Workforce Transformation speakers

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