Seb Terry
AI and Human Connection Keynote Speaker Sebastian Terry

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AI and Human Connection Keynote Speaker

As the work speeds up, being human becomes the premium skill. Written for innovation summits, tech conferences and transformation kickoffs.

See the keynote

The short answer

The reason organizations look for an AI and human connection keynote speaker is rarely the technology itself — they've got people for that. It's the quieter thing happening alongside the rollout: teams shipping faster than they've ever shipped and feeling further apart than they've ever felt. Seb Terry speaks to that gap. Not as a technologist, and not as a sceptic, but as the person in the agenda who makes a room remember what the tools are for.

Automate the routine work and you also automate away the small human moments that used to sit inside it — the handover, the check-in, the two minutes before a call started. Those moments were never in the process document, and nobody notices they're gone until trust is thinner and nobody can say why.

So the premium skill shifts. Judgment, honesty, the ability to sit with someone in a hard moment, the willingness to say the thing that isn't in the transcript. Machines are getting extraordinary at the rest. This page explains that argument, and then points to the session Seb built for it.

What this changes for a technical audience

A room of engineers, product leads and transformation teams will forgive almost anything except being condescended to. Seb doesn't explain their industry back to them. He does the thing the rest of the agenda can't.

The human case gets made without nostalgia

No warning about robots, no plea to slow down. The argument is that speed raises the value of the things only people can do — and then it names them.

The room actually stops

In an agenda full of demos and roadmaps, Seb is the session where several hundred people put a device down and talk to each other. Planners book it as the reset in the middle or the close at the end.

Change fatigue gets addressed head-on

Transformation programs run on people who are already tired. Seb speaks to that honestly, then gives them a reason to re-engage that isn't the business case they've heard four times.

Something transfers to the team

People leave with one specific commitment to one specific colleague. In a fast-moving org, that's the smallest unit of change that survives the next sprint.

Some of the organizations Seb has worked with

Cisco — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry
Oracle — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry
Google — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry
Meta — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry
Forcepoint — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry
Cognizant — client of keynote speaker Sebastian Terry

Built for innovation summits and transformation kickoffs

This is a 2026 subject and the calendar shows it. The rooms asking for it right now:

  • Innovation summits and future-of-work conferences looking for the human counterweight to a technical agenda
  • Technology and SaaS user conferences, developer events and partner summits
  • Digital transformation and AI rollout kickoffs, including internal enablement launches
  • Engineering and product all-hands during a period of rapid tooling change
  • CIO, CTO and CDO forums and executive technology retreats
  • Consulting and services firm annual meetings where AI is reshaping the delivery model
Sebastian Terry on stage at a keynote in Nashville
If you're looking for a keynote speaker who inspires, motivates, makes your attendees laugh and engages them, Seb Terry does it all. He was exactly the speaker we needed to close out our day.
L&D Partner, Meta
Seb's philosophies, tools and processes will unleash anyone's ability to put aside procrastination and prioritize what's truly important.
Google

Why being human is becoming the premium skill

Every wave of automation has moved the definition of valuable work, and this one is moving it toward the parts of a job that were never written down. If a task can be described precisely, it will be done faster by something else soon. What's left is the ambiguous, relational, judgment-heavy work: reading a room, holding a hard conversation, deciding what matters when the data supports two answers.

That's an uncomfortable shift for organizations that spent a decade optimizing for throughput, because you can't sprint your way to trust. It's also good news, and Seb frames it that way. The skills now at a premium are the ones people already have and have been quietly told not to bring to work.

The 2026 moment, and why the timing matters

Two years ago this subject was speculative. It isn't now. The tools are in the workflow, the org charts have moved, and most people have had at least one genuinely disorienting week because of it. That's why this has become Seb's most requested session — it arrives at the exact point where a room is ready to talk about it honestly rather than defend a position.

Seb's credibility here comes from a story that has nothing to do with technology. Twenty years ago he lost a close friend and set out to complete a list of 100 things, most of which he could only finish because strangers helped him. ESPN and Discovery both made documentaries about it. The argument he draws from it — that almost nothing meaningful gets done alone — happens to be the exact argument a room needs when the machines are getting good at the parts you can do alone.

Sessions run 45 to 75 minutes, with extended experiential and breakout formats available, and can include a live Goal Gifting moment for one of your own people, planned in secret with you.

One practical note for planners: this works best when Seb isn't asked to referee the technology debate. He isn't there to say whether your rollout is right or your model choice is sound. He's there to make sure the people executing it still recognise each other by the end of the year — which, for most of the organizations he works with, is the part nobody has been given time to think about. Seb holds around 80 speaking dates a year across the US, EMEA and APAC, and builds every talk from a briefing call rather than a template.

Where to go next

Human Connection in the Age of AI

This is the session this subject belongs to — new for 2026 and Seb's most requested. It's the full version of the argument on this page, built for a room in the middle of the change rather than watching it from a distance.

See the keynote

Where else this shows up

Elevated LeadershipUnlocking Limitless Possibility

Frequently asked questions

Check availability

One form.
One reply, usually within a day.

Tell us the date and the room. Seb and Mark (his manager) will come back with availability, fee, and a couple of ideas for how to shape the talk to your event.

  • Same-day reply on most dates
  • Real human — not an assistant filter
  • No obligation, no pressure

Or email direct: seb@100things.com