Gerd Leonhard | Speaking
Gerd’s keynotes, speeches and presentations are renowned for their hard-hitting and provocative yet inspiring, often humorous and always personal motivational style. Gerd is highly regarded as a global influencer and has advised many business leaders and government officials around the globe.
Six recurring threads run through Gerd’s keynotes; six ways of looking at the same question: What kind of future are we choosing – and will it be worth living in? Together these topics map the territory between today’s technological decisions and policies, and tomorrow’s human reality.
Gerd Leonhard | Keynotes
Navigating the Intelligence Revolution
We are entering the most profound transformation era in recent human history. The Industrial Revolutions (1760, 1870) amplified our bodies and muscles. The Internet Revolution amplified communication and information exchange. Now the Intelligence Revolution – the rise of AI – is amplifying cognition itself. Think about that for a moment: for the first time ever, our machines are no longer just tools that execute our commands. They are starting to reason, create, decide – and act in the real world, as agents, not tools. They are shaping us. And here’s my honest assessment: we are utterly unprepared. The opportunities are breathtaking: dramatic breakthroughs in medicine, science, education, sustainability, and human creativity are now within reach. Gerd remains a huge optimist about what these amazing tools can do for us – but if the tools become the purpose, i.e. the Telos, then we’re heading towards the complete convergence of humans and machines. This constantly updated and customisable keynote confronts this extraordinary moment with clarity and honesty but also with optimism, courage, and a clear sense of purpose, asking the questions that really matter:
– What distinguishes human intelligence from machine intelligence, and should we pursue a ‘convergence’ or not?
– What is consciousness as opposed to intelligence, and could or should machines ever become conscious?
– What are the key AI/AGI forecasts for the next 3-5 years, and what are the implications?
– How will business, commerce, and society change, and why does Gerd propose that ‘the future is better than we think’?
– What other game-changers are converging with the Intelligence Revolution?
– How can we prepare, individually and privately, as leaders, organisations, and societies?
– What new economic and societal structures will serve us best in this new world?
– How do we move forward with optimism, not fear?
Androrithms: The Human Qualities no Algorithm Should Ever Replace
Gerd coined the ter ‘Androrithms’ – a blend of Andro (human) and algorithms – in his 2016 book Technology vs Humanity and it has since become one of the central themes in all of his keynotes. Androrithms are the human-only traits we all possess, such as empathy, compassion, intuition, imagination, agency, and consciousness. Androrithms are the messy, organic, conscious essence of being human. While machines and AI are brilliant at answers, humans are the masters of imagination, context, common sense, intuition and questions. The roots of Androrithms lie in a conviction he holds deeply: the core of our humanity cannot be predicted, copied or optimised by any algorithm. Yes, we are living through the Intelligence Revolution, and we now inhabit a digital world ruled by analytics, automation and data – but the real engines of progress remain stubbornly organic: intuition, imagination, values, ethics, consciousness, spirituality – and the courage to embrace mystery.
The Good Future
Humanity already possesses much of the knowledge, the science, and the technology needed to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges – from clean energy and smarter healthcare to future-ready education, regenerative industry, and carbon-neutral mobility. The real question is not whether we can do it, but whether we will. We have the capital. We have the tools. What we lack is the collective will – the TELOS – to invest in the future we actually want.
We can build a future where technology amplifies our humanity instead of replacing it; where progress is measured by human and planetary flourishing, not just efficiency and optimisation. A future where humanity remains the operating system behind everything we invent. The Good Future is not going to manifest by itself: We must choose it, design it, and fight for it – every single day.
Digital Ethics and AI Power: Technology doesn’t have ethics – but humanity’s future depends on it!
Gerd’s core argument is simple: while we are rapidly making scientific breakthroughs and gaining god-like technological powers, we have invested far too little time and money on agreeing on the Telos – the purpose, the direction, and the ultimate destination of our progress. Our outdated, pre-AI economic system continues to reward the relentless creation and deployment of game-changing tools, often without asking why they should exist, who they should serve, who is in charge, or what future they are bound to create. If we continue to develop exponentially powerful technologies that may soon surpass human capabilities and therefore exceed our capacity to control them, and if we don’t invest equally in defining their purpose, governance and limitations, we will not create a Good Future (but rather, The Bad Future) – We will instead engineer our own decline. Organisations must embed ethics, human and planetary values and long-term purpose into everything they do. We must invest as much in telos as we invest in tools. Only then can we ensure genuine human and planetary flourishing – a future in which technology serves humanity, rather than humanity serving technology.
The Future of Europe
How can we design and realise The United States of Europe? How can we pool our national sovereignties to lead the world in progress and humanity? How will we compete with American innovation, capital and entrepreneurship? And what about China? Why and how to achieve European technological sovereignty? How to design and realize The Good Future, together?
Europe faces its greatest test since the end of World War II. In a world increasingly dominated by geopolitical turbulence, power-plays and posturing, algorithmic ‘enshittification’ and omni-potent global technology empires, Europe can no longer afford to wait, follow, or drift. Europe must find its collective voice, define its purpose and direction, and act with courage and determination. Our unique strength does not lie in being bigger, faster, richer or even happier than others. It lies in our ability to offer a distinctly human-centered vision of the future; one grounded in democracy, sustainability, ethics, and shared prosperity. A future built on the 5ps.
The 5 Ps: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity
For most of the last century we measured progress with a single yardstick: profit and growth of GDP (and power). The industrial revolution, and then, the information revolution both fed off and into this simple economic logic. The 1P world made some of us rich and it made the markets more efficient, but today it’s utterly unfit for the future as we head into the Intelligence Revolution fuelled by AI and other hyper-exponential game-changers such as robotics, fusion energy and quantum computing.
If we continue to pursue the sole objective of Profit & Power, we will implode before we reach 2050 – a world of abundance cannot coexist with the outdated economic mantras of the pre-AI world. This (and the climate emergency) is why Gerd kept coming back to the 5Ps that he introduced over a decade ago: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity.
– People, because no economy is worth more than the lives inside it.
– Planet, because there is no good future on a broken one.
– Purpose, because efficiency without meaning and telos (direction) is just a faster way to nowhere.
– Peace, because everything we want to build assumes we don’t tear it down first, and that we can indeed collaborate.
– Prosperity – real prosperity, shared and lasting – as the result, not the goal.
Future-Fit Learning, Education and the New Work
We are entering the Intelligence Revolution, and the resulting shifts will be faster, deeper and much more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution or even the Internet Revolution ever was. Not in 250 years – but in 10 years! The future no longer belongs to the people who know the most. It belongs to the people who can learn, unlearn and relearn, who can create, imagine and intuit, and who can go beyond information and data toward understanding, wisdom and consciousness. That means moving from competing with machines to nurturing and honing what machines cannot, and should not, replicate: empathy, ethics, imagination, collaboration, curiosity – the Androrithms.
Gerd Leonard | Talk Delivery Formats
– On-location keynote in person and with customised visuals (30-60 min), Q&A or a speech without any visuals or media.
– A virtual keynote via video, with customised background visuals (15-60 min), LIVE online format (slightly higher fee) or Pre-Recorded (slightly lower fee).
– A ‘Fireside-Chat with Futurist Gerd’ (no media, no presentation, conversation-style), hosted by a suitable and experienced presenter.
– A virtual panel or webinar participation (no speech, no presentation)
– Futurising Seminars or Workshops for the executive board future-coaching
– Virtual Advisory Session with Futurist Gerd
Gerd Leonhard | Other Speaking Topics
– Awesome Humans
– Amazing Technology
– The Future of Business, Commerce, and Society
– Sustainable is the New Profitable
– Green is the New Digital
– Understanding the Megashifts
– Humanity and Technology
– Culture Eats Technology for Breakfast
– 2030: Scenarios and Foresights
– Artificial Intelligence
– A Futurist’s Case for Technology Regulation
– Happiness in the Digital Age
– A New Renaissance
– Digital Ethics
Gerd Leonhard | Clients
BBC, DDB, Deutsche Telekom, The EU Commission, The Financial Times, France Telecom, Google, The Guardian, IPG, ITV, Lloyds Bank, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Mastercard, MTN, Nokia, Ogilvy, Omnicom, Orange, RTL, Siemens, Sony, Telkom Indonesia, UBS, Unilever, VISA, WWF.
