What happens when every app in your stack has its own AI?
You’ve got Copilot because you’re a Microsoft shop. Rovo turned up on top of Jira and Confluence. A couple of teams went and got Claude on their own, and your CRM just shipped its own AI too. Nobody decided this. It accumulated, and now every tool meters separately, none of them share context, and nobody can say which one is actually doing the work.
The timing matters. On 3 December, Atlassian starts charging for Rovo credits and Automation steps beyond a monthly allowance, and most work management vendors are landing on the same model. Meanwhile, the vendors that built AI into their own apps are now reaching above them too, each wanting to be the layer that runs across everything else.
This breakfast panel brings together a CIO living with the sprawl, a platform vendor, two of New Zealand’s most independent voices on AI, and a partner who works across all the major platforms. One decision to work through: should intelligence live inside each app, or in one layer above them all? No pitch, from anyone.
What We’ll Cover
Why most organisations are paying for AI three or four times over, and what it’s costing them
Embedded AI versus one layer above everything, and where each genuinely wins
What changes when your software starts billing by consumption, and who should be watching the number
Why every vendor now wants to be the layer, and how to decide who you let sit on top
What you’re exposing about your data, to whom, and whether one AI makes that safer or riskier
Where to start on Monday if you were deciding this from scratch
Come for the coffee. Leave knowing which way to go.
This session is for IT, finance, operations and transformation leaders making (or inheriting) AI decisions across the stack. ClickUp are sponsoring the morning, and we’re grateful they’ve backed a conversation that doesn’t put them at the centre of it. We partner across Atlassian, Asana, ClickUp and Freshworks, so we’re not here to crown a winner. The honest answer is usually “it depends”, and this session is about what it depends on.
Are you a ClickUp user?
Our sponsors are sticking around. Join us that evening for the first NZ ClickUp Community Meetup, powered by Elegance Group. Drinks, networking, and the ClickUp team on hand to answer the questions you’ve never had anywhere to ask. Register your interest here.
Tim co-founded Ambit AI in 2017, establishing it as a pioneering enterprise AI platform across New Zealand and Australia before exiting in 2023. Backed by a career spanning executive leadership at Goldman Sachs and JBWere, he works with leading organisations and boards across APAC on AI strategy, automation, and large-scale transformation. His approach cuts through the hype to focus on what actually creates enterprise value: deliver working technology that solves the problem, not tech for tech’s sake. Served with pragmatism, realism and not afraid to speak his own mind about what matters, Tim tells you what matters.
Justin founded NewZealand.AI in 2017, and it’s since become the country’s home for practical AI. He works with boards, leadership teams and whole organisations to move from AI curiosity to daily impact, offering independent advice on the why, where and how of AI. Justin has represented New Zealand on the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), an international initiative led by the Canadian and French governments, and is a regular commentator on the impact of AI on people, business and society. He’s also the emcee of TEDxAuckland, chair of the NZ Tech Marketers Group, and a Director on the Board of Business Mentors New Zealand which has recently deployed mentoring meeting transcription and insights for 1,500 sessions every month.
Simon has led technology at Barfoot & Thompson for 18 years, overseeing the ICT team, assets, projects, investment and strategy for one of New Zealand’s best-known real estate businesses. Before that, he held senior technology leadership roles across telecommunications and advertising. He has delivered large-scale solutions spanning mobile applications, CRM, web, data networks and business intelligence, and has led IT teams of up to 100 people. Simon brings the customer’s view to the panel, backed by a track record in cultural change, agile delivery and world-class staff engagement.
Jess leads ClickUp’s Technical Account Management and Solutions Engineering teams across APAC, helping organisations get real, measurable value from the platform. Her focus is making sure customers don’t just adopt a tool but genuinely change how they work. Jess built her career in professional services and customer success, where she learned the best outcomes come from staying close to the customer’s actual problems and never hiding behind process when a conversation will do. Based in Melbourne, she’s particularly interested in how AI agents can scale the strategic work that used to need one-to-one human effort.
Brett founded Elegance Group in 2020 and has grown it into a multi-vendor service and work management practice spanning New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. He helps organisations work better, sometimes by fixing a platform but more often by rethinking how the business operates and using AI and automation to close the gap. A growing share of his work is business advisory, spanning operations consulting, AI agent development, workflow digitisation and SaaS cost reduction. Across Atlassian, Asana, ClickUp and Freshworks, his rule is simple: pick the right tool for the outcome, not the one you’re loyal to.
