Drones spent six or seven years, by Greg McNeal’s count, in what Gartner’s Hype Cycle calls the trough of disillusionment before companies, the military, and delivery services adopted them widely. His keynote uses that comeback to help leaders judge which robots are ready for their businesses. He’s a robotics speaker who comes to the subject as a drone entrepreneur and a public company board chairman. He is Chairman of the Board of Exyn Technologies (Nasdaq: EXYN), an autonomy, robotics, and AI company serving civilian and military customers, and he was Executive Chairman of SailPlanAI, a maritime AI company acquired in 2026. Earlier he co-founded AirMap, a drone airspace management company.
What The Talk Covers
The keynote, “What the Drone Comeback Teaches Leaders About Robots and Other Emerging Tech,” opens with the numbers behind that comeback. The FAA’s count of certificated remote pilots grew steadily through the slow years and reached 481,760 by November 2025, when 453,635 drones were registered for commercial work.
From there the talk turns to the robots now leaving the lab, from autonomous ground vehicles to humanoids, and asks what the drone comeback teaches about them. Greg helps leaders sort the capabilities that are ready to use this year from the ones still in development.
Lessons From The Drone Cycle
To help with that sorting, Greg spends the middle of the talk on each stage of the drone cycle, pairing it with the question that stage raises for a company adopting robots now. The questions are ones leaders can put to their own industries.
| Stage | What drones went through | The question for robots now |
|---|---|---|
| Early boom | Expectations ran ahead of what customers were paying for | Which robotics forecasts come with customers paying for the work? |
| Trough | Six or seven years of disillusionment, even as the number of certificated pilots kept growing | Which robots are finding steady work while attention moves elsewhere? |
| Recovery | Wide use in commercial work, military operations, and delivery | Which tasks in a company’s operations is a robot ready to take on? |
What The Talk Gives Leaders
Working through those questions, leaders leave able to tell working capability from marketing claims, see where autonomy is likely to arrive first, and judge how far the economics will support it. The talk also looks at how drone companies earned the trust of the customers who now rely on them, and at what robotics suppliers can take from that record.
Greg’s Speaking Background
Greg watched that early boom from the stage, as a drone keynote speaker at the time. He keynoted InterDrone in 2016, speaking to an audience of more than 3,500, and he joined drone panels at SXSW that year and at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2017.
Who Books It
Because the talk now goes beyond drones to the robots coming next, it fits industry conferences, corporate summits, defense and public safety events, and association meetings looking for a robotics keynote speaker. Greg tailors it to each audience, from operators to executives. When an organization is deciding whether to deploy drones or robots, he can build part of the keynote around that decision.
FAQ
What does Greg’s robotics and drone keynote cover?
The talk covers what drones, ground robots, and other autonomous machines can do for customers today, what the drone comeback teaches about the robots coming next, and where autonomy is likely to reach the audience’s industry first.
What makes Greg qualified to speak on robotics and drones?
Greg McNeal is Chairman of the Board of Exyn Technologies (Nasdaq: EXYN), was Executive Chairman of SailPlanAI, and co-founded AirMap, a drone airspace management company. He has keynoted InterDrone and spoken on drone panels at SXSW and the Consumer Electronics Show, and he is a tenured Professor of Law and Public Policy at Pepperdine University.
Does the talk cover humanoid robots?
Humanoids are part of the talk, alongside ground robots, and Greg applies what the drone comeback teaches to both, asking which tasks in the audience’s industry they can take on now.