Ian Beacraft
Considered one of the top voices in AI and the future of work, Ian Beacraft is a trusted advisor to the world's most innovative companies. The Founder, CEO and Chief Futurist of Signal and Cipher, Ian leads a strategic foresight and development agency guiding companies through the rapidly changing technology landscape to find meaningful routes to innovation that impact the bottom line, inspire cultural change, and create new products and services.
Previously responsible for P&L’s and innovation departments at the largest agencies in the world, Ian is known for making bleeding-edge technology understandable and monetizable. Brands he has advised include Samsung, Intel, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Symantec, Universal Pictures, and dozens more.
He’s known as a Gonzo Futurist, actively experimenting with new and emerging technologies before they leave the research lab to understand the implications and applications for the future of work and society at large. Ian has pioneered a digitally immersive presentation style that brings artificial intelligence and extended reality to life so audiences can understand the future of technology in actionable ways. For four consecutive years, he has spoken at SXSW on the intersection of technology and culture; additional keynote engagements include Masters and Robots, Febraban, CES, and Immersed Global Summit. Ian is also the co-owner of a production studio designing virtual worlds. Ian is the first person ever to host a news segment as a synthetic human, the Future Report on Defiance Media, streaming to over 100 million devices around the world.
A classically trained musician, Ian understands the magnitude of AI's coming impact on human creativity. As a strategist and speaker, he strives to educate stakeholders on the real- world implications of emerging technologies so they can make informed decisions that positively shape our world and advance humanity. In a rapidly evolving world that some consider dystopian, Ian remains a steadfast optimist and offers what everyone needs now: hope.