Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – The Futurist For Leaders
Mike Walsh
Keynote Speaker
Founder and CEO of Tomorrow
Leading authority on how AI and other disruptive technologies intersect with leadership strategy from a uniquely global perspective. Author of ‘The Algorithmic Leader’, CEO of Tomorrow, Harvard Business Review columnist, with a popular YouTube channel featuring dispatches about global trends, new technologies and examples of disruptive innovation from around the world.
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Mike Walsh is a futurist for leaders, internationally renowned for his visionary and pragmatic insights on how organizations can leverage AI for reinvention. A regular columnist for the Harvard Business Review, a strategic advisor to Fortune 50 corporations, and a global nomad – he is the author of three bestselling books, most recently: ‘The Algorithmic Leader: How to be smart when machines are smarter than you’. He has a rare talent for connecting emerging technologies, cultural shifts, and commercial strategies — crafting insights that bridge the present to the future with clarity, relevance, and a compelling touch of wit.
At the heart of Mike Walsh’s work is a singular focus on redefining leadership for the AI age. Unlike other futurists who concentrate on predicting technological advances or broad societal trends, Walsh zeroes in on how leaders must fundamentally reimagine their role in a world where machines are increasingly capable of making complex decisions. His key insight is that traditional leadership approaches, built for an analog era of predictable business cycles and hierarchical organizations, are no longer sufficient. Instead, leaders must develop new capabilities to harness data and AI while maintaining their essential human judgment and ethical principles.
Walsh believes that the real challenge isn’t just understanding the technology itself, but rather how leaders can adapt their decision-making, develop new mental models, and reshape their organizations to effectively combine human and machine intelligence. His emphasis on the human dimension of technological change makes his insights particularly valuable for business leaders navigating digital transformation.
On a personal note, Mike’s ethnic background is as diverse as his experiences. Born in Australia to parents of mixed Asian and European heritage, he has lived, worked, and traveled across many countries, embracing a truly global perspective.
A prolific writer and sought-after commentator, Mike’s insights have been featured in leading global publications such as Inc. Magazine, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. As a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, he tackles cutting-edge leadership themes ranging from data-driven decision-making and agile organizations to algorithmic management and AI ethics. Through his popular podcast Between Worlds, Mike engages with bold thinkers, innovators, and disruptors from across industries. He also produces The Future is Elsewhere, a YouTube series offering fresh perspectives from dynamic locations like Seoul, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Istanbul, bringing global trends and future-forward ideas to life.
Mike is an accomplished author with three published books and a fourth on the way, focused on the future of AI Agents, set to release in early 2026. His most recent work, The Algorithmic Leader, provides an optimistic and practical roadmap for harnessing AI, automation, and algorithms to transform leadership and reshape organizations. The book has achieved global success, with translations available in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Polish, and Russian. In his 2014 release, The Dictionary of Dangerous Ideas, Mike foresaw groundbreaking innovations such as micro satellite networks, cryptocurrencies, remote work, life extension technologies, self-driving cars, drones, digital biology, digital activism, and the commercialization of space. His debut book, Futuretainment, published by Phaidon in 2009, earned the prestigious Art Director’s Club design award in New York. It accurately predicted the impact of smartphones on media and marketing, as well as the rise of social media, digital influencers, streaming platforms, and the emergence of the Metaverse.
Mike Walsh is the CEO of Tomorrow, a global consultancy on designing companies for the 21st century. For the past twenty years, he has been a leading authority on disruptive innovation, digital transformation, and new ways of thinking. A global nomad from a diverse ethnic background, futurist and author of three bestselling books, Mike advises some of the world’s biggest organizations on reinvention and change in this new era of machine intelligence. A specialist in AI-powered transformation, he bridges the two worlds of disruptive technology and business leadership, translating deep tech into pragmatic recommendations for leaders to seize new opportunities, transform their organizations, and change their own thinking.
Featured Videos
Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – How Much Supervision Should Companies Give AI Agents?
Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – AI, Smart Glasses, And The Future Of Eye Care
Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – How AI Will Change Knowledge Work
Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – The AI-Powered Decade Ahead
Mike Walsh
Mike Walsh – The Futurist For Leaders
Mike Walsh’s Speech Topics
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Abundant Intelligence: How Digital Labor Will Rewrite the Rules of Business
Based on his forthcoming book Abundant Intelligence, Mike Walsh explores what happens when thinking becomes cheap and scalable. Drawing on more than fifty interviews with global CEOs, founders, policymakers, and technology leaders, he reveals how organizations are beginning to redesign themselves around digital labor, reshaping everything from how work gets done to how decisions are made.
In this provocative keynote, Walsh argues that the real opportunity of AI is not simply automation, but the chance to fundamentally reconfigure the enterprise. The next generation of leaders will need to decide where human judgment matters most, where machine cognition can operate at scale, and how the two combine to create faster decisions, stronger governance, and entirely new operating models. This keynote offers a clear framework for understanding the age of abundant intelligence and what it means for strategy, leadership, and competitive advantage in the decade ahead.
Audience Takeaways
- Why AI agents and digital labor represent a fundamental shift in how work gets done
- How leading organizations are redesigning workflows and decisions around human- machine collaboration
- Why competitive advantage will come from configuring intelligence, not just adopting technology
- The new leadership mindset required when intelligence becomes abundant
- Practical ideas for preparing your organization for the age of digital labor
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The AI-Powered Decade Ahead: A Roadmap For Enterprise Reinvention
Artificial intelligence is not just another wave of technology. It is the foundation of a new era. Over the next decade, AI will reshape how we work, how we make decisions, how we serve customers, and even how we interact with the world around us. From autonomous systems and digital labor to intelligent infrastructure and machine-driven discovery, AI is rapidly becoming embedded in every industry and institution.
In this compelling keynote, futurist Mike Walsh explores what the next ten years will actually look like. Drawing on global trends and real-world examples, he reveals how AI will reshape industries, redefine productivity, and transform the relationship between people, organizations, and machines. Audiences will gain a clear view of the forces already reshaping the world and the critical questions every organization must confront as the AI- powered decade unfolds.
Audience Takeaways
- The biggest AI breakthroughs and shifts likely to shape the next decade
- How AI will transform everyday life, industries, and the global economy
- What the rise of autonomous systems, agents, and robots will mean for the future of work
- Understanding the Fifth Industrial Revolution, and how to position your organization to thrive in it
- What leaders need to do next to be ready for what will be expected of them
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The Future Favors The Bold: Human Leadership 2.0
Artificial intelligence is not just changing industries. It is redefining how professionals create value. Across every sector, algorithms are beginning to perform tasks that once defined expertise, from analysis and forecasting to research and advice. The leaders and professionals who thrive in this new environment will not be those who simply adopt new tools. They will be the ones willing to rethink how work gets done, how decisions are made, and where human judgment truly matters.
In this thought-provoking keynote, futurist Mike Walsh explores how leaders, consultants, agents and advisors can reinvent themselves in the age of AI. Drawing on examples from organizations and professions already embracing digital labor, he shows how the most successful individuals are moving beyond traditional workflows to more leveraged ways of working. By combining human judgment with machine intelligence, they are redesigning their roles, amplifying their impact, and discovering entirely new ways to create value. In the decade ahead, the future will favor those bold enough to rethink not just their tools, but their role.
Audience Takeaways
- Why leadership matters more, not less, in a world of abundant machine intelligence
- How great leaders apply judgment and accountability when machines can generate answers instantly
- Why translating human values into clear goals, guardrails, and constraints is becoming a critical leadership skill
- How creative induction helps leaders imagine new possibilities beyond what algorithms can predict
- Why probabilistic thinking and comfort with uncertainty will define effective leadership in the AI era
Works by Mike Walsh
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Mike Walsh
The Dictionary of Dangerous -
Mike Walsh
Futureainment -
Mike Walsh
The Algorithmic Leader
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