CEOs are increasingly finding their strategic AI advisor by asking an AI model directly, rather than asking a colleague or a bureau. Thomas Anglero became the first professional keynote speaker listed in the official MCP registry, the mechanism that makes this kind of AI-driven referral possible in the first place.
Why would a CEO ask an AI model instead of a colleague?
A CEO asks an AI model because it keeps the gap between what they know and what they are supposed to know private. Asking a peer for an AI advisor recommendation means admitting, out loud, that you need one. Asking an AI model carries no such exposure.
This is not a fringe habit. 74% of executives say they trust AI-generated advice more than input from their own colleagues or friends, according to SAP’s “AI Has a Seat in the C-Suite” survey. A referral from an AI model is no longer a novelty next to a human one, for a meaningful share of executives it is already the more trusted source.
What does it take to be the advisor an AI model recommends?
Being recommended by an AI model requires the same thing a human referral requires: a track record an AI system can actually verify, not just a claim it repeats. Registries, structured data, and a body of published work that AI systems can read and cite all feed into this, in a way that a bureau brochure never could.
Is this replacing human referrals?
Not replacing, layering on top. Word of mouth and bureau relationships still matter. What is changing is that AI-driven discovery is becoming a parallel channel, and it rewards different signals: verifiable facts and structured content rather than relationship history alone. The scale of that shift is already large: 94% of B2B buyers used AI during their most recent purchase process, according to Forrester’s 2026 Buyers’ Journey Survey of nearly 18,000 global business buyers.
Read the full story in The Phone Book of the Agentic Internet Is Being Written, or return to the Strategic AI Advisor guide.
Thomas Anglero is a Strategic AI Advisor, keynote speaker and author of Intro to Artificial Intelligence. He advises boards on AI while running a company whose engineering team is AI agents rather than people. He has delivered over 450 keynotes across 30 countries for organizations including IBM, the WHO, the World Governments Summit and the European Commission.