Technology and humanity keynote speaker Technology is changing everything. What about us?
Sam Rad is an anthropologist who builds AI. She speaks on what technology is doing to trust, identity and attention, and how people keep their footing as it accelerates.
An anthropologist inside the machine.
Sam studies technology the way an anthropologist studies a culture: from the inside. She did ethnographic fieldwork inside Second Life in 2009, and in 2020 she built a working AI clone of herself, SamRad.AI.
That work led to her research on perceptual security: what happens to a society when it can no longer agree on what is real.
Book Sam Rad →Three questions every room is asking.
Radical Next. #1 bestseller.
Radical Next: Reclaiming Your Humanity in a Post-Human World (2025) asks the questions underneath every new tool: who am I, what is real, and what does it mean to be human in this new reality?
Order on AmazonThese ideas live inside one keynote, Change Has a Pattern. Its fourth move, take it off, is about recovering presence and perspective, so people use the tools without losing themselves.
“Sam not only distills complex topics around emerging tech, she makes sense of why they impact individuals and businesses alike.”
Steven Mister · President & CEO, CRN
Before you book.
- Who is Sam Rad?
- Sam Rad (Samantha Radocchia) is The Change Futurist: an anthropologist who builds AI, a four-time tech founder, and the author of the #1 bestseller Radical Next: Reclaiming Your Humanity in a Post-Human World. She is Co-Founder and CEO of MISTIC Systems, a causal AI platform for strategic foresight and decision intelligence.
- What does Sam say about AI and humanity?
- That technology is changing trust, identity, and attention, and that people can use the new tools without losing themselves. Her keynote ends with a move she calls take it off: recovering presence and perspective so people steer the technology instead of the other way around.
- What is perceptual security?
- Perceptual security is Sam’s research on what happens to a society when it can no longer agree on what is real. When anyone can manufacture a convincing reality, the defense is not a better detector. It is people who know how their own perception can be hijacked.
- Has Sam built AI herself?
- Yes. Her first two companies used AI to map personal taste, starting in 2010. In 2020 she built a working AI clone of herself, SamRad.AI, and today she leads MISTIC Systems, a causal AI platform.
- What is Radical Next about?
- Radical Next (2025) asks the questions underneath every new tool: who am I, what is real, and what does it mean to be human as we merge more deeply with technology. It is a #1 bestseller, and bulk copies are available for events.
- Is this a separate keynote?
- These ideas live inside one keynote, Change Has a Pattern, customized to your industry and your audience. Sam leans into trust, identity, and attention when that is what your room needs.
- How long is the keynote, and can it be virtual?
- Opening or closing keynote, 45 to 60 minutes, with optional Q&A, in person or virtual. Sam travels from New York City and has keynoted on five continents.
- How do we book Sam?
- Sam is represented by Brandy Gibson at Executive Speakers Bureau. Send an inquiry at sam-rad.com/contact and you will hear back within one business day. Bios, photos, and the one-sheet are at sam-rad.com/speaking-materials.