Kate Conroy appointed to lead Australia's AI Safety Institute
Kate Conroy, a philosopher and Royal Australian Air Force reservist, has been chosen as the inaugural general manager of the Australian AI Safety Institute. She started the role earlier this month.
The institute sits within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources rather than operating as a standalone regulator. Its job is to monitor, test and share information on emerging AI capabilities, risks and harms.
Background and experience
Dr Conroy comes to the role with a background in government AI ethics and policy. Before this appointment, she worked for the Queensland government introducing rules to evaluate and manage the risks of AI in government services. She co-authored a framework for governments using AI that was adopted as the national standard in 2024.
She holds a PhD in philosophy and has held academic roles at the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology. She remains the lead of responsible AI at the Royal Australian Air Force, where she oversaw the introduction of the first AI system to run live inside the Poseidon P-8A aircraft.
In that military role, she described AI as "a helper, not a decider" - presenting data and feedback to crew members while leaving decision-making to humans. In 2022, she authored an academic paper warning that militaries could "cook" personnel into "bad apples" if they delegated too much decision-making in war situations to AI.
A wide remit with limited resources
The institute received $29.9 million in funding over four years and must work on both upstream and downstream AI risks. Upstream risks include how AI models are built and trained. Downstream harms are the real-world effects people experience when AI systems are used in workplaces, government services, finance and consumer products.
That scope - from advanced model testing to everyday workplace AI - is broad for a new body. Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the University of New South Wales AI Institute, said the new body would need to carefully decide what to focus on given its modest resources.
The institute's work comes at a time when Australians are using AI widely but express low trust in the technology. A recent global survey found 68 per cent of Australians were worried about losing control over decisions AI made on their behalf, while 81 per cent supported stronger rules for how organisations used AI.
International alignment
Australia has already moved to connect its institute to the UK's AI Security Institute, which has emerged as one of the world's leading safety organisations. Earlier this week, the Australian and UK governments signed a memorandum of understanding on safe and secure AI, covering information sharing about emerging AI capabilities and risks, joint research on testing AI systems, and support for international measurement and evaluation work.
The Department of Industry did not say when the Australian AI Safety Institute would formally open, only that it would be "operational soon".
For government professionals, this development signals the shape of Australia's AI governance: distributed across existing agencies rather than centralised in a single regulator. That approach requires coordination and clarity about which body handles which risks. AI for Government resources can help officials understand how policy frameworks translate into practice.
Your membership also unlocks:
