Resources for Event Planners
Here’s your one-stop shop for bringing me to your event. You’ll find the materials organizers typically need to plan the session, promote it, and give internal stakeholders a clear sense of my work and what I’ll bring to the audience.
Here are several bio options to choose from
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Perry Carpenter is a multi-award-winning author, podcaster, and speaker with a lifelong fascination for both deception and technology. As a cybersecurity professional, human factors expert, and deception researcher, Perry has spent over two decades at the forefront of exploring how cybercriminals exploit human behavior.
Perry's career has been a relentless pursuit of understanding how bad actors exploit human nature. His fascination for the art and science of deception began in childhood with magic tricks and mental manipulations, evolving into a mission to protect others from digital threats. As the Chief Deception Strategist at KnowBe4, Perry helps organizations and individuals build robust defenses against the ever-evolving landscape of online deceptions.
In his latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Wiley: Oct 2024), Perry tackles the fascinating and often daunting world of artificial intelligence. He explores AI's potential benefits and the darker side of its application in deception and misinformation. Through engaging storytelling and practical advice, Perry equips readers with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the complexities of AI-driven deception. He demystifies complex concepts, making them accessible to a general audience while providing actionable strategies for protecting oneself in the digital age.
Perry’s contributions to the field are widely recognized. His first book, Transformational Security Awareness, was inducted into the Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame. He also hosts two award winning podcasts, 8th Layer Insights and Digital Folklore, where he explores the intersection of technology and humanity in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner.
Whether speaking on stage, writing, or podcasting, Perry empowers his audience to stay vigilant, think critically, and harness the power of technology responsibly. His work has not only educated but also inspired countless professionals and individuals to take proactive steps in safeguarding their digital lives and helping others do the same. As Perry often says, "The fight against AI-driven deception won’t be won by technology alone. Our greatest weapon is exactly what bad actors are trying to exploit…it’s our humanity and our minds."
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Perry Carpenter is a multi-award-winning author, podcaster, and speaker with a passion for deception and technology. With over two decades in cybersecurity, Perry has dedicated his career to understanding how cybercriminals exploit human behavior.
Perry's career has been a relentless pursuit of understanding how bad actors exploit human nature. His fascination for the art and science of deception began in childhood with magic tricks and mental manipulations, evolving into a mission to protect others from digital threats. As the Chief Deception Strategist at KnowBe4, Perry helps organizations and individuals build robust defenses against the ever-evolving landscape of online deceptions.
His latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Wiley: Oct 2024), tackles the fascinating and often daunting world of artificial intelligence. He explores AI's potential benefits and the darker side of its application in deception and misinformation. Through engaging storytelling and practical advice, Perry equips readers with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the complexities of AI-driven deception.
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Perry Carpenter is a multi-award-winning author, podcaster, and speaker, with over two decades in cybersecurity focusing on how cybercriminals exploit human behavior. As the Chief Deception Strategist at KnowBe4, Perry helps build robust human-centric defenses against social engineering-based threats. His latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Wiley: Oct 2024), explores AI's role in deception. Perry also hosts the award-winning podcasts 8th Layer Insights and Digital Folklore.
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Perry Carpenter is a multi-award-winning author, podcaster, and speaker, with over two decades in cybersecurity focusing on how cybercriminals exploit human behavior. As the Chief Deception Strategist at KnowBe4, Perry helps build robust human-centric defenses against social engineering-based threats. His latest book, FAIK, explores AI's role in deception.
Intro Script
Here’s a short suggested intro that will resonate much better than reading a dry bio.
Our next speaker studies deception: how it works, why we fall for it, and what happens when technology makes it more powerful.
His work spans cybersecurity, social engineering, cognitive science, and the deceptive arts. Along the way, he’s studied the methods of magicians and mentalists, fraudulent psychics, con artists, disinformation operators, and others who make a living shaping what people believe.
He’s the Chief Deception Strategist at KnowBe4, and an award-winning author and podcaster who has made a career out of exploring one deceptively simple question:
What does it take to make someone believe?
Please welcome, Perry Carpenter.
Perry’s most in-demand talks
The Deepfake Playbook, Unleashed
Inside the Rapidly Evolving World of AI-Powered Deception
Abstract
AI-generated deception is evolving at extraordinary speed. Deepfakes that once required specialized skills and significant computing power can now be created in minutes. Voices can be cloned from short samples, faces can be swapped in real time, synthetic identities can be built from scratch, and AI systems are making personalized deception easier to create and scale.
In this fast-moving session, Perry Carpenter takes audiences inside the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered deception. Through compelling demonstrations, current examples, and an accessible look at emerging capabilities, he explores how deepfakes, voice cloning, synthetic media, AI agents, and other tools are changing the way scams and social engineering attacks are built and delivered.
The session also examines an uncomfortable reality: visual and technical “tells” are becoming less dependable as the technology improves. The more durable defense begins with understanding the story, emotional pressure, and requested action behind a suspicious interaction. Attendees leave with a clearer picture of where AI-powered deception is headed and practical ways to protect how people make decisions when familiar signals of authenticity can no longer be taken for granted.
Exploring the Science of Deception — Live!
What Magic, Cognitive Science, and Con Artists Reveal About the Mind
Abstract
Why do smart people get fooled? The answer has surprisingly little to do with intelligence and a great deal to do with how the human mind makes sense of an incomplete, noisy, and fast-moving world.
In this highly interactive session, Perry Carpenter combines cognitive science, behavioral psychology, professional mentalism, and the methods of con artists to explore the mechanics of deception. Live demonstrations allow the audience to experience principles such as misdirection, expectation, choice architecture, cognitive bias, and the power of narrative before examining the science that makes each effect possible.
The result is a practical tour of the human side of deception. Attendees discover how perception can be guided, why confidence and context shape judgment, and how seemingly small details influence what people notice, remember, and believe. Understanding these mechanisms provides a powerful foundation for recognizing manipulation in everyday life, scams, social engineering, and other situations where someone is trying to steer a decision.
Old Tricks, New Tools
The Psychology and Technology Behind Modern Deception
Abstract
The tools of deception have changed dramatically. Many of the tricks have been working for centuries.
Today’s scammers can clone voices, generate convincing identities, manufacture evidence, automate conversations, and reach potential victims at enormous scale. Beneath those capabilities are psychological techniques that would be familiar to confidence artists from another era: urgency, authority, social proof, emotional manipulation, misdirection, and carefully constructed stories.
In this wide-ranging session, Perry Carpenter connects the history and psychology of the con with the rapidly changing technology behind today’s scams. Drawing from cognitive science, classic confidence schemes, current fraud trends, social engineering, deepfakes, and generative AI, he reveals how old methods are being amplified by powerful new tools.
Audiences will see how modern attacks are constructed, why familiar psychological techniques remain so effective, and where emerging technology changes the equation. The session provides a framework for understanding deception across eras and technologies, helping attendees recognize the underlying mechanics of a scam even when the surface details are completely new.
A note to conference organizers
Please select the session title and abstract that best align with your audience and event goals. You’re welcome to make minor adjustments to the title or abstract wording to better fit your organization, audience, or event theme.
Perry’s sessions are highly interactive and typically incorporate a significant multimedia/AV component, including demonstrations, video, audio, and other visual elements designed to bring the material to life. Because Perry frequently presents at multiple events in close succession, please include the full session title in the calendar invitation/hold. This helps ensure that the correct presentation and supporting materials are prepared and ready for your event.
Given Perry’s speaking and travel schedule, opportunities to develop fully customized sessions are extremely limited. In most cases, Perry works from the established presentations described here and generally cannot accommodate requests to create or modify slides. Slides can, however, be removed when necessary to accommodate timing, audience needs, or other event considerations.
Perry is also happy to incorporate relevant themes, messages, or narrative points into his talk track when they fit naturally with the session. A quick reminder immediately before he takes the stage is especially helpful. He’ll do his best to weave those points into the presentation where appropriate.
If none of the sessions listed here fit your needs, you’re welcome to ask about other possibilities. On rare occasions, schedule permitting, Perry may be able to adapt an existing session or develop something different for a particular audience
Example Slides
Here are a few examples of past presentation decks to give you a sense of the visual style, content, and approach I bring to the stage.
Note: these are snapshots rather than fixed presentations. My talks are always evolving. Many include live demonstrations, audience interaction, and substantial audio and video elements that don’t translate into a PDF.
Treat these decks as a useful preview of the experience rather than a complete representation of what happens live.