King's College London · World Economic Forum

When AI becomes your partner, rival, and customer, strategy has to change.

I help leaders understand how AI is reshaping competition, branding, work, and decision-making — and what to do about it.

Professor Author Keynote Speaker Advisor
Oguz A. Acar — keynote speaker
Speaking Topics
Keynotes & executive sessions
Examples of keynote and executive session topics for leadership, strategy, marketing, and innovation audiences.

When AI Becomes Your Partner, Rival, and Customer

AI is no longer just a tool. It is increasingly shaping decisions, influencing competition, and acting with greater autonomy across work and commerce. This keynote explores how strategy changes when AI starts to behave not only as a partner, but also as a rival and even a customer.
Audience takeaway How to rethink strategy when AI is reshaping the competitive environment, not just supporting the business.

Leading Through AI Uncertainty

Most organisations know they need to engage with AI, but far fewer are clear on where to focus, how fast to move, or how to separate real opportunity from hype. This talk helps leaders approach AI with a more disciplined strategic lens, combining opportunity assessment, risk management, and practical experimentation.
Audience takeaway A clearer framework for deciding where AI can create value, where caution is needed, and how to move forward intelligently.

Preparing Your Brand for AI Agents

As AI agents become more involved in search, recommendation, and purchasing, brands will increasingly need to win not only with people, but through machines. This keynote examines how AI is changing visibility, customer journeys, and brand strategy when algorithms start acting as gatekeepers.
Audience takeaway How brand strategy needs to evolve for a world of AI-mediated discovery, recommendation, and purchase.

Creativity and Innovation in the Age of AI

AI can make people more creative individually, while making organisations less original collectively. As more teams rely on the same tools, prompts, and patterns, creative output can become faster but also more homogeneous. This talk explores how leaders can use AI to expand innovation without sacrificing diversity of thought.
Audience takeaway How to capture AI's creative upside without falling into sameness.

Talks can also be tailored for specific sectors and audiences, including financial services, marketing, higher education, and executive leadership teams.

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Trusted by organisations including
Writing
Research & Ideas
I conduct research on AI, innovation, and consumer behaviour, and write regularly for Harvard Business Review and other management outlets.
Harvard Business Review

Preparing Your Brand for Agentic AI

Mar–Apr 2026 · Magazine Feature MIT Sloan Management Review

Reimagining Marketing Strategy for the AI Era

September 2025 ▶ Watch Video Harvard Business Review

Research: The Hidden Penalty of Using AI at Work

August 2025 Harvard Business Review

Research: Consumers Don't Want AI to Seem Human

January 2025 Harvard Business Review

A Toolkit to Help You Manage Uncertainty Around AI

October 2024 MIT Sloan Management Review

How GenAI Changes Creative Work

September 2024 Harvard Business Review

Is Your AI-First Strategy Causing More Problems Than It's Solving?

March 2024 Harvard Business Review

AI Prompt Engineering Isn't the Future

June 2023
Google Scholar — Academic Research →
Also featured in
Triple
Agent
Winning When AI Is Your
Partner, Rival & Customer
Oguz A. Acar
Forthcoming Book
Triple Agent is about AI's evolution from tool to economic actor: as your partner, rival, and customer. Often all three at once. It lays out a new strategy for a world where AI is on every side of the table.
About
Bridging research and practice

I'm a Professor of Marketing & Innovation and Chair in Marketing at King's Business School, King's College London, where I pioneered the school's generative AI integration as its founding Head of Generative AI. I serve on the steering board of the King's Institute for AI.

My work focuses on how AI is reshaping business, competition, and the way we work. I've written 15+ articles for Harvard Business Review — on topics from AI adoption barriers to why prompt engineering isn't the future — and publish regularly in executive-focused outlets including MIT Sloan Management Review and California Management Review. My academic research appears in leading journals including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Management, Psychological Science, and Research Policy, and I co-edited a handbook for Oxford University Press.

In 2023, I developed the PAIR Framework, one of the first models for integrating generative AI into education, and co-created a pioneering course on generative AI for higher education. Together, they have reached over 10,000 educators across 150+ countries.

Previously, I held affiliate and visiting positions at Harvard University, MIT, and NYU. I'm a World Economic Forum Expert, a Fellow of the RSA, and was named one of the World's Top 40 Business School Professors Under 40. I'm an engineer by training, with prior professional experience in consumer packaged goods and financial services.

King's College London World Economic Forum Fellow, RSA
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