What AI Literacy Should Look Like at Work

Joel MacCharles is the founder of Polaris Reach, where he helps executives and knowledge teams adopt AI in ways that reduce cognitive load, restore focus and improve business results without sacrificing judgement or trust. He brings more than 25 years of executive leadership in complex international organisations and nearly a decade of practical AI experience, combining learning, advisory support and hands-on delivery. His work focuses on moving organisations beyond AI awareness and tool enthusiasm into sustained behaviour change: embedding AI in real workflows, building capability through practical experimentation and measuring whether new ways of working are actually producing value. Joel’s approach is explicitly human-centred and business-first, treating AI literacy as useful only when it changes how people make decisions, prepare work and execute. For this session, he brings a grounded perspective on what leaders and teams need to understand, practise and measure if AI is to become part of everyday work.

Stephany Oliveros is the founder and CEO of Lyra AI, a transparent, evidence-based talent marketplace designed to match people with roles using their projects, skills and demonstrated outcomes rather than hidden keyword filters. A three-time founder, AI researcher, product leader and university lecturer in AI, she has more than seven years of experience and has partnered with organisations including the International Red Cross and Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

Liz Naylor has spent nearly 20 years in Learning & Development and still gets excited by new ways to help people learn. A self-confessed AI enthusiast, she works with global organisations as a Senior Learning Consultant at NIIT, helping Learning teams embrace AI and build the capabilities needed for the future. From launching enterprise-wide AI Academies to supporting large-scale learning transformations, her focus is on making AI practical, human, and useful, rather than just another piece of shiny technology.

Shaje Ganny is President and Co-Founder of the Swiss AI Academy Association, a Geneva-based nonprofit for AI literacy and responsible AI education, and author of the Amazon best seller AI Won't Bite. He is the creator of the Bionic Context Protocol, a framework for preserving human capability as AI becomes more capable and more embedded, launched at Davos 2026, and he co-chairs the IEEE education subcommittee working on international standards for education. His message to the private and public sector is the same: deploying AI and delivering business value are two different jobs, literacy is where value starts, and the things AI does not have, judgment, ethics and emotional intelligence, are becoming the scarcest assets at work. He has spent the past 20 years leading digital transformation and bringing AI to life at Procter & Gamble, teaches the master's course "AI for Leaders" at FHNW, is a TEDx speaker, and advises government ministries as well as company CIOs on AI policy.

Catherine Nicholson is co-founder and Creative Director of The Virtual Training Team, which designs and delivers learning programmes for organisations around the world. She co-founded the business in 2017 with a focus on helping people apply what they learn and change how they work. Her approach draws on psychology, behavioural science and practical learning design. Catherine’s work on AI focuses on the human side of adoption: building curiosity and confidence, exercising judgement and developing useful habits. She brings experience both of helping organisations build AI capability and of embedding AI into her own team’s everyday work.