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Speaker Outreach

How to find and recruit practitioners to present at Applied AI Live events.

Why Practitioners Say Yes​

You're not asking someone for a favor. You're offering something genuinely valuable. Make sure you understand the value prop before you reach out.

Visibility. A room full of 50-75 people who care about applied AI, watching you present your work. That's a concentrated audience of potential clients, collaborators, and referral sources. For practitioners building a consulting practice or looking to grow their network, this is high-leverage exposure.

Crystallize their thinking. Preparing a case study forces practitioners to articulate what they actually did, why it worked, and what they learned. That clarity is useful for their own business: better proposals, sharper positioning, clearer client conversations. Many practitioners don't realize how much they know until they're asked to present it.

Potential clients in the room. Business owners attend Applied AI Live specifically because they're looking for help implementing AI. A presenter who demonstrates competence on stage is the most natural way to generate inbound interest. Some of our presenters have gotten client leads directly from their talks.

Give back to the next generation. The audience skews young and hungry. Many are college-aged or early career, trying to figure out how to break into applied AI work. Experienced practitioners who present are directly shaping the next wave of talent. For people who care about mentorship and paying it forward, this matters.

Why Companies Say Yes: The Talent Pipeline​

For companies and hiring managers, the pitch is different from the practitioner pitch. It is simpler and more valuable.

The value prop is talent.

AAS events concentrate AI-native, hungry, entrepreneurial people in one room. For any company trying to hire applied AI talent, that room is one of the best places to find it.

Why This Talent Is Hard to Find Elsewhere​

Resumes do not mean much anymore. Neither do GitHub profiles. What matters is whether someone can actually apply AI to real business problems, communicate clearly, and lead. You cannot assess any of that from a document.

At an AAS event, a recruiter or hiring manager can:

  1. Meet candidates in context. Watch how they engage with the material, what questions they ask, how they interact with other attendees. You can feel a room. You can tell if someone onstage is respected. Body language and presence reveal more than any interview loop.

  2. Observe leaders among leaders. The students and practitioners who organize these events, activate campus clubs, find speakers, and secure sponsors are demonstrating exactly the qualities companies struggle to hire for: initiative, follow-through, the ability to mobilize people, and comfort with ambiguity. These are not abstract resume bullets. They are observable behaviors.

  3. Recruit chapter leaders directly. A thriving AAS chapter leader is one of the highest-value hires in the market right now. They have proven they can organize communities, build partnerships, create events, and drive outcomes in a fast-moving domain. That skill set maps directly to business development, developer relations, go-to-market, and applied AI consulting roles. Companies looking for people who can bridge the gap between technical capabilities and business outcomes should be paying close attention to who is running these chapters.

The Pitch to Companies​

When approaching a company to speak or sponsor, frame it around their hiring needs:

Your company is hiring for applied AI talent. Resumes and GitHub
profiles don't tell you much anymore. What you actually need is
to see people in action: who is AI-native, who can communicate,
who can lead.

Applied AI Society events put 50-100 of those people in one room.
Students and practitioners who are actively building, actively
learning, and actively helping businesses implement AI. Your
recruiting team can be in the room, meeting candidates in a
context where their actual abilities are visible.

If you send a speaker, they get to present your company's work
to a highly engaged audience. Your team gets to network with
attendees afterward. And you get direct access to the talent
pipeline that is hardest to reach through traditional recruiting
channels.

What Companies Can Do​

Offer companies a menu of involvement:

  • Send a speaker. A practitioner or engineer from the company presents a case study of real AI work they've done. The audience sees the company's work firsthand, and the company gets to meet attendees.
  • Sponsor the event. Cover food, venue, or logistics costs. In exchange: co-branding, a few minutes to introduce the company, and access to the attendee list (with consent).
  • Send recruiters. Even without speaking or sponsoring, companies can send recruiting team members to attend, network, and identify candidates in a natural setting. This alone is worth more than a job fair booth.
  • Offer opportunities. Internships, freelance projects, apprenticeships, or full-time roles shared with the chapter community. This makes the chapter more valuable to its members and strengthens the relationship with the company.

Career Pathway for Students​

This is worth making explicit to students and chapter leaders: helping businesses apply AI is one of the most direct career entry points into business development, developer relations, and go-to-market roles at AI companies. The same skills that make someone a great chapter leader (community building, partnership development, clear communication about technical work) are exactly what companies like Runway, Anthropic, OpenAI, and others are hiring for. The chapter is not just a community service project. It is a career accelerator.

Who to Look For​

The best presenters have three things:

  1. Real implementation experience. They've built something for a real organization, not just side projects or demos. The audience can tell the difference.
  2. Willingness to share openly. Case studies require specifics: tools used, architecture decisions, pricing, what went wrong. Practitioners who are protective of their methods aren't a good fit.
  3. Conversational communication style. Applied AI Live is not a conference keynote. The best talks feel like a practitioner telling a friend about a project over coffee.

You do not need to find famous people. Some of the best presentations come from practitioners with small client rosters who are doing excellent, unglamorous work.

Start With Your Network​

The easiest speakers to secure are people you already know. Friends, colleagues, people from your local tech community.

This matters for a few reasons:

  • Trust. They trust you enough to say yes to something new.
  • Quality control. You already know if they're good at what they do and can communicate it well.
  • Lower friction. A text message works. You don't need a formal pitch deck.

If you're starting a new chapter, your first 2-3 presenters should ideally come from your existing relationships. Once the event has a track record, outreach to people you don't know gets much easier because you can point to recaps and recordings.

Outreach Template (Warm)​

For people you know:

Hey [Name],

I'm running an Applied AI event called Applied AI Live. Practitioners
present real case studies to a room of 50-75 engineers, business owners,
and aspiring applied AI practitioners.

Immediately thought of you because of [specific project or work you
know about]. Would you be up for doing a ~30 min case study talk
walking through what you built, how you landed the client, and what
you learned?

The audience is mostly people trying to break into applied AI work,
so your experience is exactly what they need. Plus it's great
visibility if you're looking to grow your practice or network.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll send the presenter guide.

Outreach Template (Cold or Warm Intro)​

For people you don't know well, or when reaching out via introduction:

Hi [Name],

I lead the [City] chapter of the Applied AI Society, a practitioner
community focused on helping organizations actually implement AI.

We run events called Applied AI Live where practitioners present
real case studies to 50-75 local engineers, business owners, and
aspiring applied AI practitioners. I came across your work on
[specific project, post, or company] and thought it'd be a great
fit for our audience.

The format is a ~30 min conversational case study: what you built,
how you landed the work, what you learned. Not a keynote or a
product pitch. Our presenter guide covers the details.

A few things presenters get out of it:
- A room full of people who care about applied AI (potential
  clients, collaborators, referral sources)
- Forces you to crystallize your thinking, which sharpens
  your own positioning
- Give back to early-career practitioners figuring out this space

Here's a recap from a recent event so you can see the vibe:
https://open.substack.com/pub/appliedaisociety/p/applied-ai-live-1-recap

Would you be open to presenting at an upcoming event? Happy to
hop on a quick call to talk through it.

Where to Find Practitioners​

If your personal network is tapped, here's where to look:

  • LinkedIn. Search for people in your city posting about AI implementations, automation, or consulting. People who post about their work publicly are usually open to presenting it.
  • Local tech meetups and Slack groups. People already showing up to AI-adjacent events are your warmest leads.
  • Applied AI Society network. Other chapter leaders and national can connect you with practitioners in your area or adjacent cities. Ask.
  • Client referrals. Business owners who've worked with good practitioners are often happy to recommend them. This is also a great way to vet quality.
  • Your own event attendees. After your first event, some attendees will raise their hands. The people who ask the best questions during Q&A are often your next presenters.

Handling Common Responses​

“I'm not sure I have enough experience.”

You'd be surprised. The audience learns as much from someone with 2-3 client projects as from someone with 20. If you've built something real for a real organization, you have a case study worth sharing.

“I don't want to give away my methods.”

Totally understand. You choose what to share and what to keep close. Most practitioners find that sharing openly actually generates more business, not less. But if it doesn't feel right, no pressure.

“I've never presented before.”

Our format is conversational, not a TED talk. If you can explain your work to a friend, you can present at Applied AI Live. We also send a presenter guide that walks you through exactly what to cover.

“What's in it for me?”

Visibility to a room of potential clients and collaborators. A chance to sharpen how you talk about your work. And you're helping the next generation of practitioners figure out this space. Most presenters say the networking alone was worth it.

After They Say Yes​

  1. Send the presenter guide. Point them to Presenting at Applied AI Live so they know what to expect.
  2. Schedule a quick prep call. 15-20 minutes to align on their topic, answer questions, and confirm logistics.
  3. Get their slides early. At least a day before the event for Q&A platform integration.
  4. Introduce them to the audience well. See the Hosting an Event playbook for speaker introduction templates.

Building a Speaker Pipeline​

Don't wait until you need a presenter to start looking. Keep a running list of potential speakers. Every interesting practitioner you meet, every good LinkedIn post you see, every recommendation you get: add them to the list.

After your first few events, this gets easier. Presenters recommend other presenters. Attendees volunteer. The community starts feeding itself.

See Also​