Olaf Groth

As paradigm-shifting technologies – such as China’s DeepSeek – explode onto the scene, how do leaders know where to focus their attention while avoiding the traps that come with using new technologies?

With a well-honed ability to see beyond the horizon and around corners, futurist and technology strategist Olaf Groth, Ph.D., shows leaders how to harness the transformative power that emerging technologies will have on worldwide economies and businesses.

A professor of practice for global foresight, strategy, innovation and policy at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, he has over three decades of experience advising governments like those of the US, Germany, Malaysia, the UAE and Kosovo, and multinationals including VW, Siemens, Karcher, Chevron, GE, Vodafone and Ferrari. Groth’s innovative frameworks guide companies through digital and geopolitical shifts while fostering responsible and strategic growth.

“Emerging and cognitive technology are coming up strong, and there’s an explosion of opportunity to shape the future – if we mitigate the risks,” explains Groth, who is also an adjunct professor at Hult IBS and honorary adjunct professor on UT Malaysia’s AI faculty. “But we won’t get to opportunity if we don’t address risk in parallel.”  

At the intersection of strategy and futurism, Groth is a highly regarded corporate and government advisor who teaches globalization, business and technology courses at Haas. The founding CEO of AI and emerging technology analyst firm Cambrian Futures, and of the solution development studio Cambrian Labs, he and his team live on the cutting edge of technology’s future. As exemplified by their patents, “GeoTech” capabilities, and digital governance and data market frameworks, their true quest is to understand what lies beyond the horizon for businesses in the age of AI.

Groth’s ability to connect the dots between the engineering and business sides of emerging technology enables him to help leaders identify where the power shifts lie and utilize his frameworks to execute a strategy. Having built emerging technology and digital strategies, capabilities, programs and ventures, Groth is an expert at linking new technology to other ongoing social, political, and environmental changes and shifts. With a global view of business and tech – his work has taken him across more than 35 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia – he eloquently illuminates the disruptive changes in the global economy in the context of emerging technologies.

A prolific writer on the applications of emerging technologies, Groth is lead co-author of the award-winning book on the cognitive economy – a category that encompasses AI, brain-computer interfaces, and quantum computing – “The Great Remobilization: Strategies and Designs for a Smarter Future” (The MIT Press, October 2023), as well as “The A.I. Generation: Shaping Our Global Future with Thinking Machines”(Pegasus Books, August 2021) and its hardcover sibling “Solomon’s Code: Humanity in a World of Thinking Machines (Pegasus Books, November 2018). 

“Right now, our excitement about AI is so high that developers are willing to cut corners without doing the proper testing,” explains Groth, who serves on the AI Task Force at Haas and frequently appears on panels such as AI and the transformation of work, manufacturing or the space economy. “The era of AI means we have unprecedented opportunity to make people’s lives richer, safer and more rewarding, but we can also do the opposite if we don’t design for it.”

An advisory council member of Kazakhstan’s Council for the Development of Artificial Intelligence, Groth is a big picture thinker who has lived in executive shoes himself. He provokes leaders to see their situation differently and helps companies transform in the midst of unpredictable technology and geopolitical landscapes.

GeoTech: Where Geopolitics Meets Emerging Technology

As international relations becomes a foreground issue for executives, “many companies that never considered geopolitics a core concern will find it inescapable now,” writes Groth for the World Economic Forum.

“GeoTech, or tech at the center of geopolitics, is everywhere. So how do we sort through that? What are the horizons of that?” he asks. “Everyone talks about the brain (the AI) but no one talks about the fuel (data).”

In his upcoming book, “Data Wars,” Groth lays out a narrative of the global, national and local competition for data and the future of data horizons. Exploring the tensions around data – including who gets to own what data, who gets what kind of agency and control over it, what do powerful interests such as platforms and governments do with that data, and the geopolitical implications of these tensions – he highlights various countries around the world currently developing policies and processes to address this.

Whether delivered in an engaging keynote to an Asian public audience back to back with a prime minister, a lightning talk for the top clients of a European IT firm, or in an advisory capacity with senior policy makers of a Middle Eastern government, Groth gives leaders the right questions to ask about the intersection between tech and geopolitics, and the implications for national security, solving big global problems like climate change migration, health, collaborating while competing with China, and more. His well-defined tools, like the FLP-IT framework or readiness assessments, help individuals and organizations make better sense of the current environment, and then begin to turn the threats and opportunities they identify into future growth.

The Six C’s and the Emerging Shape of the Global Economy

As revealed in “The Great Remobilization,” the next era of globalization is being driven by what Groth calls the six C’s of tectonic forces: COVID and CRISPR; Cognitive tech; Crypto, which includes blockchain and Web 3.0; Cybersecurity; Climate change; and the ‘Chinafication’ of the world.

“Cognitive transformation is the fusion of the digital driven by AI, with the biological driven by genetics and the ecological driven by climate change. When you add a new layer of cognitive capabilities over anything, from medical treatments to your car to your kid’s education, you get another order or layer of risk,” explains Groth. “Try talking to a roboticist or a car manufacturer about cyber – this second or third order layer is often a mystery to them. It’s the same with policy makers struggling with tech supply chains for economic development amid geopolitical competition. There are certain aspects that I help leaders understand that can have effects down the line.”

With roots in development management and innovation-centric topics, Groth’s background as a practitioner, researcher and entrepreneur offers executives a viable pathway for defining prospects for the future, an understanding of what’s coming, and frameworks for responding to these consequential shifts in everyday business and life.

“The essence of my soul is discovery and exploration – I enjoy discovering the edge, playing on the edge, and leading other people through the edge.”

Olaf Groth is a global futurist, strategist, and author specializing in AI, data, and emerging technologies’ impact on organizations and economies amid geostrategic competition. He teaches foresight, strategy, and technology innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business where he is also the Faculty Director for the Berkeley Executive Education program Emerging Technology Strategies, senior Adviser and Executive-in-Residence at Berkeley’s Institute for Business Innovation, Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), and a Startup Mentor at Berkeley Skydeck. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Hult IBS and Honorary Adjunct Professor at UT Malaysia’s AI Faculty.

Groth is the founding CEO of Cambrian Futures and of solution development studio Cambrian Labs, where he and his team have invented and patented a cutting edge privacy inclusive data access agent (PIDA), National and Organizational AI Readiness, GeoTech capabilities, digital governance and data market frameworks. An active contributor to global policy discussions, Groth is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance. His books, “The Great Remobilization” (2023), “The A.I. Generation” (2021) and “Solomon’s Code” (2018), explore tech’s role in shaping the future of the global economy and humanity.

He is a frequent commentator on CBS KPIX News, ABC 7 News, Fox News, KRON News, NPR and Bloomberg TV (USA), Deutsche Welle, ARD and ZDF (Germany), Channel News Asi (Singapore), CGTN, China Radio International, and various podcasts, as well as a contributor for IEEE’s Global Initiative on Ethics for Autonomous & Intelligent Systems, WIRED, Financial Times, Straits Times, The Hill, Harvard Business Review (USA, Germany, France, Italia, Spain, Arabia), California Management Review, Quartz, Wirtschaftswoche, Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel, FOCUS, Die Zeit, World Economic Forum, Huffington Post, Peter Drucker Forum, LSE, Today’s CFO, Thunderbird International Business Review, World Financial Review, European Business Review, Roubini EconoMonitor, and Duke CE Dialogue.

Groth holds Ph.D. & MALD degrees in global affairs with business, economics and technology focus from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and MAIPS & BA degrees with economics focus from the Middlebury Institute at Monterey. He studied negotiation at Harvard, economics at Georgetown, finance at Berkeley, and strategic leadership at the Center for Creative Leadership. 

Olaf Groth is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group^®.