SESSION OVERVIEW
Most conversations about AI on campus start from anxiety, and for good reason. Integrity concerns are real. Dependency concerns are real. Nobody working in student experience signed up to become an AI expert, and the policy environment has not settled.
This session starts there, then moves. The most robust finding in the early research on generative AI is one that student experience professionals should be
paying close attention to.
A student who arrives without academic vocabulary, without a parent who went to university, without confident written English, or without the cognitive stamina a disability has taken from them, now has a patient explainer available at two in the morning that never makes them feel slow. Used well, this is the most significant accessibility development to reach tertiary education in a generation. Students only realise that benefit if they believe they are allowed to, and the students who would gain most are often the least confident that permission extends to them.
Led by Kara Bombell of Sydney AI consultancy EthicAI, this session works through the practical shift from anxiety to access. Attendees will examine concrete applications already working in student experience functions, covering clubs and societies administration, event and program accessibility, peer support, advocacy reach and communications, and will leave with a way to assess any proposed AI use against ethical and practical criteria. The session draws on EthicAI’s applied work with public sector, not-for-profit and education clients on AI readiness and responsible adoption, translated for people whose
job is connection rather than compliance.
Session Outcomes:
- Attendees will be able to name the specific concerns driving AI anxiety in their own institution and distinguish those that require genuine safeguards from those that have already been solved elsewhere.
- Attendees will understand the evidence that AI gains accrue disproportionately to lower-starting users, and be able to articulate why responsible AI adoption is an access and belonging strategy rather than a technology project.
- Attendees will leave with specific applications of AI across student experience functions, including clubs administration, event accessibility, peer support, advocacy and communications, with a clear sense of what is ready now and what
is not. - Attendees will be able to give students clear, confident permission to use AI well, using language that separates productive use from uses their institution genuinely cannot accept.
- Attendees will have a simple framework for assessing any proposed AI use in their portfolio, allowing them to act without waiting for institutional policy to settle.
- Attendees will leave with one application they can implement within a fortnight, without budget approval.
PRESENTER
Kara Bombell is a Sydney-based strategist and founder working at the intersection of AI ethics, organisational change, and technology policy. She leads EthicAI, a consultancy helping SMEs and for purpose organisations implement AI that is human-first and commercially grounded.
Kara has engaged with government and public sector clients across Australia, presented at the Parliamentary Innovation Showcase in Canberra, and participated in the Global AI Impact Summit in Delhi as part of the Australian Government delegation. Her current work spans AI governance, workforce strategy, and capability development across private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.
She produces regular public commentary on AI policy and its consequences for people and organisations on TikTok and also through her podcast The bAIbes.