Conference keynote
An opening or closing keynote that reframes AI and creativity for a whole-conference audience — vivid, story-led and built around a single defensible argument.
30–60 minutesPlenary / Main stage
Q&A optional Enquire
Speaking / Advisory / Consultancy
Sydney — available worldwide
Book Sam Moran
Thirty years creating. Now explaining what's next.
Most speakers on AI and creativity have only ever stood on one side of the glass. Sam has an ARIA-winning career on the studio floor and a funded doctorate examining what generative AI does to creative agency.
30 Years
On the studio floor
Performer, vocal producer, executive producer and creative director across music, television and interactive media.
6× ARIA
Award-winning practice
Six ARIA Awards, four further nominations and two Logie nominations — work made for audiences in more than a dozen countries.
PhD
Candidate
Macquarie University
A funded doctorate on creative agency and generative AI, plus teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate Creative Industries.
Hon. DLitt
Honorary doctorate, 2009
Doctor of Letters honoris causa for contributions to the creative and cultural industries.
01 / Why Sam
The point of difference
Not a futurist. A practitioner.
He has already survived four technology revolutions.
Digital recording. Green screen. Streaming. Now generative AI. Sam has been inside a working creative business for every one of them — which is why his account of this one is neither panic nor sales pitch. Audiences leave with a position they can act on.
01
Credibility a room can feel
When Sam describes what it is like to have a technology arrive mid-career and reshape your craft, he is not speculating. Creative teams recognise it immediately, and executives get an unusually honest read on how change actually lands.
02
Research, not opinion
The talks are built on doctoral work at Macquarie University and hands-on prototyping with frontier models — not on recycled headlines. Claims are grounded, distinguished from speculation, and open to challenge.
03
Optimism that survives scrutiny
The argument is hopeful but not naïve: creative work changes, some of it painfully, and the outcome is still ours to shape. Rooms leave energised rather than anxious — and with something to do on Monday.
Ten years with The Wiggles — 250-plus shows a year across the USA, Canada, the UK, Japan and China. Sam talks about creative work changing under your feet because he has stood there while it happened.
02 / Formats
Choose a starting point
Engagements
Six ways to work together.
Every engagement is shaped around your audience and the decision they are facing. Pick the closest fit below and the enquiry will arrive pre-labelled — or use the full form further down.
Plenary / Main stage
Q&A optional Enquire
Corporate keynote & leadership briefing
A closed session for executives, boards or all-hands audiences: what generative AI genuinely changes about creative capability, culture and risk — and what it does not.
45–90 minutesIn person or virtual
Briefing notes provided Enquire
Workshop & masterclass
Hands-on sessions for creative and production teams, built from studio-tested exercises: working with generative tools while keeping authorship, attribution and craft judgement intact.
Half or full dayTeams of 8–40
Practical, tool-based Enquire
Panel & moderation
As panellist or chair. Thirty years of live performance means the room stays awake, the questions stay sharp, and no one is allowed to hide behind a buzzword.
Panels / FiresideChair or contributor
Broadcast-comfortable Enquire
Advisory & consultancy
Longer engagements with organisations working through adoption: capability mapping, workflow prototyping, creative-culture strategy, IP and attribution practice, and honest counsel on what to ignore.
Project or retainerDiscovery / Strategy / Review
Research-led Enquire
Media & commentary
Interviews, expert comment and broadcast contributions on AI, entertainment and creative work — clear, quotable and free of hype in either direction.
Broadcast / Print / PodcastSydney-based
Fast turnaround Enquire
03 / Talks
Starting points, not scripts
Signature topics
Four arguments worth an hour of your audience.
These are the talks Sam is developing and delivering from his current research. Each is tailored to the audience in the room — a studio, a boardroom and a conference floor need different evidence to reach the same conclusion.
Talk 01
Creativity is not under threat
The case against the extinction narrative. Why the most useful way to understand generative AI is as a palette rather than a replacement — and what that reframing changes about how organisations invest, hire and commission.
Best for: conference plenaries, all-handsTalk 02
Thirty years, four revolutions
Digital recording, green screen, streaming, generative AI. A practitioner's account of what each disruption actually did to creative work — who lost, who adapted, and the pattern that keeps repeating for anyone willing to look.
Best for: leadership briefings, industry audiencesTalk 03
What survives automation
Drawn directly from doctoral research: where creative agency actually lives in a human–AI workflow, how it is quietly surrendered, and how to design production processes that hand it back to the people doing the work.
Best for: creative teams, studios, educatorsTalk 04
Adoption without fear
The practical session. Governance that creatives will actually follow, attribution and IP habits worth building now, and a realistic view of capability — including the things these tools are still genuinely bad at.
Best for: workshops, transformation programmes
04 / Enquiries
Usually answered within two business days
Start here
Tell Sam what the room needs.
A few details are enough to get a useful reply — the audience, the date and the thing you are actually trying to shift. If a format does not fit neatly, say so; most engagements end up shaped to the brief anyway.
Or email directly
sam.moran@mq.edu.au
05 / For organisers
Copy, paste, publish
Practical details
Everything your programme needs.
Approved biography text and title conventions for programmes, run sheets and promotional material. Please use these rather than paraphrasing credentials, and get in touch if you need something longer or a high-resolution portrait.
Short biography — approx. 45 words
Sam Moran is a creative practitioner-researcher with thirty years in music, television and interactive media. A six-time ARIA Award winner and honorary Doctor of Letters, he is now a PhD candidate at Macquarie University researching creative agency in the age of generative AI.
Full biography — approx. 120 words
Sam Moran has spent thirty years making entertainment for global audiences. He spent a decade with The Wiggles as lead performer, vocal producer and touring company manager, playing more than 250 shows a year across the USA, Canada, the UK, Japan, China and beyond, before a second decade producing music and television with partners including Nickelodeon, Sony Music, Republic Records and Universal Music Australia. His work has won six ARIA Awards and been nominated for two Logies, and Macquarie University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2009. He is now a PhD candidate and MQRES scholar at Macquarie, researching creative agency in the age of generative AI, and teaches across the university's Creative Industries programs.
Titles & billing
- Name
- Sam Moran
- Billing
- Creative AI researcher & 30-year entertainment practitioner
- Post-nominals
- Hon. DLitt, MA (Screen: Business)
- Affiliation
- PhD Candidate, Macquarie University
- Based in
- Sydney, Australia
- Socials
- @sammoran
Logistics
- Travel
- Available nationally and internationally from Sydney
- Virtual
- Remote keynotes, briefings and panels available
- Fees
- Quoted per engagement; concessions considered for education and not-for-profit
- Lead time
- Earlier is better — talks are tailored, not templated
- Assets
- High-resolution portraits and talk descriptions supplied on request