Ian Beacraft
Ian Beacraft is a Gonzo Futurist and AI expert who helps organizations turn emerging technology into innovation, growth, and cultural change.
Why you should book Ian Beacraft for your next event
- Ian translates bleeding-edge AI and emerging technologies into clear strategies leaders can act on, driving measurable business results and innovation.
- As a founder and Chief Futurist, he brings hands-on experience advising global brands on future-ready products, services, and organizational change.
- Known for his Gonzo Futurist approach, Ian experiments with new technology early to reveal real-world implications for work, culture, and society.
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AI, the Future of Work, and Turning Emerging Technology into Business Value
Ian Beacraft is one of the most prominent voices shaping conversations around artificial intelligence and the future of work. As Founder and Chief Futurist of Signal and Cipher, he advises organizations navigating rapid technological change and the pressure to innovate with purpose. Ian is recognized for his rare ability to make complex, emerging technologies understandable, practical, and commercially relevant. His work bridges strategy, culture, and execution, helping leaders see beyond hype and focus on what truly drives impact.
Ian Beacraft – AI and the Future of Work Speaker
Ian Beacraft is widely recognized for his work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, emerging technology, and the future of work. As Founder and Chief Futurist of Signal and Cipher, he leads a strategic foresight and development agency dedicated to helping organizations adapt to a fast-changing technology landscape. His focus is clear: identify meaningful paths to innovation that improve the bottom line, inspire cultural evolution, and enable the creation of new products and services.
With a background that includes responsibility for P&L ownership and innovation departments at some of the largest agencies in the world, Ian brings a deeply commercial and strategic perspective to the future of technology. He understands both the creative and financial realities leaders face, and he connects long-term technological shifts with immediate business priorities. This combination has made him a trusted advisor to many of the world’s most innovative companies.
From Emerging Technology to Measurable Impact
Ian is known for making bleeding-edge technology understandable and monetizable. His work demystifies AI and emerging tools, moving conversations away from speculation and toward practical application. Rather than focusing on distant futures, he helps organizations see how today’s research and early-stage technologies can shape operations, culture, and competitive advantage right now.
Through his advisory work, Ian has supported global brands including Samsung, Intel, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Universal Pictures, and many others. Across industries, his approach remains consistent: translate complexity into clarity, align innovation with strategy, and ensure that technology investments deliver real value.
The Gonzo Futurist Approach
Ian describes himself as a Gonzo Futurist, a title that reflects his hands-on methodology. He actively experiments with new and emerging technologies long before they become mainstream or leave the research lab. By engaging directly with these tools, he gains firsthand insight into how they work, where they fail, and how they may influence the future of work and society.
This experimental mindset allows Ian to speak with authority and authenticity. His keynotes and advisory sessions are grounded in lived experience rather than theory. Audiences gain a realistic understanding of what AI and advanced technologies can do today, what they are likely to do next, and how leaders should prepare their organizations for what’s coming.
A Unique Voice on the Global Stage
Ian Beacraft’s work also extends into media and storytelling. He made history as the first person ever to host a news segment as a synthetic human, fronting The Future Report on Defiance Media. The program streamed to more than 100 million devices worldwide, underscoring Ian’s commitment to exploring how technology reshapes communication, identity, and work itself.
As a keynote speaker, Ian brings this same forward-thinking perspective to the stage. He challenges assumptions, reframes risk as opportunity, and equips leaders with language and frameworks to guide their teams through uncertainty. His presentations are engaging, direct, and grounded in business reality, making them relevant for executives, innovators, and decision-makers alike.
Book Ian Beacraft for Your Event
When you book Ian Beacraft for your event, you bring in a speaker who understands both the promise and the pressure of emerging technology. He helps audiences move beyond buzzwords and fear, toward informed action and strategic confidence. Whether addressing AI adoption, workforce transformation, or innovation strategy, Ian delivers insights that resonate long after the keynote ends.
Ian Beacraft is a powerful voice for organizations ready to engage seriously with the future of work and the technologies shaping it.
Keynotes
Keynote by Ian Beacraft:
Billion Dollar Teams: The Future of an AI Powered Workforce
The AI honeymoon is over, but its impact has barely begun. What happens when we no longer interact with AI on discrete tasks, but it’s pervasive in our work?
We’ll reach that reality faster than we did with the digital revolution.
We’ll explore the ability and practices of AI-enabled individuals and teams to provide exponential value; This is the era of the billion-dollar team.
We’ll show examples of how new team structures, workflows, and cultures are built, including several experiments within our own organization using AI to enhance employee productivity 10x and more on specific tasks.
Keynote by Ian Beacraft:
Creative Machines: AI and A Generative Future
The technology that brough us Deepfakes is permanently reshaping the way we create content of all kinds from movies and music to apps and websites.
We explore how synthetic media and computational design are inspiring all sorts of machine-assisted creativity and how it’s changing the creative process.
Keynote by Ian Beacraft:
Masters and Robots: AI and the Future of Creativity
What happens when society experiences tectonic shifts that shatter established norms? When the outputs of fields from art and music to law and science are commoditized?
The coming wave of creative destruction will coincide with a creative revolution.
This transformation will benefit society, but our assumptions of what it takes to succeed and to create value will be challenged. Many things we hold to be true, or obvious will cease to function as truth.
Masters and Robots 2022 - Ian Beacraft - Creative Machines - The Future of AI and Creativity
Watch Ian Beacraft in action
