An independent convening
Near-term decisions about long-range risks.
Many of the Australians who know most about frontier AI work overseas. The officials deciding Australia's next steps are here. This initiative puts them in the same room.
In planning · late 2026Why now
Australia is building its AI institutions in real time: a national AI Safety Institute, a new Office of AI, a parliamentary inquiry and a state royal commission. Each is working on part of the picture.
What is missing is a place where the hardest, longest-range questions are put to the people best placed to answer them, in time to shape the decisions being made over the next 12 to 24 months.
The window to do that is short. This convening is designed to use it.
The convening
Invited experts, chosen close to the meeting date so the room fits the questions.
A structured, expert-led discussion with decision makers in the room, not only receiving the output.
Months ahead: the decisions Australia must make, and by when.
Three areas of focus
Deliberately narrow. The convening is limited to long-range and catastrophic questions that are currently absent from Australian processes.
Loss of control and misalignment
What should Australia require, test or prepare for as AI systems become more capable and more autonomous?
Catastrophic malign use
How should Australia think about AI-enabled biological, chemical and cyber threats, and its place in international controls?
Strategic and military stability
What independent voice can Australia have on AI and strategic stability among allies and in the region?
What comes out of it
Trusted, scientific, independent. Written to be used by the people making the decisions.
A one-page brief
For government: the questions to answer and the decisions to make across the next 12 to 24 months.
A discussion report
The full record of the convening, published by the end of January 2027.
How it works
Independent. Run separately from any government agency, company or advocacy group, so the output can be trusted by all of them.
Expert-first. Australian expertise at home and abroad, including practitioners from frontier labs, national security and research.
Decision-focused. Every session is tied to a real decision with a real owner and a real deadline.
Convenor
I'm not a career policy official, and I don't pretend to be. My background is strategy and delivering complicated multi-party work: strategy at CSIRO, four years at the Australian Embassy in Berlin working with state governments and briefing ministers, then delivering the German Red Cross Anticipation Hub's global dialogue platform, which brought together 300+ participants. I've followed AI safety since 2019. I started this because many of the Australians who know most about frontier AI risk work overseas, and the people making Australia's decisions rarely hear from them in one room. I'm not the expert on the answers. My job is to get the right people in the room and make sure what comes out is usable.
Jessie Kelly · Berlin · LinkedIn
Status and contact
Planning stage. Host, venue, dates and participants are still being confirmed.
No organisation is named as a host, funder or endorser on this page until that has been agreed in writing.