Gurus Rank & Categories 2026
Candidate Shortlist · Vote for 2027

Who should be the World’s Top 30 AI Business Transformation Professionals?

Global Gurus is opening a new Top 30 for 2027: the thinkers, researchers and practitioners shaping how real businesses adopt AI. This is the research shortlist. Your votes, combined with our evidence review, decide who makes the final list and in what order. Global Gurus earns its revenue from advertisers only, so a place on this list can only be earned. See the full criteria →

30 candidates Voting open for 2027
The Candidates

Rate and vote: your votes decide the 2027 ranking

The 30 names below are a research shortlist in no particular order. Move the slider to rate, press Vote, then confirm by email. Only confirmed votes count.

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Thomas H. Davenport
Thomas H. Davenport
Distinguished Professor at Babson College and a pioneer of analytics and AI in business, co-author of All In on AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Erik Brynjolfsson
Erik Brynjolfsson
Stanford economist who directs the Digital Economy Lab and co-wrote The Second Machine Age on how technology reshapes productivity and work.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick
Wharton professor whose book Co-Intelligence and newsletter One Useful Thing became the most-read practical guide to working with AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Karim R. Lakhani
Karim R. Lakhani
Harvard Business School professor and co-founder of the HBS Digital, Data and Design Institute, co-author of Competing in the Age of AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Marco Iansiti
Marco Iansiti
Harvard Business School professor who studies how AI-centred operating models rewrite scale, scope and learning inside companies.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Fei-Fei Li
Fei-Fei Li
Stanford professor, creator of ImageNet and co-director of Stanford HAI, bringing human-centred AI into boardrooms and policy.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Paul Daugherty
Paul Daugherty
Long-time Accenture technology leader and co-author of Human + Machine and Radically Human on reinventing business with AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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David De Cremer
David De Cremer
Dean of the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University and author of The AI-Savvy Leader.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Beena Ammanath
Beena Ammanath
Leader of the Deloitte AI Institute and author of Trustworthy AI, focused on ethics and governance in enterprise AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Pascal Bornet
Pascal Bornet
Intelligent automation pioneer, former McKinsey and EY practice leader, author of Intelligent Automation and Irreplaceable.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Virginia Dignum
Virginia Dignum
Umeå University professor of responsible AI who advises the EU and the UN on how organisations deploy AI responsibly.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Kay Firth-Butterfield
Kay Firth-Butterfield
Former head of AI at the World Economic Forum, CEO of Good Tech Advisory and author of Coexisting with AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Bernard Marr
Bernard Marr
Futurist, strategic adviser and bestselling author whose books turn AI and data into practical business playbooks.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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David L. Rogers
David L. Rogers
Columbia Business School faculty member and author of The Digital Transformation Roadmap on how established companies actually change.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Arthur Carmazzi
Arthur Carmazzi
Founder of Directive Communication Psychology, creator of the Colored Brain model and author of The Little AI Book of Organizational Culture Change.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Reid Blackman
Reid Blackman
Founder of Virtue, a philosopher turned adviser on AI ethics for enterprises, and author of Ethical Machines.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Andrew Ng
Andrew Ng
Founder of DeepLearning.AI and Landing AI and co-founder of Coursera, the teacher behind millions of AI practitioners.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Stuart Russell
Stuart Russell
UC Berkeley professor, co-author of the standard AI textbook and author of Human Compatible on keeping AI under human control.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Toby Walsh
Toby Walsh
UNSW Sydney professor of AI and author of 2062, one of the most quoted public voices on what AI does to work and society.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Luciano Floridi
Luciano Floridi
Yale professor and founding director of its Digital Ethics Center, philosopher of information and author of The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Cathy O’Neil
Cathy O’Neil
Data scientist, founder of the algorithmic auditing firm ORCAA and author of Weapons of Math Destruction.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Toju Duke
Toju Duke
Former responsible AI programme lead at Google, founder of the Ethical AI Governance Group and author of Building Responsible AI Algorithms.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Rumman Chowdhury
Rumman Chowdhury
CEO and co-founder of Humane Intelligence and a pioneer of applied algorithmic ethics, auditing and AI red-teaming.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Kate Crawford
Kate Crawford
USC Annenberg research professor and Microsoft Research senior principal researcher, author of Atlas of AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Sandra Wachter
Sandra Wachter
Oxford Internet Institute professor of technology and regulation, shaping where AI law, ethics and explainability meet business.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Joy Buolamwini
Joy Buolamwini
Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, MIT researcher and author of Unmasking AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Francesca Rossi
Francesca Rossi
IBM Fellow and AI Ethics Global Leader, past president of AAAI, guiding how large enterprises govern AI.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Sol Rashidi
Sol Rashidi
Former Chief Data and AI Officer at Estée Lauder and Sony Music and author of Your AI Survival Guide.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Merve Hickok
Merve Hickok
President of the Center for AI and Digital Policy and founder of AIethicist.org, a leading voice on AI governance and policy.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate
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Nuseir Yassin
Nuseir Yassin
Founder of Nas Daily and Nas Company, building media and AI-powered creator tools for a global audience.
4.8 / 5 How inspirational? Move to Rate

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