Yes. The advice, the privileged material and the patient information all stay with the people in the room, and a session built for that room has to say so out loud. The compliance question is the one I want raised on the briefing call, because it shapes what the hour covers.
Why does a compliance-bound audience make a committee hesitate?
Because the room carries obligations the speaker does not, and a committee is right to want to know how a speaker handles that.
So here is where I sit. I am an AI practitioner who works with legal and medical professionals, and I am comfortable being a non-legal, non-medical specialist. Your professional body, your licensee and your own advisers set the standards.
The clearest version of that is what I say about CPD. Send me the wording your college or law society or licensee uses and I will structure the session against it, including a stated takeaway your delegates leave with. I will not tell you it is accredited, because that is your body's call and not mine.
That is worth knowing up front, because it tells your committee what it is buying. You are buying an hour that shows your members where AI helps with the work, and where it has to stay out.
What do organisers actually raise before they book?
The same few things, and the wording changes by profession.
A legal program manager will tell you privilege and confidentiality make this a hard sell internally. In advice it is record-keeping and advice obligations that make it risky. Health rooms say much the same thing about patient privacy.
I lead with all three. The talk covers which work can go near a model and which must not, and how to choose tools and settings that keep client material off public systems.
The other one worth naming is hallucinated authorities, which a legal room raises by name and a health room raises as AI getting things wrong. I address that directly, because a model states wrong things confidently, and the answer is that the person who signs the work checks it.
Where does AI belong in regulated work, and where must it stay out?
This is the part I get specific about on stage.
In advice, AI helps with file notes after a client meeting, with review prep, with summarising fact-finds and prior advice, and with drafting market commentary in the adviser's own voice. The advice itself stays firmly with the authorised adviser, and the best-interests duty keeps a human in the loop.
Legal work splits along a different line. AI takes first drafts of letters, memos and standard documents, and it turns long briefs and judgements into checkable starting points and a complex position into a plain-English client update. It does not go near privileged or confidential material on a public tool, and a lawyer verifies every authority before relying on it.
In medical and veterinary practice it is mostly the correspondence. AI helps with standard letters, with routine follow-ups, with turning long guidelines into summaries a clinician can check, and with putting a clinician's own explanation into plain language for a patient or an owner. Identifiable information stays off public tools, and every clinical call stays with the clinician.
Who owns the decision once AI is in the room?
It is the person whose name is on the work, and that has not changed.
I wrote a whole post on why I think first and never let AI decide, and the short version is that by the time I open up AI I have already done my own thinking. AI comes in after. It can tell me what it would do and why, which is often useful, but the decision rests with me.
For a regulated audience the obligation is personal, and you cannot hand it to a tool.
The framework I teach for this is the 10-80-10 rule, or the wedding cake. The first 10% is yours, the concept and the constraints and what the finished thing has to be. The middle 80% is the messy middle, where AI does the drafting and the organising and saves the hours. The final 10% is the icing, and you must step back in to double-check everything, because the buck still stops with you.
What do I do differently when the room is regulated?
Most of it happens well before the day, on the briefing call and over the deck.
On the call I ask where your members actually are with AI right now, what the one thing is you would want them to leave with, what their biggest challenges are, whether there is an elephant in the room, and what you as the organiser are most looking for from a speaker like me.
Then you see the deck before the day, and I ask one question with it. Does anything in here clash with another speaker, or with something your board has ruled out? For a compliance-bound audience that is where a position your licensee or your professional body has already taken comes up.
And the room takes something home. Every attendee leaves with an AI resources pack, guardrails and workflows included, tailored to their profession, that they can use the same week. It is the reason the session keeps working after the conference is over.
What should a program chair ask before booking any AI speaker?
If you are weighing up speakers for a compliance-bound room, these are the questions I would want asked of me.
Ask what they will tell the room to keep off public tools, in your profession's own language.
Ask how the session gets structured against your CPD framework, and whether they will claim it is accredited. That is your body's call.
Ask what the room takes home, and whether the guardrails are in it.
Ask whether you get to see the deck before the day.
And ask what happens if your board has already ruled something out.
Putting AI on next year's program for a regulated audience? Tell Adam about your event, your profession and the date, and he will come back to you directly. Keynotes, breakouts and workshops for advice, legal, accounting, broking, property and health audiences.
If your sector is not on my industries list, get in touch anyway and the session can be shaped to suit. And if you are working the numbers up for a committee paper, what an AI keynote speaker costs has the fees and the formats in one place.
Frequently asked questions
Can you speak about AI to an audience bound by compliance obligations?
Yes. Financial advisers, lawyers, accountants, mortgage brokers, property professionals and medical and veterinary practices all carry obligations, and the session is built around those obligations. I have delivered more than 250 keynotes and 100 workshops across professional services over 16 years.
Do you give compliance or legal advice on stage?
No. I am an AI practitioner who works with legal and medical professionals, and I am comfortable being a non-legal, non-medical specialist. Your professional body, your licensee and your own advisers set the standards. Send me the wording your body uses and I will structure the session against it, but I will not tell you it is accredited, because that is your body's call and not mine.
What does AI safely help with inside a regulated firm?
It is the correspondence, the summarising and the first drafts, which covers file notes and review prep in advice, letters and memos and document summaries in legal, and routine correspondence and plain-English explanations in a practice. All of it is the admin that crowds out time with clients and patients, and none of it is the regulated decision.
What should never go near a public AI tool?
It is privileged and confidential client material, and anything that identifies a patient or a client. Beyond the data question, the regulated call itself stays human. Advice stays firmly with the authorised adviser under the best-interests duty, a lawyer verifies every authority before relying on it, and every clinical call stays with the clinician.
How do you handle a position our board or licensee has already taken?
You see the deck before the day, and I ask you directly whether anything in it clashes with another speaker or with something your board has ruled out. That is where a position your licensee or your professional body has already taken comes up.
What does a regulated audience take home from the session?
Every attendee leaves with an AI resources pack, guardrails and workflows included, tailored to their profession, that they can use the same week. It is the reason the session keeps working after the conference is over.
