Which keynote speaker on AI and decision-making for a leadership meeting in Europe?
Your executives do not need another demonstration of what AI can do. They need to see what it does to them: how quickly a fluent, confident answer turns into a signed decision. The right speaker has led technology himself, uses AI without being naive about it, and makes that moment happen in the room, to the people who will sign.
Why AI has become a leadership question
Generative AI writes fast, structures well and rarely hesitates. That is what makes it useful, and what makes it risky the day an AI-written analysis lands on the board table with nobody asking for a second opinion.
In Europe, the question is no longer theoretical. The EU AI Act requires human oversight for high-risk uses such as credit, recruitment or exam grading, and it names a cognitive bias in the text itself: automation bias, the tendency to rely too readily on what the machine produces. The human in the loop, though, is us, with our own mental shortcuts.
What your leadership team should take away
The keynote "Deciding in the age of AI" starts from a clear position. Not using AI is a professional mistake. Using it while believing it is neutral and exhaustive is another. Generative AI is neither: it produces confidence, not truth, and it plays on biases we had long before it existed.
Your executives experience its four illusions live: authority, coherence, alignment and control. They leave with four reflexes, the D.I.R.E. method, in the order in which anyone works with an AI:
- Decide what stays human, before you even ask the question.
- Interrogate every answer against reality: where does this come from?
- Refute with evidence: ask for the case against, not for confirmation.
- Establish rules and governance that the whole team can actually use.
The idea the room keeps is simple. A machine can give you data, then a recommendation. The third step, the decision, has a name: yours.
Why mentalism, and not another presentation on AI
Every executive has read that AI makes mistakes. Far fewer have caught themselves trusting an answer they should have questioned. Mentalism creates that moment, in the room, and it happens to them. It reveals the very same flaws that AI exploits: our confirmation bias, our tendency to trust what is fluent and well structured. Feeling it first-hand does more than any slide on the risks of AI. I never reveal how an experience is achieved: we look at what it shows, then at your real decisions.
What makes this keynote different is where it is spoken from. An AI expert explains the technology; a transformation consultant builds the rollout plan. Both complement this keynote, which works on the people who sign off on what the machine says. I spent twenty years leading technology within international organisations, as a researcher, R&D Director, CTO and Managing Director. I hold a PhD and more than 100 patents. I am not against AI. I am against letting it decide for us.
Which format for a leadership meeting?
- Keynote, 45 to 60 minutes, from 20 to more than 1,000 people. To open a leadership meeting, a convention or a strategy day.
- Masterclass, 3 hours to a full day, from 12 to 25 people. For an executive committee that wants to work on its own use of AI, with concrete deliverables: an AI risk map, a usage charter, a quality checklist and a prompting playbook.
Both are delivered in English or French. I work across France and internationally; when the event requires it, the keynote can also be delivered by video call.
What Jerome Viro offers
"Deciding in the age of AI" is one of my five keynotes, alongside clear-headed decision-making, strategic creativity, influence and transformation. Each one is prepared with you: your sector, where you stand with AI, what your leadership team has to decide. As a Mentalist & Keynote Speaker with more than 20 years of mentalism behind me, I can also give the evening of the same meeting a moment of its own: a private experience of mentalism, for 5 to 30 guests.
Frequently asked questions
Our executives use AI very differently. Is that a problem?
No. The keynote works on how we all react to a convincing answer, so it speaks to the enthusiast and the sceptic alike, whether they use AI daily or almost never.
Can you deliver it in English for an international leadership team?
Yes, entirely in English if you wish, or in French, for the keynote as for the masterclass, in France and internationally.
Will our executives be put on the spot in front of their peers?
Never. Only volunteers take part directly, the rest of the room lives it from their seats, and nothing shared leaves the room.
What budget should we plan for?
On request, depending on the format, duration and location. A personalised answer within 48 hours.
Another question?
Let's talk about your event. Quotes are free, with a reply within 48 hours.
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