Forging a Human & AI Partnership with Olivera Tomic | AI+C Global Relay 2025

Описание: In this session from the AI+Compassion Global Relay 2025 (Oceania Segment), Olivera Tomic demonstrates that successful organizational AI adoption requires understanding problems before technology, building data foundations and team AI literacy, and creating fit-for-purpose solutions with humans in the loop—ultimately giving us the gift of time to be fully human.

Olivera Tomic, founder of Eight People AI consulting agency in Melbourne, explores human-AI partnership from an organizational perspective, drawing on seven years of AI experience across Asia, Africa, and Australia. She emphasizes compassion means different things across cultures and AI builders must embed these diverse values. She outlines practical strategies for AI success: understand organizational problems first, build data foundations, develop AI literacy, create fit-for-purpose solutions. She advocates starting small, involving people early, building transparent AI agents with humans in the loop. Core message: AI's greatest gift is time -- freeing humans for hobbies, loved ones, and self-actualization.

Key Topics:

Compassion as Strategic Advantage: Compassion varies across cultures: Asia values harmony/humility, Africa emphasizes community/collective care. Reflecting diverse cultures through compassionate design creates competitive advantage and trustworthy outcomes.

Foundations for AI Success: 85% of AI projects fail (MIT) due to lack of fundamentals. Success requires: understanding problems first (not technology-first), building quality data foundations, developing AI literacy across teams, creating fit-for-purpose solutions. Start small, test, iterate, involve teams early.

AI Elevating Human Purpose: AI enables efficiency across Maslow's hierarchy: basic needs (water testing, robots building shelter at 40 cents/day), employment transformation (removing repetitive work, creating roles like AI ethicists/engineers), entrepreneurship (no-code tools, low costs), self-actualization (knowledge, self-esteem). Greatest gift: time for work-life balance, human connection.

Enterprise AI Strategy: Build modular AI "blocks" or agents integrating with legacy systems, evolving to communicate with each other under human oversight. Provides full transparency, enables real-time correction of hallucinations, scales incrementally. Fit-for-purpose solutions beat generic products.

*Human Skills Essential: Despite AI's intelligence/reliability, integrity and empathy remain uniquely human. AI needs diverse human input from different cultures, backgrounds, ages to become smarter. Humans must stay in the loop.

About the Speaker: Olivera Tomic is the Founder of Eight People AI consulting agency, Melbourne, Australia. Sith seven years AI experience spanning Asia, Africa, Australia, she is helping organizations navigate AI transformation through practical implementation focused on data foundations, people development, fit-for-purpose solutions. Her international experience informs understanding of how cultural values shape compassionate AI design. She advocates starting small, involving teams early, building transparent AI systems with humans in the loop.

About AI+Compassion Global Forum: The AI+Compassion Global Forum unites innovators, policymakers, and cultural leaders to explore how artificial intelligence can serve humanity and the planet. The forum aims to shift the global narrative from fear and competition to sustainability, cultural flourishing, and compassion.

🔗 Learn More & Connect:

🌐 AI+Compassion Forum: https://compassionai.io/
👤 Olivera Tomic:   / olivera-tomic  
🏢 Eight People: https://eightpeople.com.au