Available for keynotes, breakouts & workshops
Your audience is drowning in AI hype. Kevin gives them a way out.
Most AI speakers explain what the technology does. Kevin explains what to do about it: in plain language, without vendor pitches, grounded in 30 years of implementation experience. Attendees leave with frameworks they can use.
Kevin Howard Goldberg
- CEO, iS2 Digital
- UCLA, Computer Science
- Wharton School of Business
- 35+ years software development
- Fortune 500 client track record
- Newsletter: Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful
What Kevin Delivers
Most AI speakers tell your audience what AI can do. Kevin tells them what to actually do about it.
He brings 30 years of software development and a Wharton degree to a single, practical question: how does a non-technical business leader make smart technology decisions without getting lost in the hype? That is the conversation audiences have been waiting for.
Kevin has delivered technology solutions for organizations from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups and growing mid-market businesses. He does not sell platforms. He does not promote tools. He teaches decision-making frameworks that work regardless of what the AI landscape looks like today or six months from now.
Speaking Topics
One keynote. Four breakout sessions.
A coherent framework your attendees can actually use.
Keynote
AI: What's Real, What's Hype, What's Next
Your attendees are already in the middle of this. They are using AI tools at work, reading contradictory headlines, and making decisions about what to adopt, what to ignore, and what to tell their teams, mostly without a clear picture of what is actually true. The problem is not access to information. It is that almost everything they are reading pulls them in one of two wrong directions: either AI is an existential threat to their career, or it is an overhyped distraction. Neither framing helps them make a single useful decision.
This keynote gives them the grounded picture they have been missing. What AI actually is, without the marketing layer. How this moment compares to past technology waves, and what those comparisons imply about timelines, job displacement, and where real opportunity surfaces. What AI genuinely delivers today and where it falls short. And what appears to be coming next, calibrated against what the evidence actually shows rather than what vendors and journalists are claiming.
45-60 minutes with Q&A · General sessions, opening and closing keynotes, all-hands leadership events
The audience leaves able to:
- Explain what AI actually is and how it works, in plain language, to a colleague, a direct report, or a skeptic
- Identify where AI genuinely changes their work and where the hype has gotten ahead of the reality
- Apply a clear framework to evaluate any AI claim, tool, or headline they encounter going forward
Breakout & Workshop Sessions
45-90 min · Pair with keynote or standalone
Session 01
Don't Automate Chaos: A Practical Framework for AI Readiness
What it solves
Someone on your attendee list has already tried to automate something and watched it fail in production. They know the pilot worked. They may not know why the real thing did not. This session answers that question and gives them a diagnostic framework they can apply before the next initiative starts. Built from 30 years of implementation experience, it walks through exactly what foundational work looks like, why it gets skipped, and what it costs when it does.
They leave able to
- Assess whether a workflow is actually ready to automate before investing in any tool
- Identify the operational gaps that pilots miss but production exposes
- Build the internal case for foundational work as a prerequisite to AI investment
Session 02
The Age of Discernment: What AI Actually Changes About Your Job
What it solves
Your attendees have heard that AI will replace them, augment them, or make them irrelevant. None of those framings help them decide what to do on Monday morning. The research tells a clearer story: AI access is now table stakes, and a competitive divide is opening. This session names that divide, explains what it means for professional value, and gives attendees a concrete practice for landing on the right side of it.
They leave able to
- Explain the core professional value in an AI-enabled environment
- Apply clarity and purpose to leveraging AI output in their own workflow
- Identify where their competitive advantage now lives, and where it is eroding
Session 03
Stop Microwaving Your AI: How to Build AI Practices That Actually Work
What it solves
Most of your attendees are already using AI. Most are not getting consistent results. They get unpredictable output and feel more tired at the end of the day, not less. Research from Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard Business Review confirms it: AI without the proper structure does not save time, it intensifies the work and accelerates burnout. This session gives attendees a concrete path from casual use to structured, sustainable AI fluency, the level where the productivity gains actually show up.
They leave able to
- Move from prompting to a repeatable AI system that compounds value over time
- Identify which tasks in their workflow benefit most from structured AI practices
- Build persistent AI workspaces that eliminate repeated setup and context loss
Session 04
Where AI Actually Is (And Where It Isn't)
What it solves
Half your attendees think AI is about to replace half the workforce. The other half think it is mostly hype. Both camps are making decisions based on a map that does not match the territory. This session delivers a grounded, current picture of where AI capability actually stands, updated to the week of your event, drawing on the same research synthesis Kevin publishes every week in his newsletter. Attendees leave with an accurate map. That alone makes every subsequent AI decision faster and more confident.
They leave able to
- Separate AI's genuine current capabilities from vendor-amplified claims
- Use the "Jagged Frontier" concept to match tasks to tools more accurately
- Understand the governance and trust questions that most AI deployments skip
This session is updated for each engagement, drawing on Kevin's weekly newsletter and iS2 Digital's current work to reflect the current state of the field, not last year's headlines.
Watch
See Kevin in action.
Watch Kevin in Action
Kevin explains complex AI and technology concepts the way a knowledgeable friend would: directly, without jargon, and with your business outcomes in mind.
What Kevin Is Thinking About
The newsletter is the ongoing proof of the methodology.
Kevin publishes Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful bi-weekly, tracking the AI developments that actually matter for non-technical business leaders. What he covers in the newsletter is what he brings to the stage.
I get a lot of regular email newsletters, but this is the only one I consistently read and save for later reference. They are full of simple and understandable summaries that pique my interest with links to deep dives to learn more. All of these are topics I'm interested in, but instead of having to seek them out, they are delivered to me in a convenient and thought-provoking package.
Thank you for assembling this consistently valuable background and insight. Keep up the great work and I hope it's a valuable pipeline for your work. Your post on operational debt is pertinent to my challenges at the moment; it's helpful in how I frame negative operational scenarios for our senior leadership in the States and Korea
About Kevin
Kevin Goldberg is CEO of iS2 Digital and the author of the newsletter Artificially Intelligent, Actually Useful. He holds an entrepreneurial management degree from the Wharton School and brings more than 30 years of software development experience to every engagement.
His client work spans Fortune 500 organizations including GE Private Asset Management and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, alongside hundreds of implementations for growing businesses navigating digital transformation, including recent engagements with Everforth, Alliant Communities, StreetsLA, Creative Circle, HAPI at UCLA, The Ash Group, and American Camp Association.
He has taught at Santa Monica College, guided students developing an AI-powered municipal service chatbot at Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and presented for organizations including the Nonprofit Technology Network.
Kevin does not sell platforms. He teaches business leaders how to think clearly about technology: what it can do, what it cannot, and how to make decisions that hold up over time.
Conference Recordings
Sizzle reel and session recordings.
Video assets will be added here as speaking engagements are completed. The sizzle reel is the priority asset: it unlocks keynote submissions.
Book Kevin
Book Kevin for your event.
Kevin speaks at conferences, association events, workshops, and podcasts for non-technical business audiences. To discuss availability, format, and fit, contact his executive assistant, Michelle Pattison, or send an inquiry below.
I built these sessions because I kept seeing the same pattern: organizations making expensive AI decisions without a stable framework for evaluating them. The sessions on this page are what I wish someone had handed those leaders before they started.
If your audience is navigating that same terrain, I would like to be in the room.
- Kevin
Available Formats
Multi-session engagements (a keynote paired with a breakout or workshop) are available.
Kevin is based in Bend, Oregon and travels frequently. Contact Michelle to discuss travel details.
Direct Contact
Michelle Pattison
Executive Assistant to Kevin Goldberg