WHY SPENCER?

360 View: After more than 20 years of travelling the globe, reporting on technological change in hundreds of businesses, Spencer connects the dots between AI, robotics, hybrid working, training and many other areas, to help you understand how a breakthrough in one area will create challenges and opportunities in another.

He’s met the humans: He’s had a unique opportunity to meet young incoming workers, and older employees facing a changing workplace.

Global perspective: Different cultures come up with different solutions – Spencer has seen them all. And what works somewhere else in the world might also work for you.

Deep technical expertise: As a computer scientist, Spencer is able to analyse new technologies like few other speakers. And as a BBC presenter, he has decades of experience in turning the technobabble into accessible, understandable stories.

POPULAR FUTURE WORK TOPICS

Spencer’s Future of Work keynote is customised to your event, and can include:

• AI – How to stay in charge
• The Great Convergence
• Think like a startup
• The AI copilot
• AI Agents – are they safe?
• Which jobs will go, and which are AI-proof?
• The jobs that haven’t been invented yet
• Cultivating the Human-Centric Future
• Automating everything
• The uniquely human skills
• Catching the next wave
• What do the next generation of workers expect?
• Protecting mental well-being when AI does the easy work.
• Big Data – the secret ingredient
• Catching the next wave

The conversation about the workplace of the future is filled with noise. As technologies like AI, automation, and mixed reality rapidly evolve, business leaders need a guide who can cut through the hype and offer a clear, strategic vision. With a double-first degree in Computer Science from Cambridge University and two decades on the front lines of technological innovation as the presenter of BBC Click, Spencer Kelly is that guide. He provides not just a glimpse of the future, but a practical roadmap for how to navigate it.

While mainstream headlines swing between the utopian promise and the dystopian threat of Artificial Intelligence, Spencer offers a more educated, grounded perspective. His academic background gives him a deep, foundational understanding of how AI truly works—its incredible power and its critical limitations. He demystifies the technology, explaining what your business actually needs to use AI effectively and which roles are genuinely at risk. Understanding where AI excels and where it fails is the key to deploying it intelligently, ensuring you invest in the right places to augment your workforce, not just replace it.

The future of work isn’t just about one single technology; it’s about the convergence of them all. Spencer’s 20-year journey with BBC Click has given him a uniquely holistic view, taking him inside the labs and boardrooms where the future is being built. He has covered the entire technology spectrum and understands how a breakthrough in robotics will impact logistics, how advances in augmented reality will redefine training, and how new software will transform collaboration. He connects the dots, helping your organisation see the complete strategic picture of what’s coming and how to prepare for the next wave of change.

For Spencer, the conversation doesn’t end with the technology. He has spent his career exploring its impact on people. “I’ve had the unique opportunity to witness technological change in every workplace,” Spencer says, “but I’ve also seen the effect that change has on employees and those in charge. I’ve interviewed the CEOs from the likes of Microsoft, Intel, and Sony, and I’ve discussed the impact on workers’ mental health, work-life balance, and expectations.”

He has seen first-hand the complex human challenges that automation presents. While the common answer is that displaced workers will be “upskilled into supervisory roles,” Spencer brings a dose of reality from his global travels. As one dock-worker told him, “some people just want to work with their hands.” Spencer’s keynotes address this crucial human element, offering thoughtful insights into creating a future that is not only efficient but also equitable and fulfilling. 

Why choose Spencer to speak about the future of work? Because he’s been there. For more than 20 years, he has travelled the globe to see the real-world impact of automation across different economies and cultures.

“In Japan and South Korea, the populations are shrinking at an unprecedented rate,” he explains. “They need robots to do the work, and I’ve seen the machines being brought in to fill gaps on the production line. But in other parts of the world, India for example, a generation of software engineers is now threatened by Generative AI that can spit out computer code in an instant.” 

From vast, autonomous mining trucks in the wilderness to precise robotic arms in urban pharmacies, Spencer has seen it all firsthand. He brings these powerful, tangible examples to the stage, grounding future concepts in present-day reality. 

With his unique combination of deep technical authority, global journalistic experience, and an engaging, human-centric approach, Spencer Kelly doesn’t just talk about the future of work—he makes your audience feel like they’ve already been there. His keynotes are vibrant, engaging journeys filled with incredible, first-hand accounts of the technology that is shaping our world. “I’ve seen some really cool stuff,” he chuckles. “I’ve been trained to handle fragile objects in virtual reality, where I could actually feel them thanks to data gloves. In Texas, I’ve been to a building site where they’re 3D printing entire houses. I’ve met researchers at MIT and ETH who are developing soft robotics that will allow machines to interact with objects – and us – without smashing us to pieces.”

For an event that informs, inspires, and entertains, there is no better choice than Spencer Kelly’s take on the Future of Work.