Roger Spitz gains global recognition for AI and decision-making work

Roger Spitz and the Disruptive Futures Institute are drawing broader attention in 2026 through independent rankings, institutional AI lists and a growing keynote schedule. The recognition underscores how boards and policymakers are focusing on human judgment, governance and agency as AI moves deeper into daily decision-making.

Why it matters: - Roger Spitz’s work is landing as organizations shift from testing AI to running it inside core decisions. - The recognition signals demand for AI frameworks that focus on judgment, governance and human agency, not just productivity. - The momentum also suggests Spitz’s ideas are reaching boards, policymakers and event organizers beyond niche futurist circles.

What happened: - Global Gurus ranked Spitz #15 on its World’s Top 30 Futurist Professionals 2026 list in February. - Thinkers360 named the Disruptive Futures Institute one of its 50 Thought Leading Companies on Artificial Intelligence for 2026. - Thinkers360 also placed the Disruptive Futures Institute in its Top 50 for Innovation and Top 10 globally for Education, at #9. - Spitz was featured in Speakers Associates’ 2026 buyer’s guide to AI keynote speakers in the “AI strategy and the board agenda” section. - Spitz delivered keynotes in 2026 at Meta’s Conversations in London, RSA Conference in San Francisco and Cloudflare’s Trust Forward Summit. - His tour has also included Frankfurt, Geneva, Zurich, New York, London, Bengaluru and Trinidad. - The Disruptive Futures Institute says Spitz has delivered close to 1,000 keynotes across more than 40 countries and six continents.

The details: - Global Gurus places Spitz alongside futurists including Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis and Michio Kaku. - Global Gurus scores its list using public opinion, originality of ideas, impact and practicality, and presentation and publication. - Spitz’s cited frameworks include Metaruptions, Techistentialism and the AAA Framework, which stands for Antifragile, Anticipatory and Agile. - Thinkers360’s AI company list also included Tata Consultancy Services, Mastercard, ServiceNow, Orange Business, Volvo Group and Oxford’s Saïd Business School. - Thinkers360’s individual leaderboards named Spitz a Top Voice globally and in North America. - Those rankings placed Spitz among leading thought leaders in artificial intelligence, AI ethics, AI governance, management, education, venture capital and emerging technologies. - The Speakers Associates guide cited Spitz’s mix of scaled technology M&A experience and strategic foresight work as a fit for board-level AI conversations. - Before founding the Disruptive Futures Institute, Spitz was Global Head of Technology M&A at BNP Paribas. - At BNP Paribas, Spitz led more than 50 transactions worth over $25 billion and built the bank’s U.S. M&A platform in San Francisco. - Spitz is the author of Disrupt With Impact and the four-volume Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption. - Disrupt With Impact won first place in Business & Enterprise Non-Fiction at the 2024 Chanticleer International Book Awards, the Foreword INDIES award in Business & Economics and a 2025 Readers’ Favorite award. - The book reached #1 on Amazon in six categories across the USA, UK, Brazil, India, France and Germany, including Artificial Intelligence. - Spitz’s AI work is anchored in Techistentialism, a framework he coined in 2016 about decision-making where technology and human life are inseparable. - The Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence serves as DFI’s research and education initiative on AI impacts, governance and ethics. - Spitz also holds roles with the World Economic Forum’s AI Global Alliance on AI Governance, the AI Council of the Indian Society for Artificial Intelligence and the Global Centre for AI Excellence in San Francisco. - Spitz is a venture partner at Berkeley SkyDeck and Vektor Partners and writes as an AI columnist for MIT Technology Review Brazil. - For media inquiries and keynote requests, the institute directs readers to Explore speaking.

Between the lines: - The rankings matter because they validate influence from outside Spitz’s own institute. - Spitz’s concept of “Superstupidity” reframes AI risk around human overreliance on systems people do not understand. - His argument has helped shift discussion from hypothetical superintelligence toward more immediate failures in organizational judgment. - The clustering of awards, lists and speaking demand suggests the market is converging on the same problem: how to preserve human oversight as AI becomes embedded in routine decisions.

What’s next: - Spitz is likely to keep positioning the Disruptive Futures Institute around AI governance, leadership and decision-making. - Demand for keynote speakers who can speak to board-level AI strategy appears set to remain high as more organizations operationalize AI. - The institute’s work on human-AI agency looks poised to stay central as executives, investors and policymakers revisit their planning assumptions.

The bottom line: - Spitz’s 2026 recognition shows that AI thought leadership is moving from technical novelty to questions of control, accountability and human judgment.