Agenda

Sarah Bankins, Associate Professor of Ethical AI and Work, Macquarie University

• Latest AI breakthroughs reshaping jobs, skills and productivity

• Where AI is already delivering measurable gains, what new roles and skills are emerging, and what leaders need to know to prepare for the next wave of change

• Drawing on global examples of scaling AI responsibly to highlight both opportunities and pitfalls for the Australian market

• What does effective AI leadership look like? Who should own the AI agenda – HR, IT or a cross functional team?

• Prioritising the right use cases, creating safe “AI sandboxes” to test and scale, and fostering a culture of adoption

• How leaders role-model AI usage to build workforce confidence, accelerate skills uptake and close capability gaps.

• What’s next as organisations move from experimenting with generative AI to scaling agentic AI and autonomous systems across the business?

Moderator: Benjamin Morris, Group General Manager, HR Culture & Capability, Mirvac

Brett Reedman, CIO, Catholic Healthcare; CIO50 2023 & 2024

Luke Fleming, Chief People Officer, International Convention Centre Sydney

• Embedding AI across the organisation for workforce optimisation and productivity forecasting

• AI-enabled planning and tools across HR and operations

• Lessons in governance, risk and aligning with global AI regulations

Darren Fewster, Executive Wellbeing & Employee Services, People, Culture & Communications, Telstra

Representative, Workday

• Practical use cases that lifted productivity, recruitment, retention and engagement

• Turning AI Pilots into real workforce value

• Redesigning roles in an AI-augmented workplace

• Balancing efficiency gains with employee morale and wellbeing – is AI reducing burnout or creating new pressures and complexity?

Chelsea Shaw, Global Strategic Workforce Planning & Skills Manager, QBE Insurance

Nick Farhan, Director People, Culture & Talent, Infrastructure Australia

Greg Newman, Principal People Analytics Partner, Rio Tinto

• Extending educator reach with an AI-powered “stunt double” that scales personalised support

• Enhancing learning outcomes by providing 24/7 guidance and tailored feedback to students

• Reducing repetitive tasks to free staff capacity for higher-value teaching and mentoring

• How organisations can scale expertise, personalise learning, and ease workload with AI

Professor Danny Liu, Professor of Educational Technologies, University of Sydney, Winner of the AFR 2025 AI Awards in the Research and Education Category

• Generative AI for management coaching

• AI-powered workforce analytics

• Automating learning journeys with adaptive platforms

• Smart recruitment and AI-enabled hiring

• Personalised EX with Gen AI

• Upskilling, reskilling and cross-skilling at scale with AI coaching tools

• Productivity boosts with digital agents

• Embedding AI into HR systems seamlessly

• AI for wellbeing and engagement

• Using personalised AI portals to help staff work smarter, find answers faster, and stay compliant

• Leveraging AI to enhance employee productivity and workforce capability

• Insights on fostering trust, transparency, and responsible AI adoption across global teams

Vimoj Patil, Digital Project Leader, IKEA

Lauren Pendergast, Leadership & Competence Leader, IKEA

• Addressing AI anxiety and bridging generational divides to drive adoption

• Leveraging learning platforms and AI tools to gather feedback, measure ROI, and link training to performance, engagement and retention outcomes

• Driving organisation-wide reskilling, upskilling, and cross-skilling to build an adaptive and agile workforce

Jan Roden, Head of Organisational Development and Learning, Endeavour Energy

Samantha Fernando, Learning & Leadership Development APAC Leader, Aurecon

Kate Booth, Head of Learning and Development, MinterEllison

Greg Newman, Principal People Analytics Partner, Rio Tinto

Hear how government is developing Australia’s AI agenda, from emerging regulation and risk frameworks to future productivity targets and workforce transition plans, while exploring why AI is expected to augment rather than displace workers in the years ahead.

• Lessons from government and industry on piloting and scaling AI responsibly

• Building trust and transparency through clear guardrails on ethics, privacy and data use to accelerate adoption

• Leading the culture shift and redefining HR’s role in an AI-augmented workforce, with practical steps to build AI literacy and curiosity across teams

• Ensuring a fair workforce transition through reskilling, transparency and trust-based leadership to minimise anxiety and resistance

• Navigating regulatory, legal and workforce risks without slowing down innovation or business outcomes

Lucy Poole, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Strategy, Planning and Performance, Digital Transformation Agency

Lee Hickin, Executive Director, National AI Centre

Nick Martin, Special Counsel, Wotton + Kearney

Shruti Ganeriwala, CHRO, Unilever ANZ & APAC

• How AI is being used to screen, shortlist, and match candidates faster

• Designing recruitment processes that minimise bias and strengthen fairness, transparency and compliance

• Improving candidate experience with AI-enabled assessments, chatbots and interview support tools

• Lessons learned from pilots – where AI in recruitment has delivered value, and where caution is needed

Peter Elkhuizen, Learning and Development Manager, Starbucks

• How AI is reshaping core HR systems – from recruitment to performance to workforce insights

• Moving beyond dashboards: predictive analytics, digital assistants, and automation in practice

• Streamlining HR operations with AI-powered tools while keeping the human in the loop

• Aligning HR tech strategy with business goals to deliver measurable outcomes

Melissa Dorey, Head of People Digital Experience, AGL

Anne Cavalieros, General Manager, Performance, Reward and People Technology, nbn

Tech demonstrations showing the latest AI-enabled HR and L&D tools in practice

• Creating new career pathways in data, analytics, and AI through immersive reskilling

• Redeploying employees from claims, contact centres, and operations into growth roles

• Combining technical training with coaching, mentoring, and on-the-job learning

• Building workforce agility, retention, and trust by investing in people’s futures

Jennifer Catterall, Executive Manager Talent Leadership & Capability, Suncorp

• What does the workforce of tomorrow look like as automation scales?

• Using future workforce scenarios to anticipate emerging roles – from AI supervisors to prompt engineers

• Embedding creativity, empathy, and problem-solving as human differentiators

• Designing future workforce structures to retain talent while enabling productive human-AI collaboration

Peter LePage, Director Workforce Capability & Learning, Sydney Trains

Lauren McGinley, Employer Branding Leader, International, Schneider Electric

Vinod Bhatt, Director, Workforce Transformation, Westpac

Jane Weir, Global Executive Development Lead, ANZ

Work through practical AI rollout scenarios and benchmark your organisation’s readiness against peers. Leave with clear strategies to lead change confidently.

• Hands-on scenarios of AI implementation, from introducing new tools to redesigning workflows

• Practical guidance on communicating purpose, building trust, and addressing job anxiety

• Techniques for upskilling staff, creating “AI champions,” and embedding feedback loops

• Benchmarking exercise: assess your organisation’s AI change readiness and compare approaches with peers

Amber Johnson, Head of AI, Workforce Optimisation, MYOB