Gerd Leonhard

The era of "transform or die" digital hype is fading, and a more important question is taking its place: how do we keep technology human? Gerd Leonhard argues that once the IT upgrades are done, real advantage comes from meaning, experience, and trust. He shows why organizations must invest as much in humanity as in technology, and why putting people at the center of everything is the surest path to lasting relevance.

Digitization, automation, datafication, virtualization, robotization, and the other forces Gerd Leonhard calls the "Megashifts" are remaking every industry at once. In this fast-moving, eye-opening session, he maps the trends fueled by AI, the Internet of Things, and new human-machine interfaces, flags the likely pitfalls, and pinpoints the opportunities, giving leaders a practical guide to becoming a future-ready organization.

AI is the most hyped and most misunderstood technology of our time. Cutting through the noise, Gerd Leonhard distinguishes between intelligent assistance, AI, and artificial general intelligence, and explains what each really means for business and society over the next several years. He makes the case that AI should augment human capability, not erode it, and explores the ethics, risks, and opportunities that will define how it is used.

With climate change, geopolitical upheaval, and the rise of AI converging at once, the future can feel overwhelming. In this immersive keynote, Gerd Leonhard offers an alternative to both doom and blind optimism: "Protopia," a vision of step-by-step progress guided by human agency and shared purpose. He lays out his foresights for the coming years and a hopeful, actionable path toward a future built around people, planet, purpose, and prosperity.

Automation is everywhere, already: from electronic bridge-tolls to connected cars with dash-cams and selfparking capabilities, to digital wallets and mobile payment platforms, to networked medical devices and quantified-self applications, to sensor networks for traffic control and robotic nurses for the elderly – and this is only the beginning. The next 5 years will bring rapid advancements in all areas of AI, robotics and the Internet of Things, and almost all of them will bring more automation to every sector of our society (and I am sure this will not always be a good thing, either). I believe that in the near future we need to focus on human-only jobs and non-routine tasks that only humans can undertake, focusing on creativity, design, tacit pattern recognition, negotiation and other ‘soft skills’, on right-brain capabilities or on emotional context (EQ).

However, unemployment is very likely to soar, regardless, as ever smarter and cheaper machines increasingly automate all routines. So will we see the rise of a minimum guaranteed income (i.e. get paid without working) in some developed countries such as Switzerland? The very concept of work and ‘earning a living’ will need to be reimagined, and soon. The end of routine is not the end of human work!

Successful businesses always maintain a constant conversation about the future: what lessons need to be operationalized today in order to avoid future irrelevance or worse, extinction? For one thing, it is essential to understand that everything that can be digitized, automated or virtualised, will be. Cognification, automation, disintermediation and robotization and 7 other Megashifts are now taking place across all industries, globally, not just in B2C sectors like media, content and marketing. Digital transformation – going from an industrial society to a digitally-native world – is certain to be the #1 challenge-opportunity in the next 5-7 years.

How can people and their organisations become better at understanding the new challenges and opportunities, and move faster to develop the mindset and implement the transformations that are required? How will a company prosper in a world that is quickly becoming hyper-connected and interdependent? What skills and mindsets will we need, and what should remain human even if it is inefficient?

AI has become a global buzz-phrase that hogs our attention everywhere – yet the very idea of AI is being frequently misinterpreted, misunderstood and misrepresented. Hopefully this presentation can clear up this confusion! From a nonacademic perspective I explain the differences between what I call IA (intelligent assistance), AI and AGI (artificial general intelligence), and what each of them could mean for our near-future.

I depict what is real and what’s not so real (yet), and where things are going in the next 5-7 years. Examples are usually drawn specifically from a client’s domain or industry.

This talk also includes some elements from the Technology vs. Humanity talk, as outlined above, and often addresses the impact of AI on work, education and jobs, as well.