The question is no longer whether to use AI for executive communication and speechwriting. It’s how to use it best.
And that’s up to you, the practitioner. Your intelligence, thoughtfulness and deep sense of ethics will help AI enhance the work you do, rather than detract.
But you need to understand the relevant AI tools and techniques first—from basic, to advanced.
We’ve tailored this course with one goal in mind: to help speechwriters and executive communication professionals gain a hands-on, practical, shirtsleeve understanding of AI’s role in our work and how to use it ethically, effectively and strategically.
You’ll come away with a toolbox of prompts and approaches that you can apply immediately to strengthen your research, enhance your messaging, drill down on fact-checking and refine your communication strategies. You will learn how to use generative AI, make the leap into agentic AI, and understand the (important) difference. Just as important, you’ll see how AI can help boost your value as a professional — by making you faster, more adaptive and more confident in the services you provide.
And you’ll learn a dozen new AI applications for speechwriting and exec comms.
You’ll return to your work less ambivalent about AI and more enthusiastic—clearer-minded about how it can help and how it can’t, and confident in your own ability to make AI work: for you, for the leaders you support, and for the organization they lead.
Course Agenda
(All sessions, 12:00pm – 1:30pm Eastern)
Monday, March 23
Session 1: Generative AI in Speechwriting (Research, Structure and Composition)
After a non-technical explanation of what AI is—and isn’t—as far as communicators are concerned, this session focuses on using AI to support the early and middle stages of your speechwriting process. We begin with foundational generative AI techniques and strategic prompt development, giving you the essential skills to build better workflows, conduct fast and thorough speech research, and turn briefing notes into clear building blocks for your drafts.
The key takeaway of this session: AI won’t write your speech—but it can make you faster, sharper and more confident in how you shape it. You’ll walk away with tested prompts and techniques that strengthen your early-stage workflow and increase your value as a strategic communicator.
You will learn:
- How to conduct faster, more comprehensive information-gathering through customized and strategic prompts.
- How to extract more specific details from briefings and event descriptions than you ever could without AI.
- How to use AI to explore different speech structures and ID the right one for the occasion.
- How to use AI to assess strengths and weaknesses of your arguments, clarify numbers and stats and generate more compelling metaphors and similes.
Tuesday, March 24
Session 2: AI in Speechwriting (Advanced & Agentic Workflows for Editing, Fact-Checking and Coaching)
This session focuses on using AI to support the later stages of the speechwriting process and builds on Day 1 by introducing more advanced and agentic AI tools that help refine drafts, prepare them for delivery and ensure they resonate. You’ll learn how to use the very latest AI agents and build multi-step workflows to test for clarity, tone, cultural sensitivity and flow. As with research and drafting, the goal here isn’t replacement. It’s refinement and enhancement. You will also learn how agentic AI can automate quality checks, strengthen late-stage revisions and support speech coaching sessions with your speaker. When used well, these tools can make you a more responsive, confident and more valuable partner to your speaker. You will learn how to use AI and agentic systems to:
- Build simple, task-specific AI agents that support speechwriting work—such as agents for structure analysis, fact-flagging or style review.
- Create multi-step workflows that help you move from outline to refined draft more efficiently and consistently.
- Test the readability of the speech—and the listenability, too.
- Deepen your knowledge of the subject and improve your application of rhetorical devices.
Wednesday, March 25
Session 3: AI in Executive Communications
In this session, we show you how to use AI to become more than a better writer—but a better executive communications strategist, too. Participants will learn how to build strategic communications objectives and outline tactics. You’ll also see how AI can assist with stakeholder mapping and tightening your narrative across formats—from press releases to talking points. The session includes live demos, use-case walkthroughs, and a review of risks and red flags when using AI in high-stakes strategic work.
You’ll learn how to use AI for:
- Strengthening communications strategies and making messaging plans.
- Stakeholder mapping.
- Scenario planning for real-world situations.
- Spotting potential missteps and blind spots.
- Tightening your narrative across formats.
Thursday, March 26
Session 4: Office Hours, with Brent Kerrigan and an Expanded AI Faculty
For any question you have about AI for communications, this panel will have answers. Lead instructor Brent Kerrigan will facilitate a conversation with Google DeepMind exec comms pro Leila Hajaj, communication technology guru Shel Holtz, Executive Communication Council Senior Advisor Sharon McIntosh, ECC/PSAExecutive Director David Murray—and you.
Course Logistics and FAQ
Q: When you say “hands on”: Do I need to actually subscribe to an AI platform to take this course?
A: We recommend subscribing to one AI model. The reason for this is capacity restrictions in free versions of various AI models. The instructor will be using Gemini Pro and ChatGPT Plus during the sessions. A one-month “Pro” subscription is approximately $20 (each AI model is the same price) and you can cancel afterwards. As the webinar approaches, we’ll send you easy instructions on how to subscribe. You can manage without it, but we will be establishing how to build “AI Agents on Day 2 in Gemini and you may exceed your data limits in the free version.
Q: What exactly will I take away?
A: Each session includes live demonstrations, real-time exercises using ChatGPT 5 and Google Gemini, and opportunities for Q&A. Participants will receive a set of practical prompts, checklists and frameworks to apply immediately in their work. You’ll also receive ideas, insights and grounding wisdom from our faculty of AI innovators in speechwriting and executive communication.
Q: Do I need any prior experience with AI to take this course?
A: No; the course is designed to serve absolute beginners as well as folks who have some experience with AI. We will begin the first day with the absolute basics. You need only an open mind, a willingness to understand new approaches and an appetite for increasing your value to your principal, and to your organization. This is not a technical session. Advanced AI users may not find it as useful as those with only limited AI experience.
Q: I took “AI for Speechwriting & Executive Communication” last fall. Will this course feel redundant, or is it new and improved?
A: It’s definitely new and improved, incorporating new AI applications, including Agentic AI, and exec comms / speechwriting prompts and revelations about the way all this has evolved in the few months since we offered the first course. Yes, some of this will come as a review, but the review will be useful—and much of it will also be brand new, including a whole new exploration of agentic AI. And of course, it’s a chance to bring new questions (and insights) from your work. In short: If you think you could might benefit from taking the course one more time—you’re probably right.
Q: Is this course going to help me make myself obsolescent?
A: No! The one thing you won’t receive in this course is a shortcut to having AI write your work for you, or substitute for the essential strategic communication counsel you offer your leader. That’s your job, and we wouldn’t want anyone else doing it. In fact, this webinar will help you more sharply understand and articulate the unique and irreplaceable human insight and skill you bring. You’ll leave with a clearer sense of how to work with AI while keeping your voice, your ethics, your expertise (and your soul!) at the center. We take a speechwriter-first approach.
Q: How long does each webinar last?
A: Each session consists of 45-60 minutes of instruction, with another 30 minutes for Q&A. Sessions will never run longer than 1.5 hours.
Q: I may miss one of the sessions. Will I be able to view a recording of the webinar?
A: Yes, each session will be recorded and provided for participants to review by weblink. Be sure to complete the Zoom webinar registration so you receive the automated post-session emails.
Q: For how long is the webinar recording valid after the session?
A: The recorded sessions will stay accessible one month after the course ends–so, until April 30, 2026.
Faculty
Brent Kerrigan
Lead instructor Brent Kerrigan serves as a strategic story consultant helping global leaders turn their organization’s competing ideas and scattered messages into a clear story arc. With more than two decades of experience as an executive speechwriter, Brent has written for government ministers, corporate CEOs and multilateral leaders — including six years as head speechwriter for UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). He’s held senior roles at Transport Canada and The Centre for Multilateral Diplomacy (CEMUNE) and has developed communications strategies and narrative frameworks for clients across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Brent is also the founder of www.globalspeechwriter.com, where he trains aspiring speechwriters throughout the world — including how to responsibly integrate AI into their practice.
Leila Hajaj
Leila Hajaj works and lives at the intersection of executive communications and AI. She joined DeepMind in 2022 as its first ever external Executive Communications team member with the mandate to work with the company’s C-suite executives to turbocharge their external engagements into more strategic and impactful activities. Now leading a team that works across Google DeepMind’s most senior executive bench, Leila works most closely with CEO Demis Hassabis, helping him articulate and express his thought leadership platform, focused on socially responsible AI. Leila has a strong background in technology comms, having spent a decade in PR agencies followed by five years in-house (working on AI long before it was cool!). In that time, Leila has advised senior executives from startups to major S&P100 players on their external communications strategies and helped them deliver tactics that moved the needle for their company goals. Leila holds a masters degree in Political Science and Spanish from Edinburgh University, and has a passion for mentorship and music.
Shel Holtz
Shel Holtz, SCMP, ABC, brings nearly 50 years of organizational communication experience to his current role as senior director of communications at Webcor. A seasoned practitioner who began his career as a newspaper reporter, Shel has spent decades helping organizations navigate the intersection of communication and technology—from the early days of email and intranets to today’s urgent focus on Artificial Intelligence. Before joining Webcor in 2017, he spent 20 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, following corporate leadership roles at Allergan and Mattel. An IABC Fellow and five-time Gold Quill winner, Shel has authored six books and co-hosts “For Immediate Release,” the profession’s longest-running podcast, which launched in 2005.
Sharon McIntosh
Sharon McIntosh is an advisor to the Executive Communication Council and to her own clients, in executive communications, employee engagement and change management communications. Clients have included Otis Elevator, Toyota, Clarios, United Technologies, Raytheon Technologies, Eversource, AbbVie and Intercontinental Hotel Group. She previously served as vice president of global internal communications at PepsiCo. Before joining PepsiCo, Sharon worked at Sears and Waste Management in various communications capacities. She holds a master’s in Leadership Communications from DePaul University. Committed to personal growth and learning, Sharon completed her iPEC coaching certification to become a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) in 2022.
Register
$995 to register for AI for Speechwriting & Executive Communication, March 23-26, 2026. ($746 for members of the Professional Speechwriters Association. Discount is automatically applied to cart when current members are logged in.)
$2995 group rate (up to 4 team members total - please enter team member emails in the Order Notes so that they also receive credentials). For teams of 5 or more, please inquire with chief administration officer Jen Mazurek at [email protected].
Phone registrations please call 312-585-6383.
Credentials to access the event will be sent the week of March 16.
Cancellations Policy
No refunds on cancellations will be issued once the event credentials have been provided.
Price range: $995.00 through $2,995.00