Sue Keay

While many AI experts focus on what artificial intelligence and robotics can do, Sue Keay has built her career around a more consequential question: how can countries, industries and organisations use these technologies to create lasting economic and social value?

That perspective has made Keay one of Australia’s leading voices on the adoption of artificial intelligence, robotics and emerging technologies. She has spent more than two decades helping governments, businesses and researchers turn technological breakthroughs into practical capability.

As Founder and Chair of Robotics Australia Group, Sue Keay has helped shape Australia’s robotics agenda, leading the development of Australia’s Robotics Roadmap and advising on the National Robotics Strategy. As Director of the UNSW AI Institute, she works to accelerate the responsible adoption of AI while strengthening collaboration between researchers, policymakers and industry. She is also a Partner at Future Work Group, an Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Robotics, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and a member of the Kingston AI Group.

Sue Keay has become a leading advocate for Australia’s role in the AI economy. While global attention has centred on frontier models developed in the United States and China, she argues Australia’s greatest opportunity lies in building specialised AI systems powered by local expertise, proprietary data and deep industry knowledge. Her work reflects a broader conviction that Australia’s long-term competitiveness depends not on importing intelligence, but on cultivating sovereign capability.

For Keay, however, technology is rarely the hardest part. Leadership is. She argues organisations must experiment, build strong governance and develop internal capability rather than waiting for certainty. In her view, the organisations that succeed will not be those with access to the most powerful AI, but those that learn fastest how to use it responsibly.