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The AI keynote your audience won't forget.

Drue Kataoka is a Silicon Valley artist, technologist, and CEO — an AI keynote speaker whose talks turn AI anxiety into creative confidence. Booked by Davos, Mastercard, Milken, and the Vatican.

Dates fill quickly. Check availability early.
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Booking corporate & association events worldwide · Reply within one business day

Watch Drue in action

90 seconds is all it takes to see why rooms remember her.

What Drue does differently

She doesn’t just explain AI.
She reminds people why humanity matters more than ever.

Drue brings the conversation back to the human center of AI: vision, imagination, taste, courage, and creativity. Through visually powerful storytelling and the perspective of a working artist, technologist, and CEO, she turns an abstract and often intimidating topic into something audiences can see, feel, and act on.

They leave inspired instead of threatened, with a framework they keep: a teachable way to lead with AI while strengthening the human qualities no machine can replace.

Drue Kataoka addressing a packed ballroom from the stage
Why Drue

There are AI commentators. And then there's an artist who builds with it.

Plenty of AI speakers focus on the tech. Drue brings the human story to the center, showing why creativity, vision, and judgment become even more essential in the age of AI. Audiences leave inspired, energized, and equipped with a practical framework for leading with confidence. Often booked as a futurist speaker and technology keynote speaker, Drue goes one step further than describing the future — she builds it, and shows your audience how to do the same.

Drue Kataoka creating in mixed reality
I.

She brings the human dimension of AI to life

Drue uses visually powerful storytelling to make AI feel tangible, human, and actionable. The keynote is a vivid experience that helps audiences understand what becomes possible when human vision and creativity guide new tools.

Drue Kataoka with her Sail Celestial Force sculpture
II.

A practitioner, not a pundit

As founder and CEO of a global art studio serving clients in 30+ countries, she speaks from building real things at scale — with cutting-edge visuals she creates herself.

Drue Kataoka at Milken Institute 2025 Global Conference
III.

Calibrated to your most senior room

Keynotes at Davos, the Milken Institute, Mastercard's Global Inclusive Growth Summit, and a private summit on Necker Island. At home in front of heads of state and Fortune 100 CEOs.

Drue Kataoka in conversation with attendees at Davos
IV.

A framework they keep

Her Vision Muscle™ reframes visual AI as a teachable leadership skill — so the talk becomes a capability your team carries forward, not a one-day high.

Drue Kataoka speaking at the World Economic Forum, Geneva — audience hands raised
World Economic Forum · Geneva
"
Her session on harnessing creativity and humanity in the age of AI was a highlight — and helped create the most impactful Mastercard Global Inclusive Growth Summit yet. Her talk didn't just inform — it moved people.
Shamina Singh
Shamina Singh
Founder & President, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth · EVP Sustainability, Mastercard
What organizers say

Booked by the people whose reputation rides on the choice.

★★★★★

"If you want someone who will get your audience really thinking — and coming to you saying 'that really changed how I think' — then call Drue Kataoka. You won't be disappointed."

Jim McCann
Jim McCann
Founder & Chairman, 1-800-Flowers · Chairman, WORTH Media Group
★★★★★

"After Drue's keynote in Davos, you come out 'future ready.' She is unique in her ability to connect the inspirational and aspirational dimensions of leadership in the age of AI."

Murat Sönmez
Murat Sönmez
Former Managing Director, World Economic Forum
★★★★★

"What sets Drue's talks apart is their immersive, visually stunning nature — powered by cutting-edge visuals she personally creates with the latest AI tools."

Tan Le
Tan Le
Founder & CEO, Emotiv
★★★★★

"In our survey, attendees gave her session one of the best ratings we've ever seen — saying they were 'moved to tears' and 'blown away' by her talk."

Jason Preston
Jason Preston
Co-Founder, Dent The Future
★★★★★

"10 out of 10. Drue is magnetic on stage. She possesses that rare talent of grabbing a large, sophisticated audience's attention, keeping it, and leaving them wanting more."

Conrad Nowak
Conrad Nowak
Partner, Corboy & Demetrio · Chicago Sister Cities International
★★★★★

"Drue Kataoka is an artistic force of nature."

Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
9-time Grammy winner · Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
For women's leadership events

A Female Keynote Speaker for Women's Leadership Events

An award-winning woman in AI — 2025 Women in GenAI Innovator, WEF Young Global Leader, and Stanford graduate — Drue is a sought-after female keynote speaker for women's leadership summits, ERG programs, and conferences. Her motivational keynotes pair the story of building a global studio with the courage it takes to keep creating through the hardest seasons — including her new resilience keynote, "Will Your Heart Pass the Test."

Signature keynotes

12 talks — each customized to your industry after a planning call.

Tap any title to see what it covers. The same talk delivered to a finance audience and a healthcare audience looks meaningfully different.

01
Best for · strategy summits & leadership offsites

The Vision Muscle: How to See, Shape, and Lead the Future Before It Arrives

Future-ready leaders do not merely predict change, they train themselves to see possibilities before others do. Drue introduces vision as a muscle that can be strengthened through creativity, visual thinking, experimentation, and courage. This keynote helps audiences become more alert to emerging opportunities and more capable of shaping the future rather than waiting for it.
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02
Best for · company-wide kickoffs & all-hands

Watch Me Make It: What Becomes Possible When a Human Creates with AI

In this visually electrifying keynote, Drue Kataoka brings the audience inside the act of creation, demonstrating how a human artist thinks, decides, edits, and leads while using AI in real time. Rather than treating AI as a mysterious black box, she reveals it as a collaborator that becomes powerful only when guided by vision, taste, and courage. Audiences leave with a new sense of possibility, seeing AI not as a threat to human creativity, but as a catalyst for bolder ideas, faster experimentation, and more imaginative work.
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03
Best for · AI adoption & change initiatives

From AI Anxiety to AI Agency: Reawakening Creativity Across the Organization

Many organizations are asking their people to adopt AI, while many employees are quietly feeling overwhelmed, skeptical, or afraid of being replaced. Drue reframes that emotional friction as an opportunity, helping teams move from passive anxiety to active creative agency. Through her lens as an artist and AI practitioner, she shows how individuals can reclaim authorship, build confidence, and use AI to expand what they are capable of making, imagining, and contributing.
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04
Best for · culture & transformation initiatives

The Enterprise Imagination Shift: Turning AI Adoption into a Culture of Creative Confidence

AI adoption is not just a technology challenge, it is a culture challenge. In this keynote, Drue shows leaders how to create the conditions where people feel confident enough to experiment, imagine, and build with AI. Drawing from her work at the frontier of visual AI and artistic innovation, she helps organizations move beyond tool rollout toward a more energized culture of creative participation.
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05
Best for · all-hands, innovation days & family-friendly keynotes

My Two-Year-Old's First AI Masterpiece: What a Toddler Teaches Us About Creating with AI

What happens when the most fearless creative in the room is two years old? Drue Kataoka shares the genuinely hilarious, surprisingly profound story of teaching her toddler daughter to bring her imagination to life through AI — complete with the real (often absurd) prompts her daughter dreamed up and the delighted "masterpieces" that resulted, which the little girl proudly asks to be sent to her dada. Beneath the laughter is a serious idea: a child approaches these tools with no fear, no ego, and pure curiosity — exactly the mindset adults lose and most need to reclaim. Audiences leave entertained, moved, and rethinking their own relationship with creativity and AI.
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06
Best for · team kickoffs & innovation days

Create What Comes Next: Inspiring Teams to Build Boldly with AI

The future will not be won by organizations that merely react to change, but by those that create what comes next. Drue invites audiences to see AI as a new creative infrastructure for bold thinking, rapid prototyping, and visionary leadership. This keynote is designed to energize teams, helping them shift from caution to momentum and from incremental improvement to imaginative action.
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07
Best for · leadership, marketing & innovation teams

The Taste Economy: Why Judgment Is the Last Unautomatable Asset

As AI makes it easier to generate endless options, the scarce advantage shifts from producing more to knowing what is worth choosing. Drue explores why taste, judgment, discernment, and vision become more valuable in a world of abundant output. For leaders, marketers, innovators, and teams, this keynote makes a powerful case that human judgment is not a soft skill, but a strategic asset.
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08
Best for · leadership offsites & executive teams

The Human Signature: What Only You Can Add to an AI-Made World

In an AI-made world, the question becomes not simply what machines can generate, but what only a human can contribute. Drue helps audiences identify the personal and organizational signatures that cannot be automated: lived experience, taste, courage, moral imagination, and vision. The keynote leaves people inspired to use AI not to erase their uniqueness, but to amplify it.
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09
Best for · leadership development & all-hands

Why Creativity, Curiosity, and Courage Are Your Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI

The age of AI rewards more than technical fluency, it rewards the human qualities that help people adapt, explore, and lead. Drue shows why creativity, curiosity, and courage are not optional virtues, but essential competitive capabilities. Audiences leave with an inspiring framework for bringing more boldness, imagination, and resilience into their work.
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10
Best for · strategy & innovation summits

The Imagination Advantage: Winning When Everyone Has the Same AI Tools

As AI tools become more accessible, the advantage will no longer belong simply to those who have the technology. It will belong to those who ask better questions, imagine better futures, and bring a more distinctive point of view to the work. Drue shows corporate audiences why imagination is becoming a core business capability and how leaders can cultivate it across their teams.
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11
Best for · company-wide adoption programs

From Spectator to Maker: Turning Your Whole Company Into Creators

Too many employees experience AI as something happening to them rather than something they can actively shape. Drue argues that the next great organizational advantage will come from turning more people into makers, not merely users, observers, or approvers. This keynote helps companies build a culture where experimentation is welcomed, creativity is distributed, and every team sees itself as capable of creating the future.
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12
Best for · marketing, brand & creative teams

The Originality Premium: Standing Out When Output Is Infinite

AI can help everyone produce more, faster, and at higher baseline quality, but that also creates a new challenge: sameness. Drue shows how organizations and individuals can protect what makes them distinctive in a world where polished output is everywhere. This keynote gives audiences a new language for originality, helping them understand why imagination, point of view, and human signature will become premium advantages.
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Full Topic Library

More keynotes & workshops

Every talk is customized to your audience after a brief planning call. Browse by theme to find the right fit.

Change & adoption initiatives

The Confidence to Create: Helping Anxious Teams Fall Back in Love with Their Work

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AI can unsettle people because it challenges their sense of skill, identity, and value at work. Drue addresses that anxiety with empathy and inspiration, showing teams how creative confidence can be rebuilt in the age of intelligent machines. This keynote is especially powerful for organizations navigating change, helping employees reconnect with purpose, craft, and the joy of meaningful contribution.
All-hands & team kickoffs

Make It, Don't Fear It: Turning AI Dread into Creative Power

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Fear shrinks possibility, while making expands it. In this high-energy keynote, Drue helps audiences move past abstract dread by engaging AI as a medium for experimentation, expression, and problem-solving. She shows that the fastest path out of fear is creative action, helping employees feel more capable, curious, and ready to participate in the AI future.
Executive teams · leaders

The AI Confidence Gap: How Creative Leaders Turn Uncertainty into Momentum

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Many organizations have access to AI tools, but far fewer have built the confidence to use them creatively and strategically. Drue explores the AI confidence gap and shows how leaders can turn uncertainty into experimentation, momentum, and shared belief. This keynote gives executives and teams a practical emotional roadmap for moving from hesitation to creative action.
Workforce & culture programs

Beyond Automation: Making Work More Human, Creative, and Meaningful

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The most exciting question about AI is not only what it can automate, but what it can free humans to become. Drue invites audiences to imagine workplaces where AI reduces friction while expanding creativity, purpose, and meaningful contribution. This keynote helps leaders and employees see AI as a pathway to more human work, not merely faster work.
Leaders & innovation teams

How Artists Think: A Creative Operating System for the AI Era

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Artists are trained to work with ambiguity, experiment without certainty, and turn invisible ideas into visible realities. Drue translates this artistic mindset into a practical operating system for leaders and teams navigating the AI era. Audiences learn how to think more visually, iterate more courageously, and approach uncertainty as creative material rather than a barrier.
Executives · board retreats

The Artist in the Boardroom: Why Every Leader Now Needs a Creative Practice

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In the AI era, leadership increasingly requires the skills artists have practiced for centuries: seeing patterns, working with ambiguity, revising ideas, and making the invisible visible. Drue argues that creative practice is no longer peripheral to leadership, but central to strategic advantage. This keynote helps executives and teams understand how artistic thinking can sharpen vision, deepen resilience, and unlock new forms of innovation.

Often booked as an innovation keynote speaker, Drue helps teams turn creativity and originality into a repeatable advantage.

Product & design teams

Beautiful Work: Why Craft and Care Win in the Age of Good-Enough AI

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AI makes it easier to create work that is fast, polished, and good enough, but excellence still requires care. Drue explores why craft, attention, taste, and human intention become differentiators when average output rises. This keynote is ideal for organizations that want to raise standards, deepen pride in work, and remind teams that beauty, quality, and care still matter.
Innovation & cross-functional teams

The Rise of the Creative Generalist: Why Cross-Disciplinary Thinkers Will Lead the AI Era

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AI rewards people who can connect ideas across domains, not just specialize within narrow lanes. Drue makes the case for the creative generalist: the person who can synthesize art, technology, business, culture, and human need into new forms of value. This keynote resonates with leaders and teams who want to become more adaptive, inventive, and future-ready.
Founders & leadership teams

Build Like an Artist, Think Like a Founder, Lead Like a Human

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Drue brings together three powerful modes of work: the artist's imagination, the founder's bias toward action, and the leader's commitment to people. This keynote helps audiences understand how to create boldly, move entrepreneurially, and lead with humanity in the AI era. It is a distinctive fit for organizations that want innovation without losing culture, speed without losing care, and ambition without losing meaning.
Innovation days · R&D offsites

From Blank Page to Bold Future: How to Out-Imagine the Machines

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Every breakthrough begins with a blank page, a question, and the courage to imagine something that does not yet exist. Drue shows why humans can still out-imagine machines by bringing lived experience, emotional depth, taste, and purpose to the creative process. This keynote inspires teams to move beyond passive AI use and become active authors of the future.
HR & people teams

The Human Skills Renaissance

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As AI reshapes work, the most human skills are becoming newly valuable. Drue shows why creativity, empathy, communication, judgment, courage, and curiosity are not being displaced, but elevated. This keynote gives organizations a hopeful and empowering framework for developing the capabilities that will matter most in the AI era.
Workforce & talent programs

What Makes You Irreplaceable:The Human Skills AI Can't Copy — and How to Double Down on Them

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In a world of rapid automation, people need a clear and empowering answer to the question: what makes me irreplaceable? Drue helps audiences identify the human strengths AI cannot authentically copy, including imagination, empathy, taste, courage, context, and moral judgment. This keynote gives employees and leaders a confidence-building framework for doubling down on the qualities that make human contribution essential.
Reskilling & development forums

Reinventing Yourself Faster Than Technology Changes

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Technology will keep changing, but the deeper skill is learning how to reinvent yourself with confidence and purpose. Drue shares a creative approach to adaptation, showing audiences how to stay relevant by becoming more curious, more imaginative, and more willing to evolve. This keynote is ideal for organizations helping their people navigate disruption without losing their sense of identity or agency.

A leadership keynote speaker for executive audiences: five talks on vision, judgment, and leading through AI-driven change — delivered at Davos, Milken, and Fortune 100 boardrooms.

Leadership offsites · C-suite

Seeing the Future First: Why Visual Thinking Is the New Leadership Superpower

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In a world of accelerating change, leaders must be able to make complex ideas visible, vivid, and actionable. Drue shows why visual thinking is becoming a leadership superpower, especially as AI transforms communication, strategy, and decision-making. Drawing from her background as a visual artist and AI pioneer, she helps audiences understand how seeing differently can become a business advantage.
Executive teams · leaders

The Last Human Skill: Taste, Vision, and Why Judgment Is the New Genius

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When machines can generate more than humans can absorb, the defining skill becomes knowing what matters. Drue explores taste, vision, and judgment as the last human skills that guide meaning, quality, and differentiation. This keynote is especially powerful for leaders who must make better choices in a world of infinite options and accelerating complexity.
Leadership development programs

The Creative Leader's Edge

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The leaders who thrive in the AI era will not only manage change, they will inspire imagination. Drue shows how creative leaders build trust, energize teams, and turn uncertainty into bold experimentation. This keynote gives corporate audiences a fresh model of leadership rooted in vision, courage, and the ability to make the future feel possible.
Senior leaders · strategy summits

The Courage to Create: Leading Boldly When the Rules Keep Changing

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When the rules keep changing, courage becomes a leadership skill. Drue shows how creative action helps people move through uncertainty, make decisions without perfect information, and build what has never existed before. This keynote gives audiences a powerful reminder that the future belongs to those willing to create before they feel fully ready.
Strategy & ops leaders

Seeing What Others Can't: Vision as a Trainable Skill

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Vision is often treated as a gift, but Drue reframes it as a trainable skill. Drawing from her work across art, technology, and AI, she shows how people can learn to notice weak signals, imagine alternatives, and make possibilities visible before they become obvious. This keynote helps audiences build the perceptual advantage needed to lead through complexity and change.
Global summits & keynotes

The New Renaissance: How AI Is Unlocking the Most Creative Era in Human History

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Drue frames the rise of AI not as the end of human creativity, but as the beginning of a new Renaissance. Just as earlier breakthroughs in art, science, and technology expanded what humans could imagine, today's AI tools are opening new frontiers for expression, invention, and leadership. This keynote gives audiences a sweeping, optimistic, and deeply human vision of the creative era ahead.
Transformation initiatives

The New Creative Operating System: How Human Vision Guides the Age of AI

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AI can generate, accelerate, and automate, but it still needs human vision to give it direction. Drue introduces a new creative operating system for the AI era, one built around seeing, shaping, editing, and leading with intention. This keynote helps organizations understand that the future of work is not just about faster output, but about clearer vision and more meaningful creation.
Company-wide all-hands

The Creative Revolution at Work

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A creative revolution is arriving inside organizations, changing how people communicate, prototype, lead, and solve problems. Drue shows how AI is making creativity less siloed and more central to every function, from strategy to marketing to culture. This keynote inspires teams to see creativity not as a department, but as a shared organizational capability.
Innovation & culture forums

Creativity After AI

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After AI, creativity does not disappear, it changes shape. Drue explores what becomes more important when machines can generate images, words, strategies, and ideas at unprecedented speed. This keynote helps audiences understand the next chapter of human creativity, where originality, judgment, emotion, and vision become the new frontiers of value.
Leadership & employee all-hands

The Human Spark in the Machine Age: How AI Can Amplify Purpose, Performance, and Creativity

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In the machine age, the human spark becomes more important, not less. Drue shows how AI can help people work with greater imagination, purpose, and impact when it is paired with human judgment and emotional intelligence. This keynote gives leaders and teams a positive framework for embracing AI while preserving the meaning, creativity, and humanity of work.
Women's summits · resilience & wellbeing events

Will Your Heart Pass the Test: Building Boldly Through the Hardest Season of Life

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In the same season she nearly lost her life — surviving a childbirth with over four liters of blood loss — Drue was leading a global studio and launching a major art campaign with Disney's ILMxLAB that auctioned at Phillips for $252,000. This deeply human keynote explores what it takes to keep creating at full ambition when your body and your fear are telling you to stop. Audiences leave with a renewed understanding of resilience, purpose, and the courage it takes to keep building.
Drue Kataoka speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting · Davos
As featured in
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Drue Kataoka — Visual AI Keynote Speaker

An artist who builds the future, then teaches your leaders to do the same.

Drue Kataoka is a globally renowned artist, technologist, and CEO of her eponymous Silicon Valley studio, serving clients in over 30 countries on five continents — and the first artist to launch artworks into space.

A pioneer in technology art, she has worked with AI, VR, EEG, and NFTs, and collaborated with Disney LucasFilm's Industrial Light & Magic, Nobel laureates, astronauts, and global CEOs. Her work has been auctioned by Phillips and exhibited at the International Space Station.

She is a Stanford graduate, a WEF Young Global Leader, and a 2025 Innovator Award recipient from the National Council of Women in GenAI.

Stanford University alum WEF Young Global Leader WEF Cultural Leader 2025 Women in GenAI Innovator Award Martin Luther King, Jr. Award · Stanford University
Before you inquire

The questions every organizer asks.

Fees vary by event format, location, date, and scope. Please submit the form with your event details, and our team will respond promptly.
Yes. Every keynote is tailored after a planning call covering your sector, your audience's AI fluency, and your goals for the event. Drue customizes the cutting-edge visuals she creates specifically for your room — whether she's speaking as a corporate keynote speaker for conferences, leadership summits, association meetings, and company all-hands.
It's built for leaders and mixed audiences — visually driven, strategically framed, and free of jargon. People leave understanding what visual AI means for their work and what to do next, regardless of their starting point.
Yes. Drue speaks worldwide and has keynoted across five continents, plus virtual formats. Travel and timing are confirmed during booking.
Premium dates fill early, especially Q1 and Q4. If you have a date in mind, inquire now to confirm availability before it's taken — even if your plans aren't fully locked.
Most AI speakers describe the technology. Drue brings it to life as a working artist and CEO who uses these tools in her own creative practice. Her keynote combines visual power, strategic clarity, and deeply human storytelling, helping audiences move from AI anxiety to creative confidence.
Drue understands that great events can come together on a compressed timeline, and she's committed to making it work when she can. Submit the inquiry form with your date and we'll check availability immediately. If the timing truly isn't possible, she'll help point you toward a speaker who's the right fit.
Dates fill quickly. Check availability early.

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  • Actionable takeaways.   Visually stunning.

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Drue is represented by Washington Speakers Bureau and works with select speaker bureaus and agencies worldwide — or book her directly using the form below and get availability and a fee quote within one business day.

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