Barbie Ray
Executive AI Strategist & Keynote Speaker
Creator of How to Train Your AI™ — helping founder-CEOs turn AI into a 24/7 executive decision partner.
“The only barriers I have in life are the ones I put in front of and above me.”— Barbie Ray
The Grim Reaper’s Favorite Chew Toy™
Struck by lightning. Paralyzed for over a year. Attacked by bees. Battling an autoimmune disease while caregiving for a child allergic to water. Barbie Ray has stared down death more times than most people have changed passwords.
But instead of breaking, she built. A graduate of Chicago’s legendary Second City, she channels comedic timing, radical resilience, and executive-level strategy into every keynote. Her story is not one of victimhood — it’s one of radical reinvention.
Today she’s an award-winning speaker and the creator of How to Train Your AI™ — a system that helps founder-CEOs eliminate decision fatigue and scale intelligently. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Tribune Women’s Journal.
How to Train Your AI™
A leadership system that transforms AI from a novelty tool into a 24/7 executive-level decision partner — reducing decision fatigue, reclaiming time, and scaling intelligently.
Train It to Think Like You
Teach your AI your voice, values, and decision frameworks so it responds like a trusted executive partner, not a generic chatbot.
Eliminate Decision Fatigue
Offload repetitive decisions, research, and drafting to your AI system — freeing your mental bandwidth for the work only you can do.
Scale Without Hiring
Build AI workflows that handle the volume of a full team, giving $10M–$25M founder-CEOs enterprise-level capacity without enterprise-level headcount.
Barbie & John: Two Angles, One Transformation
Barbie Ray's tandem keynote with John Chmela is a masterclass in AI adoption from two angles: the human story and the technical roadmap. Barbie delivers the emotional and strategic case for AI leadership — why founder-CEOs must stop treating AI as a tool and start training it as a thought partner. John then layers in the practical architecture: how to structure prompts, build AI workflows, and measure ROI. Together they give audiences both the mindset shift and the implementation blueprint. The result is an audience that leaves not just inspired, but equipped — with a clear first step toward turning AI into a competitive advantage.
- The emotional case for AI leadership
- Humor, resilience, and real-world stories
- How to Train Your AI™ system
- The mindset shift from tool to partner
- Practical AI architecture & workflows
- Prompt engineering & ROI measurement
- AI ethics and governance framework
- The implementation blueprint
What Barbie Covers
Who Books Barbie
Founder-CEOs and C-suite leaders at $10M–$25M companies navigating AI adoption; entrepreneurial organizations ready to move beyond AI tools into AI systems; leadership conferences focused on future of work, operational efficiency, and executive performance; women in leadership events; organizations where human resilience and technological innovation intersect.
Availability
Check Dates & Book
Most engagements book 6–12 weeks out. Reach out early to secure your preferred date.
Ready to Book Barbie & John?
Bring How to Train Your AI™ and Applied AI’s leading strategist together for a keynote that moves your audience from AI curiosity to AI execution.