Brian Solis

Brian Solis is Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow . He's also an 9x best-selling author, international keynote speaker, and futurist. Forbes has called him “one of the more creative and brilliant business minds of our time" and ZDNet has said that Brian is “one of the 21st century business world’s leading thinkers.”

For over 20 years, Brian has studied Digital Darwinism to understand the impact of disruption on businesses, markets and society. In his work, he humanizes technologies and trends to help leaders gain new perspectives and insights and inspire new ideas to thrive in the future.

Brian’s research explores business transformation,innovation, the agentic enterprise, and "the future of" industries, trends and markets.  

His insights on the future of technology and business trends have made him a go to resource among executives, media and market experts. He has published over 60 research papers and also actively shares his work in industry-leading publications including Forbes, ZDNet, CIO, eWeek, Fast Company, Adweek, and Singularity University.

As a keynote speaker, Brian travels the world to help audiences embrace change, learn what’s coming next and why, and to take a leading role in shaping the future they want to see.

Brian’s latest book, Mindshift: Transform Leadership, Drive Innovation, and Reshape the Future was written inspire a new generation of leaders in an era of AI disruption. Mindshift shifts mindsets to challenge the status quo, anticipate the future, inspire teams, and innovate forward.

His earlier best-sellers include...

X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, explores the importance of experiences and how to design them for customers, employees and human beings everywhere. www.xthebook.com.

What's the Future of Business (WTF), which explores the landscape of connected consumerism and how business and customer relationships unfold and flourish in four distinct moments of truth. 

The End of Business as Usual explores the emergence of Generation-C, a new generation of customers and employees and how businesses must adapt to reach them. 

Engage! is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to market, sell and service in the social web.

To learn more about Brian, please visit: BrianSolis.com
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"Top futurist speaker." - ReadWrite

“One of the 21st century business world’s leading thinkers” – ZDNet

“One of the greatest digital analysts of our time.” - Antonio Lucio, CMO, HP, Facebook

Head of Global Innovation

Leads vision, strategy, and programming of ServiceNow's global Innovation and Executive Briefing Centers. He also engages with marquee customers and partners on innovation and transformation strategies. Studies disruptive technology and market trends to advise executives on leadership initiatives. Publishes business and technology thought leadership in leading publications to inspire executives to become leaders and innovators. Translates trends into go-to-market strategies for ServiceNow and its customers.

AI is already reshaping work faster than most job descriptions can keep up. In a world where intelligence is abundant, the differentiator is human advantage. 

“Soft skills” just got rebranded as "AI survival skills."

My latest newsletter breaks down the 5 power skills to help you thrive in an AI-first economy. 👇 🙌

What are you seeing?

#AI #futureofwork #leadership #careers

Brian Solis serves as the Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow where he helps drive vision and strategy for the company's Innovation Office with Dave Wright, Chief Innovation Officer. 
 
The Innovation Office represents the voice of future-focused innovation in ServiceNow.  In his role, Brian leads a global network of Innovation Officers and Futurists. This unique team of visionaries, changemakers, and innovators study emerging technologies and micro and macro trends, business transformation patterns, and customer insights to understand important shifts affecting organizations and the markets they serve.
 
The team produces original research and thought leadership and delivers presentations and workshops that help leaders anticipate shifts, capitalize on trends, and drive resilience and long-term growth. 
 
Innovation Officers also advise C-Suites on crafting strategic roadmaps and building organizational readiness to guide customers on their AI-first business transformation strategies.

Previous Role: April 2023 - January 2025
Brian lead vision, strategy, programming, and operations of ServiceNow's global Innovation and Executive Briefing Centers. 

Brian also engages with marquee customers and partners to advise business and AI innovation and transformation strategies. He also studies the latest in disruptive technology and market trends to advise executives on leadership initiatives and investment strategies. Brian publishes business and technology thought leadership in leading publications and delivers keynote speeches around the world to inspire executives to become leaders and innovators. Translates trends into go-to-market strategies for ServiceNow and its customers.

Brian Solis is consistently ranked as one of the top keynote speakers at events around the world. Brian actively keynotes conferences, summits, and corporate events. He also speaks to internal teams and executives and host workshops and Q&As.

Brian has dedicated his career to understanding digital disruption, predicting trends and helping leaders shape the future they want to see. As a world-renowned keynote speaker, Brian also has a unique gift of humanizing digital trends to make transformation and innovation meaningful and even inspiring. He’s a true storyteller at heart. Even the Disney Institute has quoted his work!

Brian believes that innovative solutions start with a human approach. As a highly rated speaker and expert, he motivates and inspires the people in the audience to lead the charge.

Whether it’s for employees, executives, customers or partners, Brian helps audiences of all sizes and formats. And, he customizes his presentations and is always flexible to meet your specific needs.

Please contact Brian to schedule an introduction or to talk about how he can add value to your or your client’s event and help it become a winning success.

Brian@BrianSolis.com

Sizzle Reel: https://youtu.be/kdQXEvENs2Y

“The feedback from the audience was through the roof, with a lot of people saying Brian was our best speaker ever. He’s truly a once in a generation mind.”

“The information was well received from the entire audience and the style of his presentation was very engaging. I know from talking with my colleagues, back in the office, we all did not want his presentation to end.”

Digital Anthropologist, Futurist, International Keynote Speaker, Thought Leader

As VP, Global Innovation, his role at Salesforce goes beyond thought leadership and research. His role is also customer-facing across core, service, marketing, commerce, and loyalty clouds. He works with customers in every industry.     
 
Account teams leverage Brian to open doors, grow accounts, and change executive mindsets. He’s versatile as he speaks to trends that affect all aspects of an organization with both business and technology decision-makers. Customers love him because he spends the extra time to understand their needs, challenges, and opportunities and then craft a bespoke narrative helps decision-makers see new opportunities. He also continues to engage with executives to advise them on how to best transform, providing ongoing support and building customer relationships along the way. This bespoke approach increases pipe and generates millions in ACV impact. 

As a futurist, Brian researches potential future scenarios to reverse engineer today's innovation strategies to achieve desired outcomes and become future proof in the process.

VP, Global Innovation

Somewhere along the way, we got distracted. As much as we multitask, love our devices and feel like we’re in control, deep down we know that something is off. Shortened attention spans, declines in critical thinking, lack of sleep, self-doubt and decreased creativity are just some of the effects coming to light in an age of digital distraction.

It’s time to reclaim our lives. It’s time to take control.

Lifescale is a journey of self-discovery and growth. It’s about getting back into balance and remastering our destinies. Author Brian Solis knows first-hand. He struggled with distraction and all of its ill-effects. To get his life back, he developed a set of techniques, exercises, and thought experiments designed to tame the chaos, and positively and productively navigate our day-to-day lives. Instead of falling victim to the never-ending cycle of newsfeeds, Likes, addictive apps, and boredom scrolling (aka the endless scroll), we can learn to manage our time and inspire our own lives in a way that will bring meaning back—without sacrificing the benefits that our devices bring us.

In Lifescale, Brian has done the legwork to pull together scientific findings and practical tools into one book. Readers—especially those who are distracted—will connect with the humor, pathos, and inspiration inside. 

With the renewed perspective Lifescale offers, we can finally learn to prioritize what matters, and live our digital and physical lives with intention and true happiness.

Book Author

Do you know how your customers experience your brand today? Do you know how they really feel? Do you know what they say when you're not around?

Without defining experiences, brands will become victim to whatever people feel and share. In an always-on world where everyone is connected to information and also one another, customer experience is your brand.

Great products are no longer good enough to win in business. Creative marketing and delightful customer service too are not enough to succeed. Success and the future of business is experiential and this is the time to learn how to create and cultivate meaningful experiences.

This isn't your ordinary business book. It was actually designed to be a sensational experience. Its aesthetic is meant to evoke emotion while also giving new perspective and insights to help you win the hearts and minds of your customers. And the design of this book, along with what fills its pages, was done using the principles shared within.

Welcome to a new era of business in which your brand is defined by those who experience it.

The future of business lies in experience architecture and you are the architect.

As Principal Analyst and Partner at Altimeter Group, Brian studied disruptive technologies and authored industry-leading research reports that explored the evolution and direction of businesses and digital markets. Additionally, he consulted with Fortune 1000 companies, technology vendors and startups to advise them on digital transformation and innovation initiatives, product roadmaps, go to market strategies and market trends. 

In his time at Altimeter, Brian authored over 50+ research reports covering business critical topics including, digital transformation, digital CX, customer experience, retail innovation, corporate innovation, UI/UX, digital influence, digital Darwinism, corporate culture, digital marketplaces, disruptive technologies, and more.

Principal Analyst

What’s the Future is more than just a business book. It takes readers on an uplifting “hero’s journey” to help them bring about change from the inside out. The end result demonstrates how experience design amplifies customer relationships, drives word of mouth, and fosters organic advocacy. - See more at: http://www.wtfbusiness.com/

Author

Pivot was the digital strategist's conference and was as close to a true Social community of powerful leaders as a physical gathering can be. In our incisive on-stage conversations, the speakers contribute to the audience, the audience contributes to the speakers and everyone contributes to one another. All Pivot’s participants are leaders of Digital, Social, or Mobile initiatives from major brands and the organizations that serve them. The result is a singularity that defines the heart of branding, engagement, and service for the year ahead.

Host, Editorial Director, and Executive Producer

The End of Business As Usual explores each layer of the complex consumer revolution that is changing the future of business, media, and culture. As consumers further connect with one another, a vast and efficient information network takes shape and begins to steer experiences, decisions, and markets. It is nothing short of disruptive.

This book will change the way you view the world of business, from sales and marketing to customer service and product development to leadership and culture.

Engage! thoroughly examines the social media landscape and how to effectively use social media to succeed in business?one network and one tool at a time. It leads you through the detailed and specific steps required for conceptualizing, implementing, managing, and measuring a social media program. The result is the ability to increase visibility, build communities of loyal brand enthusiasts, and increase profits.

Covering everything you need to know about social media marketing and the rise of the new social consumer, Engage! shows you how to create effective strategies based on proven examples and earn buy-in from your marketing teams. Even better, you'll learn how to measure success and ROI.

Head of Global Innovation, ServiceNow | 9x Best-Selling Author | Keynote Speaker | Digital Futurist | Ex Salesforce Exec | Ex Google Advisor

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are." – J.P. Morgan

My latest for Workflow by ServiceNow is live! Let's explore 7 ways AI will change the future of work by 2030...

1) Reimagining end-to-end workflows will rewire the enterprise.

2) We won’t just work with AI agents.

3) Select autonomous workflows will start to run end to end, paving the way for the autonomous enterprise.

4) Org charts become work charts.

5) Simulation-first decision-making becomes the norm.

6) Value will replace volume as the currency of productivity.

7) Innovation will (finally) become an always-on function.

More on how generative and agentic AI will rewire the enterprise and unleash human potential 👉

What are you seeing?

https://lnkd.in/gmKjavdM

I'm so excited to release our new ServiceNow Innovation Brief, "CRM in a Post-SaaS World!" In 2025, the Innovation Office here was charged with building a future-forward research and thought leadership discipline to track business and technology trends that shape our customer's future. We publish and also meet with executives to advise on trends. 🔭🚀

Overview: We spent 20 years perfecting cloud CRM. We digitized processes, scaled operations, and connected customer journeys. Now AI agents are opening the door to reimagine tomorrow's possibilities.

What if your 2030 CRM won't have a login screen? How will SaaS, AI agents, and data work together to deliver next-generation customer experiences and service?

Our latest brief explores this transformation 👇

Make time for creativity. Make space for curiosity, exploration, and ideation. 💭

It's how to rewire your brain to augment and innovate, not automate, with AI. 💡

Excerpt from the Agentic Singularity Summit, organized by Hard Skill Exchange. 

You can view the full presentation here: https://lnkd.in/grUbtBJs

The future happens to us or because of us. It's something that we react to or anticipate and shape. 🔭

And though many things are changing right now, our mindsets aren't.

I sat down with RGP for “Visionary Voices” to talk about why *now* is a true mindshift moment, and how to become the leader everyone, including you, is waiting for..

If you’re navigating disruption (and who isn’t?), I think you’ll find this conversation useful.

Here are a few key takeaways:
A “mindshift” is a leadership reset, not a tech upgrade
The real gap is vision and pace: technology is accelerating faster than our mindsets.
The next five years will be defined by converging waves of tech.
Shift the AI narrative from fear to wonder.
Don’t stop at automation and cost takeout, explore opportunities for augmentation and value creation.
Storytelling is the 'change-management' superpower.

Please read 👉 https://lnkd.in/grcXeQQA

And then, please read Mindshift! 🙏 https://a.co/d/iRlwNTY

#Mindshift #Leadership #AI #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork

78% of C-Suite executives say achieving maximum benefit from agentic AI requires a new operating model according to Oracle  and IBM  research, “Agentic AI’s strategic ascent: Shifting operations from incremental gains to net-new impact.” 

Yet, more than3/4 of execs say most of their AI investment has focused on improving existing processes rather than developing net-new capabilities.

AI Innovators start with what we call an "AI Mindset." That ask "what if..." or "how might we..." vs. "how..." In the IBM andOracle report, a notable group of execs are demonstrating the difference in approach, starting with with the question prior to defining their AI strategy or making any investment, “What if we rebuild our entire operating model around AI?” 

As a result, they’re creating business outcomes that were previously impossible. Furthermore, they're laying the groundwork for a competitive gap, or what could be called, "agentic Darwinism." 

These AI innovators are pioneering entirely new operating models around autonomous decision-making. 

The difference in premise is that they believe agentic AI systems will make an increasing number of decisions, while humans make the decisions that matter most. This fortifies human agency and expertise where it matters most while agents scale tasks toward net new capabilities and outcomes, fundamentally changing what's possible. 

Over time, a performance gap is introduced, which is likely to widen rapidly and set the stage for agentic Darwinism where only the fittest (and most innovative) enterprise survive.

According to the research, by 2027 twice as many executives expect AI agents will make autonomous decisions in processes and workflows compared to today.

By 2030 fully autonomous robotic systems with embodied AI will be operational realities across industries.

Surviving in an era of agentic Darwinism takes more than deploying AI agents. Innovative organizations will increasingly abandon existing operating models to design entirely new models that scale autonomous decision-making capabilities. These companies represent "the fittest" enterprises likely to evolve and thrive against AI Darwinism while yesterday's decision flywheels and workflows become increasingly at risk of extinction.

How U.S. teens use AI...

About 1/3 of teens use AI chatbots daily according to Pew Research Center, with ~16% using about once to several times a day. 

By far, ChatGPT is the most widely used chatbot (59%). This is more than 2x Gemini (23%) and Meta AI (20%). 

Though Co-Pilot sits at 14%, it makes sense, because teenagers use GDocs. This surprises me that Gemini isn't higher...perhaps it will be come the next study.

How about the internet in general? 40% of teens say they're online "almost constantly!" and 55% are online several times a day. 

Dear iParents, where art thou? Context matters here. It's how kids spend their time online that matters, and the study doesn't get into here.

Where do teens spend their time? Youtube is still a big winner after all these years. 

92% - Youtube
67% - TikTok
63% - Instagram
55% - Snapchat

According to Pew Research Center...

1) “Almost constant” use is normal for a big chunk of teens
2) If you’re focusing on the “wrong” apps, you’re missing where the time is
3) AI chatbots are already mainstream for teens

So what to do about it?  Here are some ideas...  

Set “phone-free” times (meals, first/last hour of the day, during homework).

Talk about how feeds work (autoplay, algorithmic recommendations).

Ask kids to show you their “For You” / recommended feeds. They shape norms more than “following” lists.

With AI, normalize the conversation (“Show me how you use it”) so kids don’t hide it.

Teach “AI literacy” explicitly...verification, limits, and how to use it without outsourcing thinking.

Create shared “AI rules” that apply across tools: don’t share personal info, verify outputs, be cautious with sensitive topics, and treat outputs as suggestions, not authority...and don't give your thinking to AI, to share AI slop, don't fall for AI sycophancy, and show what augmented collaboration looks like.

https://lnkd.in/gF5KAY2X

Non vedo l'ora di visitare l'Italia! 🇮🇹

I'm so excited to visit Florence, Italy at the end of the month to present at the Baker Hughes Annual Meeting, "The Energy Equation."

Please message me if you'll be there so we can say hello! 

Thank you, Lorenzo Simonelli and Bill McDermott for the opportunity to explore the future of AI and business reinvention! 🙏

You ever have those moments when someone says something to you and it stops you, makes you sit down or lean back, close your eyes, and get emotional?

I just did. 

Not sharing to be promotional. Just trying to be real and keep LinkedIn honest and human. This is a moment that mattered to me...share yours too!

"Your book is literally life-changing--whenever I see an obstacle now, I see it as an opportunity or an unmet need for a bigger audience. I have no doubt your book will touch many more people and organizations and fundamentally change how they face challenges and how they innovate."

I hope so! 🙏 There are so many amazing people out there and I believe we're all working together to help make change, meaningful change, happen. And we're here along the way...

Let's do this...together! You are not alone...

In a week when everyone is discussing the need for storytellers in business, let's revisit "The Story Spine" (also known as Pixar Animation Studios’ Story Structure) 📝

1. Once upon a time...
2. Every day...
3. But One day...
4. Because of that...
5. And because of that...
6. Until finally...
7. And, ever since then...

Just never forget that the hero of your story isn’t you, it’s the audience, and the change you help them achieve. 🫶

#Mindshift Chapter 10
Amazon: https://a.co/d/0yf1Jz0


#storytelling #storyteller #herosjourney #hollywood

In this clip Jeff Barrett of Shorty Awards, I share why I first learned to be a “practicing futurist.”

The goal was always the same: translate early signals on the horizon into practical decisions you can make today to stay successful or innovative over time. And while the audience for “help me be successful in the future, now” has traditionally been small, my goal with "Mindshift" is to make this discipline accessible to everyone...teaching people how to become an everyday futurist: more open-minded, more curious, and better at spotting what’s emerging so you can make space to reflect on how it could impact you and your next move.

It's how you shape the future you'd like to see, today.

The Interview (all platforms):
https://lnkd.in/gpcxwvwp

The Article: 
https://lnkd.in/gc3EEDZq

Please read Mindshift! 🙏 https://a.co/d/cyfPw2A

Tis the season to start planning for 2027...🎄
#Mindshift

p.s. thank you Erick Mott! 🙏

Clever headline by Anand Thaker, "from uncertAInty to certAInty." It got me thinking...🤔

Even though AI is at the core of every executive conversation, there is a need to take a step back, drop the topic of AI for a hot minute, and recognize the role of leadership in driving business reinvention vs. iteration. AI now and as it evolves, is an enabler. Enabling which outcomes you want to achieve requires leadership and transformation, then AI has purpose, to put AI to work...for people.

https://a.co/d/9zEHU8b

Happy New Year!🥳  Let's kick things off! The biggest risk in 2026 is leaders using 2016 mindsets to lead...but mistaking it as a 2026 mindset.

I've been meaning to share my interview with University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management Magazine.

This is a Novel Economy, where disruption is constant, compounding, and *always* novel (AI, climate, geopolitics, quantum, spatial intelligence… all evolving, emerging, and colliding). And when leaders talk about a “new normal,” it’s often a tell: we’re trying to steer back to business as usual instead of translating change into opportunity.

That’s why I wrote #Mindshift.

A few takeaways you can apply immediately:

1) Reframe disruption.
The question shouldn't be “How do we protect what we built?” It’s “What is this disruption inviting us to rethink, redesign, and reimagine?”

2) Build trend literacy across 3 layers:
• Microtrends = early signals in niche communities 
• Macrotrends = broader movements across industries 
• Megatrends = seismic forces that reshape society 

The opportunity is in connecting the dots between them.

3) Self-awareness is a business advantage.
A self-aware mind is a shiftable (and growable) mind. It helps you escape “default thinking” (like reflexively cutting costs or automating away people) and see growth paths others miss.

4) Innovation = experience + speed + reinvestment.
The disruptors I’ve studied obsess over frictionless experiences *and* fast, decisive execution. Momentum matters.

5) Use the six-stage mindshift framework:
1) Receive, 2) Perceive, 3) Weave, 4) Conceive, 5) Believe, 6) Achieve.
Signals become strategy. Strategy becomes action.

If you’re navigating AI and uncertainty right now, start here:
be curious, listen deeply, and ask better questions before rushing to “solutions.”

Read the full Rotman Q&A + then go deeper with Mindshift! 💡 

🔗 Rotman interview: https://lnkd.in/g5JJBrvU

p.s. thank you Karen Christensen! 🙏

#Leadership #Innovation #AI #DigitalTransformation

The beauty of this moment is that every one of us gets to be a leader of what’s next. Why now? Because the only playbook that exists is for yesterday. There is no playbook for tomorrow. No proven answers. No “best practice” to copy and paste. No "quick win" use cases that unlock new value. And that’s exactly the point.

Right now, I define leadership in a simple (and slightly uncomfortable) way: a leader is someone willing to think differently and ask different questions. Because when you do, you don’t just predict the future…you create a future that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

There’s a story from Silicon Valley that I shared in #mindshift. When Steve Jobs was finally convinced to pursue the iPhone (and he had to be convinced), he gathered his inner circle and asked: Who should we bring into this project?

Naturally, the team responded like experts, they brought forward the “smartest people” in the industry.

Jobs exploded.

“I don’t want anyone to work on the iPhone if they’ve worked on a phone,” he said (minus the expletives). “Because we’re not building a phone.”

Of course it became a phone. But before the breakthrough became the device we all know, the first breakthrough was the mindset. It started with him and spread through the team. That was a beginner’s mind at work: refusing to inherit the assumptions of an industry…so you can reinvent what the industry makes possible.

For the last 15 years, many companies chased “digital transformation.” But if we’re honest, most of us didn’t transform, we digitized. We took analog processes and made them digital. We moved pieces to the cloud. We modernized within silos. We upgraded the present…instead of redesigning the future for a digital-first world. Now we're moving to an AI-first world with a similar mindset.

The mindset isn’t “be like Steve.” The mindshift is stop building tomorrow using yesterday’s thinking.

What's your "iPhone" moment?

What are you “building” that you’re treating like the old thing...just faster, shinier, and more efficient?

Where are you hiring for expertise when you actually need imagination?

What would change if you led with beginner questions instead of expert answers?

Because in a world without a playbook, the leaders who win aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones brave enough to ask new questions. 💡

Please watch and share your stories 👀 https://lnkd.in/gjDfpxGj

Booking: Steven Weinreb: steven@vaynerspeakers.com

Note: This is a snippet of my keynote at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE). I'll post the link to the full presentation below .

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