Speaking
A dozen-plus conference and webinar talks on responsible AI, security and incident response, and data governance. I speak from what I've actually built and broken, not slideware.
Upcoming
AI Toolshed: Know Your Tools, Trust Your People
Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce, AI Summit · November 3, 2026, 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM · Hilton Paper Valley
A practical talk on adopting AI without losing the judgment that makes an organization work. AI is a power tool: it can make a skilled operator dramatically more effective, and it can make an unskilled one dramatically more dangerous, faster. The difference comes down to whether you've invested in the people holding it and drawn honest lines around what it's trusted to touch.
The talk draws a straight line from the identity-architecture lessons in the Stryker Lessons Learned brief, covering trust boundaries, tiered access, and where blast radius actually comes from, to the same questions applied to AI adoption: which tools earn broad trust, which need guardrails, and how you build a culture where people ask for help before they need it.
Bio (for event programs)
Short version
Adam Clifford is a technology executive focused on responsible AI, data governance, and security, with 20+ years across engineering, consulting, IT leadership, and the C-suite. He operates a self-hosted multi-agent AI lab as a working study in responsible AI, covering tiered autonomy, least-privilege controls, and on-premises privacy, and serves as VP on the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin InfraGard chapter.
Long version
Adam Clifford is a people-first technology leader with 20+ years across nearly every seat in the profession: engineer, consultant, founder, Director of IT, and CIO, serving organizations from small business to the Fortune 100 in both public and private sectors. He holds deep, current expertise in responsible AI adoption, data governance and compliance, and advanced security, and builds before he advises. New technology gets proven in his own AI lab before it shapes strategy or policy anywhere else. He is VP on the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin InfraGard chapter (an FBI partnership program), an AI Advisory Panelist for the Fox Valley Chamber of Commerce, and the founder of 920AI, a monthly AI meetup for the Fox Valley. He holds Microsoft's Cybersecurity Architect Expert, M365 Enterprise Administrator Expert, and multiple other Microsoft identity, endpoint, and security certifications.
Past talks
AI in Action: What's Possible Today?
Lean Construction Institute, Fox Valley Community of Practice · August 5, 2026 · The Fox Club at Timber Rattlers Stadium, Appleton
An industry panel on what AI can practically do for construction today. My segments covered the security precautions to take before adopting AI, where the failure is rarely the model and usually the data governance underneath it, and where teams can get real help without hiring a consultant: start with the licenses you already own, make innovation an organization-wide responsibility that leadership visibly models, and build an intake process where anyone can nominate the workflows worth automating.
No Malware. No Ransomware. No Excuses.
Lessons from the March 2026 Stryker incident, and the identity architecture every Microsoft 365 tenant should be having a conversation about. Delivered live with a demo of the exact control that would have stopped the attack a step later than CISA's guidance reaches.
Modern security, incident response, and data governance
More than a dozen talks over the past several years for conferences and webinars, including a session at the Microsoft Technology Center in Minneapolis, covering Conditional Access and risk-based access architecture, ransomware and incident response, MFA modernization and passwordless authentication, and data governance ahead of AI adoption. New responsible-AI sessions in 2026.
Watch
Technical deep-dives on my YouTube channel, built from the same material as these talks.
Level Up! Advanced Conditional Access Policies Your CISO Will Love, and Users Won't Hate!
More at youtube.com/@AdamKClifford