I speak at a fair number of events and I read a lot of agendas, partly out of professional interest and partly to see what everyone else is doing. Here is what seems to be genuinely working this year, and what is not.
I have left myself out of the trends except where it would be dishonest not to declare an interest.
1. Measurement, and what to stop measuring
Organisations are drowning in dashboards and starving for judgement. Sessions that help a room work out which of their numbers actually predicts an outcome, and which are just easy to collect, are landing hard across sectors.
Declare my interest: this is my territory, so treat the enthusiasm accordingly. The reason I think it is real rather than self-serving is that it shows up on agendas in industries with no connection to me, usually framed as data literacy or decision quality.
2. The narrow AI session
Not "what AI means for business". That one is finished. Audiences have sat through it three times and can predict the slides.
What works now is a single job, examined closely, by someone who does it. What it changed about underwriting. About drafting a contract. About a support queue. Specific enough to argue with.
3. Regulation nobody was trained for
Across a lot of unglamorous industries, someone has been handed a reporting obligation and a spreadsheet. Emissions data, supply chain disclosure, product take-back. These sessions fill because attendance is effectively mandatory for the person's job, and they are grateful for anyone who makes the requirement legible.
4. Trust, told plainly
After a stretch of institutional wobble, sessions about why customers or members believe an organisation are earning slots again. The version that works is operational, about what an organisation actually does when something goes wrong, rather than a values statement.
Every theme above works in the narrow version and fails in the broad one. The same subject can be the best session of the conference or the one people check email through, and the difference is almost always how specific it is.
What is wearing out
| Tired | What is replacing it |
|---|---|
| General AI overview | One job, examined closely, by someone who does it |
| Disruption keynote | What specifically changed in this sector, with numbers |
| Four-person panel | Two people who disagree, moderated properly |
| Sustainability as values | Sustainability as a cost and reporting problem |
| Generic motivational closer | Closer tied to the specific work of the audience |
A note on chasing trends
The best session at most conferences is not on a trending topic at all. It is on the thing that audience is quietly stuck on, which is usually unfashionable and rarely appears in an article like this one.
Trends are useful for filling the slots either side of that session. They are a poor substitute for it.
If you are working out what your own audience is stuck on, the piece on what makes a keynote memorable is the more useful read, and the questions to ask a speaker will tell you fast whether they can handle it.
Frequently asked questions
Is AI played out as a keynote topic?
The general overview is. "What AI means for all of us" has been delivered to most audiences several times now. What still lands is narrow and concrete: what it changes about one specific job your audience does, told by someone who has actually done that job.
Do audiences still want motivational keynotes?
In the right slot, yes. A closing session that sends people out energised has a real function. The mistake is expecting behaviour change from it. If you need people to do something differently, that is a different booking.
How do we know a topic is trending rather than just loud?
Look at whether practitioners are arguing about it or only vendors are talking about it. Vendor enthusiasm is a marketing signal. Practitioner disagreement is a programming signal, because a room turns up for a question it has not settled.
Should we chase a trending topic at all?
Only where it intersects a decision your audience actually faces. A trending topic your members have no authority to act on is entertainment with a serious face.
Sources: Executive Speakers Bureau - what planners should ask in 2026 · ProSpeakers - 2026 booking and cost context
If you want the version of this for your own sector, the industries page lists all eighteen.