What the room walks out with
A talk has one job, which is to change what people do the following week. Everything in the session points at that, and the measure of whether it worked is what shows up in their calendars on Monday.
- A method they can use the same day, taught once and then demonstrated live on a real task rather than described in the abstract
- Real numbers from real systems, what the work cost and what it produced, so nobody has to take a claim on faith
- The failures alongside the wins, because a room that only hears success stories leaves believing something untrue
- A one page method card, handed out or delivered by QR code, that outlives the event
- One specific action for the week ahead, named from the stage so it is impossible to leave without it
- Straight answers in Q and A, including the times when the honest answer is that AI is the wrong tool for what they just described
If what you want is people building something during the session rather than listening to somebody who has, that is a workshop and it is a different product. The two sit side by side further down this page.
What I speak about
Four talks, each built on work I have done myself. Every one gets rebuilt around your audience, your industry and your event theme before the date. If your need sits between two of them, say so on the call and we will shape the right one.
Stop Prompting, Start Directing
General audiences, mixed experience levelsThe core method from The Artificial Advantage. Most people treat AI like a search box and get search box results back. Directing is a different habit, it takes about twenty minutes to teach, and the difference gets demonstrated live in front of the room rather than promised.
The audience leaves with
- The directing method, shown live instead of described
- A clear reason why their own results have been mediocre
- One task from their week to rebuild before Friday
The Review Gate
Regulated industries, risk and leadership audiencesHow to put AI into work that somebody has to sign off on. For three years I coordinated compliance, legal and creative review before every campaign went live at a large publicly traded Canadian lender, so nothing shipped unchecked. The AI systems I run today work the same way. This is how an organization gets the speed and keeps the gate.
The audience leaves with
- Where human sign-off belongs and where it is theatre
- What an AI use policy has to say to be followed
- The questions a leader should be asking their own teams
What AI Costs and What It Produces
Leadership audiences, budget holders, skepticsI run these systems on my own money and I keep the ledgers. 293,571 words of drafted content for $32.67. 7,729 business listings across fifteen live sites for zero API spend. Then the other half of the story: the first two hundred pieces my content system produced all had titles starting with the same word, and the median engagement across a hundred published posts was zero. Showing the second half is what makes the first half believable.
The audience leaves with
- A way to estimate the real cost of an AI initiative
- Why volume without a quality gate is worth nothing
- How to tell a real AI result from a good demo
AI Inside a Marketing Team
Marketing conferences, agency events, industry associationsI spent a decade in marketing, half of it in performance, and personally managed more than $50 million in profitable ad spend, running $1.5 million a month across two regulated brands for three years. Directing AI bidding and AI creative was part of the daily job well before it reached the headlines. This is what worked, what quietly did not, and where the judgment still has to be human.
The audience leaves with
- Where AI belongs in a media and content workflow, step by step
- What to test, what to automate and what to leave alone
- How to move faster while brand and compliance standards hold
Formats and fees
Fees are Canadian dollars plus HST, invoiced from an incorporated Ontario business. Travel inside the Greater Toronto Area is included. Every format runs in person or live over video, and the virtual version gets rebuilt for video rather than delivered as a webcam copy of the room version.
| Format | Length | Typical setting | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lunch and learn | 60 minutes | Your own team, over lunch, low ceremony | $1,200 |
| Panel or fireside chat | 45 to 60 minutes | Moderated discussion or audience Q and A | $1,800 |
| Townhall or all-hands | 30 to 60 minutes | Your whole company, one room or one stream | $2,400 |
| Conference or association keynote | 45 to 60 minutes | Industry conference, breakout, chapter meeting | $3,600 |
| Offsite or leadership session | 60 to 90 minutes | Executive offsite, leadership or board retreat | $4,800 |
The fees track preparation rather than stage time. A lunch and learn runs on prepared material and is the easiest session on this list to get approved, which is why most companies start there. A conference keynote gets written for your event, your theme and your audience, and the difference in fee is where that writing happens. A leadership session carries the most preparation of all, because the examples have to survive a room of people whose job is to push back on them.
- A 20-minute call before anything is quoted, to agree the theme and the outcome
- The talk rebuilt around your industry, your audience and your event
- For internal events, a short attendee survey that shapes what gets covered
- A one page method card for every attendee, printed or by QR code
- Live Q and A, plus a written answer afterwards to anything I could not answer well on the day
- Permission to record for internal use by people who could not attend
- Promotion copy, a headshot and a bio for your event page, sent the week you book
If the talk does not land, tell me and I refund the fee in full. No forms and no argument. I would rather carry that risk myself than hand it to a client booking me for the first time, and the offer stands on every format on this page.
Events this is built for
The best fit is an audience that has already tried AI and came away underwhelmed. Somebody signed everyone up for the tools, two or three curious people quietly got good at them, and the rest of the organization carried on working the slow way. That room does not need to be told AI is important. It needs somebody who has done the work to show them what good looks like.
- Business conferences and industry events that want a practitioner session instead of another trends keynote
- Company townhalls and all-hands where leadership wants everybody hearing the same thing on the same day
- Team and company offsites that need one session with substance between the strategy blocks
- Panels and fireside chats that need somebody who will answer the question that was asked
- Association and chapter meetings, professional bodies and membership organizations
- Lunch and learns, the lowest-friction way to put a real AI session in front of your team
- Leadership and board sessions where the questions are about risk, cost and what to standardize
It is a poor fit for engineering audiences who want model architecture and fine-tuning, and for any event where the speaker is expected to promote a vendor. I sell no software and I have no partner to plug, which is a large part of why these sessions are useful.
An event talk or a workshop
These are two different products, and booking the wrong one is the most common way this goes sideways. The question that settles it is whether the room listens or the room builds.
Book an event talk when
The audience is large, the time is short, the session sits inside a bigger agenda, and the goal is to move how a lot of people think on the same day. A talk scales without limit. Nobody needs a laptop. What you get is shared understanding plus one clear action.
Book a workshop when
You want people leaving with something they built themselves. A workshop runs on your team's own tasks, collected beforehand, with everyone working on their own laptop while I move around the room. It takes longer, it caps the group size so that moving around the room is possible at all, and what you get is working prompts, a written team standard and a real task that runs better on Monday.
Plenty of companies do both on one day: a talk for everybody in the morning, then a hands-on workshop in the afternoon for the team that has to act on it. Booked together for the same day, the combined fee gets 15% off, because the travel and much of the preparation only happen once.
Who you are booking
I am Elvin Peters, a Toronto AI consultant, author and builder, and the honest description is a marketer who taught himself to build with AI. I spent a decade in marketing, half of it in performance. At a large publicly traded Canadian lender I personally managed $1.5 million a month across two regulated brands for three years, more than $50 million in profitable ad spend, with every campaign clearing compliance, legal and creative review before it went live. After that I advised the media teams at Thomson Reuters, TextNow, FindLaw and Internet Brands inside Google's Large Customer Sales organization.
Then I taught myself to build. Today I write, and I run a portfolio of AI systems I built and host myself: fifteen niche directories, more than a dozen browser games, my own email engine, and a platform that replaced several subscriptions I used to pay for. The Artificial Advantage came out of that work and is published on Amazon in three formats, with volumes two and three in progress.
The reason any of this matters from a stage is that everything I describe, I did this month, on systems where a mistake costs me my own money. That is a different kind of speaker from somebody who reads the announcements and builds a deck out of them.
How to book
Six steps, and the only one that needs your calendar today is the first.
- Send a note, then we talk for twenty minutes. We cover the event, the audience, the theme, the one thing you want people doing differently afterwards, and your budget and approval process. No pitch and no deck.
- A one page proposal arrives within 48 hours of the call. The outline, the format, one price and the terms, written so you can forward it to whoever signs off without having to explain it yourself.
- You confirm and I invoice the deposit. 50% holds the date and the balance is due 15 days after the event. If your organization needs vendor onboarding, a purchase order, insurance documentation or a supplier form, send it over and it comes back the same week.
- You get the promotion pack the same week. Session title, abstract, bio and headshot, ready for your event page and your invitations, so your marketing is never waiting on me.
- I build your talk. Examples rebuilt around your industry, demos rehearsed live at real speed, and a tech check with your AV team before the day rather than during it.
- We run it, then we follow up. The method card goes out to attendees, unanswered questions get written answers, and you get a straight read on what your organization should do next, including the times when the answer is nothing more from me.
Three to six weeks is a comfortable lead time for an internal event. Conferences and association programs usually set their lineup three to six months ahead. If your date is sooner than that, ask anyway, because it is often still possible.
Need something to forward to your budget holder? Here is the one page speaker sheet.
Frequently asked questions
How far ahead do we need to book?
Three to six weeks is comfortable for an internal event such as a townhall or a lunch and learn. Conferences and association programs usually set their lineup three to six months ahead. If your date is sooner than three weeks, ask, because it is often still possible.
How big can the audience be?
Any size. A talk scales in a way a hands-on workshop does not, so a room of 500 works as well as a room of 30. If you want people building something during the session rather than listening, that is the workshop instead.
Do you speak remotely?
Yes. In person across the Greater Toronto Area with travel included in the fee, and live over video anywhere. For virtual events the talk gets rebuilt for video with shorter segments and live audience interaction, rather than delivered as a webcam version of the in-person talk.
Do you customize the talk to our event?
Always. Before the date we agree the theme, the audience, and the one thing you want people to do differently afterwards. The examples get rebuilt around your industry, and for internal events a short survey of attendees shapes what gets covered.
Have you spoken at events before?
Event speaking is a new line for me and I would rather say so than imply a client list I do not have. What sits behind the material is a decade in marketing presenting to senior stakeholders and executive teams, a published book on the method, and AI systems I run in production every day. The guarantee exists precisely because you are taking a chance on a reference list I am still building, and I do not think you should have to carry that risk.
Are your fees in Canadian dollars?
Yes. All fees are Canadian dollars plus HST, invoiced from an incorporated Ontario business with a GST/HST registration number. Travel inside the Greater Toronto Area is included. Outside the GTA, travel and accommodation are billed at cost and agreed in writing first.
Can we record the session and reuse it?
Recording for internal use by people who could not attend is included. Putting the recording into a permanent training library or anything customer-facing is a separate licence, agreed in writing before the date.
What do you need from our AV team?
A screen or projector with HDMI, a microphone in any room over 40 people, and fifteen minutes before doors to test with my own laptop. For virtual events I need a tech check on the actual platform a few days ahead, which is when problems are still cheap to fix.
Do you promote products or vendors from the stage?
No. I sell no software and I hold no vendor partnerships, so there is nothing for me to push. The book gets a single mention and only where it is relevant, and I am happy to drop even that if you would rather I did not.
Let us talk about your event.
Twenty minutes is enough to scope the session, the format and the fee. If I am not the right speaker for your audience, I will say so on the call and point you somewhere better.
Ask about your date