Notes from twenty years of rooms that would not move…
Two things are breaking companies right now.
The technology. And the people being asked to use it. Almost nobody is working on both.
You already know which one is breaking yours.
AI.
“My team is watching the shift from the sidelines.”
Keynotes, workshops, and hands-on training that end with a working system, not a slide deck. Your people leave with something they use on Monday morning.
Start here or bring me in to train your teamEmpathy.
“My team is the thing that will not move.”
Empathy without accountability is enabling. Accountability without empathy is cruelty. Hard Empathy is the framework that holds both, and makes it something you can actually measure.
Start here or book a Hard Empathy strategy callTruly torn? That is a five minute conversation, not a website decision. Book a call.
The short version
AI keynote speaker and leadership coach for insurance and financial services.
I am Davie Holt. I work with agency owners, executives, and their teams in Kansas City and across the country on the two problems that actually stall an AI rollout: the technology nobody has been shown how to use, and the people who have not been given a reason to trust it. Three ways that happens.
Keynotes and conference sessions
A room walks in skeptical and walks out with a plan they can run Monday. No jargon, no fear-mongering, no forty slides of robot stock photography. Available in person and virtual.
Team workshops and AI training
Half-day through multi-session bootcamps for agencies and leadership teams. Every engagement ends with a finished, working artifact your people built themselves, not a recording nobody rewatches.
One-on-one coaching and advisory
For the leader who has to make the call. Strategy, tool selection, adoption sequencing, and the Hard Empathy framework for getting a resistant team to actually move.
Most leaders pick the wrong one.
They buy the tool. They roll it out. Nothing changes, so they blame the tool.
The tool was never the problem. The problem was that nobody in the room felt safe enough to say “I do not understand this.” So they nodded, went back to their desk, and kept doing it the old way.
I spent years on job sites before I spent years in boardrooms, and both taught me the same lesson. People do not resist change. They resist being made to feel stupid.
Use AI to be more human, not less available.
See it in a room.
A full workshop, unedited, with an audience that walked in skeptical.
press play ↓
Field notes
What I’m working through.
Short, practical notes on AI adoption, leadership, and the human side of change. Written between rooms.
First notes are being written. Check back shortly, or just ask me directly.
What leaders wrote back.
“Davie helped us increase our closing ratio and gave us a real system to scale our sales team. He doesn’t just talk AI, he builds it with you.”
David Watson · RiskAdvisor
“Within weeks we had a real content strategy powered by AI that actually connects with our audience.”
The Hicks Agency
Questions people actually ask
Before you book.
What does an AI keynote speaker actually do?
An AI keynote speaker translates artificial intelligence from abstract threat into concrete practice for a specific audience. In my sessions that means live demonstrations using the audience’s own real work, a clear framework for deciding what to automate, and one action every person can take the next morning. Not a technology lecture.
Do you work with insurance agencies specifically?
Yes. Insurance is my home industry. I built my career in insurance technology and I co-run AI Rock Stars, a training community for insurance agency owners. I speak the language of producers, CSRs, carriers, and commission structures, which means the AI examples land as real workflow instead of generic demos.
What is Hard Empathy?
Hard Empathy is a leadership framework built on one thesis: empathy without accountability is enabling, and accountability without empathy is cruelty. It treats empathy as a decision-making amplifier and a measurable business advantage rather than a soft skill. It is the framework I use when a team is the thing blocking the change.
Why do most AI rollouts fail inside a company?
Most AI rollouts fail for a human reason, not a technical one. Leadership buys the tool and announces it, but nobody in the room feels safe admitting they do not understand it. So people nod, return to their desks, and keep working the old way. Adoption is a trust problem wearing a technology costume.
How long is a typical AI workshop?
Formats run from a sixty-minute keynote to a half-day hands-on workshop to a multi-session bootcamp spread across several weeks. Half-day is the most common starting point for a leadership team, because it is long enough to build something real and short enough that people actually show up.
Do you speak in person or virtually?
Both. I am based in Kansas City and travel nationally for conferences, agency events, and corporate offsites. Virtual sessions are built differently from in-person ones rather than being the same deck on a webcam, because a room and a grid of faces need different pacing.
What does a team walk away with?
A finished, working artifact. That is the part that makes this different from most AI training. Depending on the engagement it might be a live workflow, a prompt library built around your actual processes, a rollout plan, or a coaching cadence. You leave holding the thing, not a link to a recording.
How do engagements and pricing work?
Every engagement is scoped on a short call, because a fifteen-person agency and a three-hundred-person carrier need genuinely different things. Keynotes, workshops, and ongoing advisory are priced separately. The fastest path is a conversation about where you are and what needs to be true in ninety days. If you already know what you need and want to go deep immediately, there is a paid two-hour working session you can book directly.
Last updated July 2026 · Davie Holt, speaker, coach, and AI strategist, Kansas City, Missouri
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