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Keynotes, panels, workshops, and webinars on AI agents, responsible AI, and AI strategy for enterprise marketing teams. I also design and facilitate closed-door executive sessions, including MMA's CMO AI Transformation Summit and CEO + CMO Summit. Past audiences include AI4, POSSIBLE, MAICON, Copyleaks, MMA, and TEDxNYU.

Alec Foster delivering a keynote on stage at the POSSIBLE conference in Miami
POSSIBLE Conference · Miami

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01

Custom AI Assistants for Every Employee

Stop having your team start every AI conversation from scratch.

How MMA deployed MAVEN (a custom AI assistant pre-loaded with org context, brand standards, tool integrations, and data-handling rules) to every employee across a 90-person global organization. We cover architecture decisions, how governance rules travel with the tool so compliance is automatic, and how we migrated 88 seats between AI platforms without disrupting workflows. Live demos. Attendees take home the MAVEN template.

proof: Deployed across 90 staff in 19 countries

audience: AI workflow integration, team enablement format: 30-min keynote · 60-min talk · 90-min workshop
02

What's Actually Working: AI Across the Ad Funnel

29 experiments. 18 brands. +160% avg lift. Real data, no pitches.

Findings from 29 controlled experiments across 18 global brands including Kroger, AT&T, GM, Shell, and Home Depot, testing AI applications at every stage of the programmatic advertising funnel. AI-generated video creative, pre-launch creative scoring, audience discovery models, contextual targeting using LLM embeddings, and full-funnel optimization. We cover what moved the needle and what's still maturing.

proof: +160% avg lift, top performers >+250%

audience: data, measurement, AI analytics, case studies format: 30-min keynote · 45-min talk
03

Building an AI-Capable Workforce

Training that stops at prompting isn't training. Here's what comes after.

The complete workforce transformation model MMA deployed globally: a gamified self-paced AI Mastery program, a tiered certification track (Foundations → Agent Development → Agent Management), and the AI Agent Foundry, a mandatory program where every employee dedicates 10% of their capacity to building automations. We show what people actually built: meeting transcripts that auto-generate CRM updates, lead discovery pipelines, weekly reporting automations, branded content drafts. With validated impact templates.

proof: 100% staff trained, 40+ live production workflows

audience: team training, enablement, change management format: 45-min talk · 90-min workshop · AI Academy session
04

Embedding AI Governance Into Your Stack

AI governance that lives in a PDF doesn't govern anything.

How to build governance into the tools, approval processes, and system architecture your team already uses, so responsible AI becomes the path of least resistance. Drawing from MMA's Responsible AI Innovation Lab (RAIL), which has published 8 governance frameworks adopted by Fortune 500 marketers, and my Cambridge research on multi-agent governance. Walks through automated risk tiering, AI usage policies that travel inside the assistant, self-enforcing data classification rules, and approval workflows that route by risk level without creating bottlenecks.

proof: 8 published RAIL frameworks, Fortune 500 adopted

audience: ethics, legal, governance, martech format: 45-min talk · 90-min workshop
05

Who Controls Your AI Agents?

The protocols connecting your agents aren't neutral plumbing.

Original research from the University of Cambridge analyzing the dominant agent communication protocols (A2A, MCP) that govern how AI agents coordinate across enterprise systems. Standards marketed as "open" contain architectural choices that concentrate control with platform owners, transform agents into auditable subjects, and quietly reposition human workers as managers of AI teams. For marketing leaders adopting agentic AI: this determines whether your agents work for you or for the platform.

proof: From my Cambridge dissertation, Protocols of Power

audience: ethics, legal, vision, executive briefing format: 45-min keynote · 60-min deep dive
06

The Marketing Org in 2030

What stays human, what becomes agentic, and how the org chart actually changes.

Three plausible versions of the 2030 marketing org, each with different assumptions about agent autonomy, headcount, and where trust breaks. We work through which roles compress, which expand, which new ones appear, and what to hire and reorganize for now. Runs as a keynote or as a facilitated scenario session where your leadership team argues its way to a position. Drawn from MMA's research and the AI Leadership Think Tank's work with CMOs mid-transition.

proof: Built on the 300+ ALTT leader community

audience: executive leadership, future of work, scenario planning format: 30-min keynote · 45-min keynote · 90-min facilitated executive session

Alec Foster is the Chief Agent Officer & Responsible AI Lead at the Marketing + Media Alliance (MMA), where he owns the AI infrastructure, governance, and digital operations for a 90-person global organization serving 825+ corporate members.

Alec co-leads MMA's AI Leadership Think Tank (ALTT), a practitioner community of 300+ marketing and AI leaders from 180+ companies including GM, AT&T, Mastercard, Kroger, Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Hilton, whose CMOs sit on MMA's boards. He designs and facilitates the executive rooms where that community makes decisions, including the CMO AI Transformation Summit and the CEO + CMO Summit, and he advises member CMOs on their own AI strategy. He oversees the Future Labs, which has run 75+ AI studies inside live campaigns, including 29 controlled optimization experiments across 18 global brands that delivered an average +160% lift in advertising performance over baseline.

Internally, Alec serves as MMA's CDO and CISO, managing all integrations, AI tooling, and security policy. He built the AI Agent Foundry, a mandatory company-wide program requiring all staff to develop AI fluency, build workflows, and dedicate 10% of capacity to building AI agents. He also led the company's enterprise AI platform migration, deployed custom AI assistants pre-loaded with institutional knowledge for every employee, and built a RAG-powered research assistant grounded in scientifically validated marketing knowledge (200+ empirical generalizations distilled from 10,000+ peer-reviewed studies).

Alec holds a CIPP/US privacy certification and an M.St. in AI Ethics from the University of Cambridge. His dissertation, Protocols of Power, examined the governance challenges of multi-agent communication protocols (MCP, A2A): how autonomous AI systems negotiate, delegate, and share control across organizational boundaries.

Based in the Bay Area, Alec spends his free time creating immersive art, teaching electric hydrofoiling, and boxing.

full bio & timeline →


Past keynotes, panels, and webinars on video. The fastest way to see how I show up on stage.


MAICON (Marketing AI Conference) — What's Actually Working: AI Across the Advertising Funnel
2026-10-15 · MAICON (Marketing AI Conference) · Cleveland, OH

What's Actually Working: AI Across the Advertising Funnel

MMA has run 100+ controlled AI experiments across its think tanks, and this session focuses on the ad funnel using results from Kroger, AT&T, GM, Shell, and Home Depot. Covers pre-launch creative scoring, audience discovery models, AI-generated video creative, and contextual targeting through LLM embeddings across a 4-billion-URL index, plus creative personalization averaging +160% lift. Every number comes from a live campaign with real media spend, not a lab test.

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MMA Webinar — The AI Upskilling Playbook: A Framework for Enterprise AI Training
2025-08-27 · MMA Webinar · Virtual

The AI Upskilling Playbook: A Framework for Enterprise AI Training

How to build enterprise AI training that actually changes how people work. Covers a tiered certification path (foundations → agent development → agent management), the mandatory hands-on Agent Foundry where every employee builds real automations, and why you should measure capability gains and workflows shipped rather than course completions. Grounded in MMA's company-wide rollout.

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MMA Connect Düsseldorf — Lead the Change: Responsible AI
2025-06-04 · MMA Connect Düsseldorf · Düsseldorf, Germany

Lead the Change: Responsible AI

An in-person evening session at WPP's Düsseldorf office on leading responsible-AI change inside marketing organizations. The argument: governance only works when it's wired into the tools, approval flows, and architecture teams already use, not when it lives in a principles deck nobody opens.

AI Dev Summit — Responsible AI for AI Builders
2025-05-28 · AI Dev Summit · San Francisco, CA

Responsible AI for AI Builders

A developer-track session at one of the largest AI engineering events, on translating responsible-AI principles into the concrete evals, guardrails, and runtime controls engineering teams actually ship, instead of the policy PDFs they route around.

MMA Webinar — Navigating AI Regulation: Marketing in a New Era
2025-03-19 · MMA Webinar · Virtual

Navigating AI Regulation: Marketing in a New Era

Where global AI regulation actually stands (the EU AI Act, emerging US state laws, and disclosure rules) and what compliance looks like in day-to-day marketing operations. Includes copyright and training-data considerations for generative tools, plus concrete tactics to future-proof your stack before the rules harden.

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MMA Webinar — AI Agents in Marketing: Navigating Hype, Risk, and Opportunity
2024-12-12 · MMA Webinar · Virtual

AI Agents in Marketing: Navigating Hype, Risk, and Opportunity

What marketing agents can and can't do today, and where the real business impact shows up: efficiency, operational capability, revenue growth, competitive advantage, and brand safety. Walks through how to sequence an implementation with governance baked in and how to prepare an organization for increasingly autonomous workflows.

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MMA Webinar — Ethical AI Marketing: A Toolkit for Responsible Innovation
2024-10-23 · MMA Webinar · Virtual

Ethical AI Marketing: A Toolkit for Responsible Innovation

A working toolkit for responsible AI in marketing: practical frameworks for risk tiering and governance, how to address bias and ensure transparency in deployed systems, and how to treat responsible AI as a competitive advantage rather than a compliance tax.

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AI4 Conference — From Theory to Practice: Responsible AI in Marketing
2024-08-13 · AI4 Conference · Las Vegas

From Theory to Practice: Responsible AI in Marketing

Presented at the largest North American AI industry conference. Moving responsible-AI principles into deployed marketing practice: real frameworks, real deployments, and the organizational changes that make governance stick instead of staying on aspirational ethics slides.

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The Original Source Podcast (Copyleaks) — Fostering Ethical AI
2024-05-21 · The Original Source Podcast (Copyleaks) · Podcast

Fostering Ethical AI

A long-form conversation on responsible AI and content provenance: how to build trust into generative tools, the ethics of training data and attribution, and what 'responsible' actually means once AI-generated content is everywhere.

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POSSIBLE Conference — What is Responsible AI for CMOs
2024-04-16 · POSSIBLE Conference · Miami Beach

What is Responsible AI for CMOs

A vision-and-action session for marketing leaders on why responsible AI belongs on the CMO agenda. Concrete tactics for embedding ethical guardrails into AI marketing initiatives from the start, rather than bolting them on after a public failure.

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Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders — Ethical Marketing Through Transparent Consumer Privacy
2023-03-02 · Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders · Podcast

Ethical Marketing Through Transparent Consumer Privacy

A conversation on privacy-first marketing: how a CIPP/US lens shapes data strategy, why transparency is a growth lever rather than a constraint, and how consumer trust compounds when you treat privacy as a feature instead of fine print.

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Marketers & Founders (Autopilot) — Growth Marketing Strategies
2017-04-21 · Marketers & Founders (Autopilot) · Fireside Chat

Growth Marketing Strategies

An early-career fireside chat in Autopilot's Marketers & Founders series on growth marketing for startups: running acquisition experiments, building funnels that compound, and finding the channels that work before there's a budget to spend.

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EFF & MIT Freedom to Innovate Summit — Building a Campus Digital Rights Movement
2015 · EFF & MIT Freedom to Innovate Summit · Cambridge, MA

Building a Campus Digital Rights Movement

A talk at the EFF- and MIT-convened Freedom to Innovate Summit on organizing students around digital rights: building campus coalitions for privacy, open access, and free expression, and turning scattered concern into a movement that outlasts any one graduating class.

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