What happens when you take AI policy out of the boardroom and put it on the table?
In Melbourne, we tried something different.
Instead of a formal session on Australia’s National AI Plan, we ran a low-key, pub-style roundtable — designed to surface lived experience.
No slides.
No speakers.
No “right answers”.
Just prompts, conversation, and people from different sectors grappling with how AI is actually showing up in their worlds.
What emerged wasn’t consensus — it was clarity.
The Plan stopped feeling like a distant policy document and started feeling like something shaped by real jobs, real constraints, real hopes and real concerns — from skills and accountability to energy use and trust.
It was a reminder of something we care deeply about at AI & Society:
Policy only works when people can see themselves in it.
👉 Would you like to host a conversation like this in your own organisation or community?
👉 Should we share the prompt cards so others can run it themselves?
AI & Society 