FEAR & GREED | Business News
Q+A: The AI breakthroughs exciting Microsoft’s Australia boss
20 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of the AI breakthroughs discussed?
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics, and more. I'm Sean Aylmer. There is a lot of hype around AI, stating the obvious, really. The challenge now is in converting that hype into real improvements for business.
Today's episode is the first in a series partnering with the Microsoft AI Tour in Sydney this week, exploring how businesses can drive real change with the latest AI technology. Jane Livesey is President of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand. Jane, welcome to Fear and Greed. Thank you. Five months in the role.
How's it going? Amazing. Loving it. Very, very busy. I need more. Busy. Super exciting time. I joined Microsoft because I really felt that it was such an opportune time in this market. We're seeing, you know, AI really take off and Microsoft has a really important role to play in it, not just from a technology standpoint, but really embedding trust and safety in everything we do.
Yeah, I mean, you've picked a great time to take that job because that last five months or so seems to have had as much change in technology as any other five-month period I've lived through. Is that all about AI?
Chapter 2: How is AI transforming healthcare and education?
Look, it's many things, but I think, you know, it's amazing. We used to always think in decades or in a couple of years. The last five months have been incredibly busy. As Australia, we're really in an inflection point. We were using AI in its early stages for doing things faster and being more productive. Now we're really looking at how we embed AI into our organisations.
How do we really benefit Australians from anything from how do we educate our children? How do we solve healthcare problems? But it's a big shift.
Okay, so let's talk about what it actually is. Is it a technology first change or is it a people leadership change?
I'm going to say it's a judgment. For AI really to be adopted well, it requires both technology and people and good leadership judgment. We need organizations to really think about how they want to use it, the purpose, but also how are they going to really drive change within their teams and their people and really enable that. And so, no, it's not just about the technology.
It is really about how we change.
So do you think the organisations that do it best, it'll be a whole of business change rather than just introducing AI?
Definitely. We are seeing, you know, actually I think Westpac is a really great example. We'll have Anthony Miller live on stage with us at the AI tour.
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Chapter 3: What role does leadership play in AI adoption?
And... Westpac are really fundamentally adopting AI quite rapidly. They're putting it into practice. One of the greatest things that Westpac has done is given access to 35,000 employees to co-pilot one of our AI tools. And what that's doing is it's changing culture. It's enabling teams to experiment and really to understand how they can use AI to innovate.
And it's organizations that are bringing it into their fabric. They're thinking about their strategy. They're thinking about their technology and they're putting their people at the heart of it that are really making the most progress.
And we're not here saying for or against Westpac, but they have a major technology program going on anyway, trying to get their legacy systems out. So to actually put this in on top, it's kind of interesting that they're committed enough to really give it 35,000 people with AI on top of everything else they're doing, which probably means they trust AI. Yeah.
And the first thing I think is they're not putting it on top. And that's one of the really important things with AI. They're really embedding it into the way that they're working. They're really enabling people. They're reinventing their business processes. They're looking at how they unlock the value from their data really to deliver better service to their customers and better products.
And it's when you really embed AI into your business and actually rethink the way that you operate where you start to see really strong outcomes.
This is like the AI blueprint rather than the AI pilot. Is that right?
Absolutely. And that's one of the biggest shifts that we've seen, particularly over the last six months, is really moving away from pilots and prototypes to really taking AI blueprints and embedding it into your organization.
Okay. So where are businesses getting stuck?
Look, I think one of the biggest opportunities for business is really to how to unlock that change with their people. And a lot of that comes from thinking about reskilling their workforce and giving their people a seat at the table in terms of how should we be adopting AI within our organization and how do we get the most benefit.
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Chapter 4: How are organizations successfully embedding AI into their operations?
Okay. What about responsible AI? Lots of talk about that. In practical terms, though, what does that look like inside a business?
You know, responsibility for me is something, you know, I grew up in New Zealand, and it was really, in New Zealand, it was about community and it was about culture.
And I think for Australia, how do we really think about, you know, Australia, you know, and AI being an economic opportunity, really to drive the future of Australian business, to enable Australian jobs, and really to provide that opportunity across Australia. And responsibility really for me is thinking about the ethics and the values that guide us in those decisions.
But this needs to be about shared prosperity. We need to make sure this benefits all.
Are we there yet on responsible AI or is it just something that continually evolves?
I think we've got an incredible opportunity. We've got AI frameworks that are really guiding us in the way that we think about using AI. But again, it comes back to the values and ethics of organizations and the way that they adopt AI. I'm very optimistic that we will be able to do this responsibly, but we also need to be cautious. We've got to think about the impacts.
and how to really make sure that people are at the centre of what we do. It's going to be important to every Australian.
Is it exciting? It's massively exciting. No, I look like you. I can't see Jane's face. She clearly is excited.
No, I am excited. I get really excited when we're working with our customers like the Cancer Council and they're able to accelerate research using AI tooling and that's really helping with finding solutions
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Chapter 5: What challenges do businesses face when integrating AI?
He's quite technical, so I think we'll see some amazing demos of some of the new products and features that are available and how they're really put into practice.
Everybody will hear from some of our customers who are really embedding AI within their organization and learning from their lessons and how that they've really managed to derive value, but some of the things that they've learned along the way. And I think that, you know, it's an incredible time to come together and have a conversation about what's next.
We talk about, and you mentioned the boss of Telstra and the boss of Westpac, but it's not just big business here, is it? No. It's all business.
It's all business. We've got incredible roundtables of startups. We'll have showcases of developers. And really, it takes the whole ecosystem to contribute to it. We'll have partners who are a really key part of the day as well. And I think everybody's contributing to how Australia really gets to leverage AI. And it's going to be great to see them all coming together.
And is that what you hope to get out of it? Like at the end of Thursday, you'll probably go home and have a glass of wine and think, wow, we got through that.
Maybe a little bit. No, look, I think there's great excitement at the moment, but it's really about bringing that optimism to life, but also really taking those lessons. We're cautiously optimistic as a nation around AI and that opportunity to come together and really discuss
the opportunity it creates for Australia, but how we get there, both, you know, safely, responsibly, and we don't lose our way on that journey together. I think it's really exciting to be able to take time and have that conversation.
Well, good luck. I hope you enjoy it. Jane, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed. Thank you. That was Jane Livesey, President of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand. To find out more about the Microsoft AI Tour Sydney this Thursday, that's April the 23rd, visit the link in the episode description. I'm Shanae Ulmer and this is Fear and Greed Q&A.
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