomes
- A working understanding of how generative AI tools function inside a real production workflow, drawn from a practitioner who has shipped commercial product
- A grounded view of brain-computer interface technology, what it currently does, where it is going, and the questions boards will face
- A sharper sense of which categories of creative and knowledge work are most exposed to generative AI, and which remain durably human
- An informed perspective on the ethical and governance terrain emerging at the intersection of AI and neurotechnology
Talks
A practitioner’s account of how generative AI tools change creative production, from ideation to delivery.
Key takeaways:
- How AI tools reshape the creative production workflow at each stage
- Where human judgement remains decisive and where it can be delegated
- Practical patterns for integrating generative tools into existing teams
A tactical session on using generative AI for productivity, learning, and personal effectiveness.
Key takeaways:
- Concrete applications of generative AI to everyday knowledge work
- How to build durable AI literacy as the tools evolve
- The skills that compound in value as generative tools mature
A look at brain-computer interfaces through the people who use them, from a Chief Storyteller working inside the field.
Key takeaways:
- The current state of implantable BCI technology and patient outcomes
- The ethical, regulatory, and commercial questions BCI raises for boards
- What the next decade of human-machine integration plausibly looks like
A connecting talk on the convergence of neurotechnology, machine learning, and human potential.
Key takeaways:
- How frontier neurotech and AI are converging into a single technology stack
- The categories of business most affected by that convergence
- How to think about long-range planning when the underlying technology is moving in steps
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | €12000 to €40000 | Please enquire | $15000 - $50000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | Please enquire | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | Please enquire | $15000 - $50000 |
| South America | €12000 to €40000 | Please enquire | $15000 - $50000 |
| United Kingdom | €12000 to €40000 | Please enquire | $15000 - $50000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |