Coffee with the Council Podcast: Meet This Year’s North America Community Meeting Keynote Speaker, Sharon Gai

This episode of Coffee with the Council is brought to you by our podcast sponsor, Clone Systems.

Welcome to our podcast series, Coffee with the Council. I'm Alicia Malone, Director of Communications and Public Relations for the PCI Security Standards Council. Today, I'm excited to bring you a sneak peek interview with PCI SSC's 2026 North America Community Meeting Keynote Speaker, Sharon Gai. Sharon is a global expert in e-commerce, digital strategy, and cross-cultural innovation. After nearly a decade at Alibaba, where she guided international brands through China's dynamic digital marketplace, she now advises organizations across North America and beyond on innovation, AI adoption, and building resilient strategies in an evolving economy. She's also the author of two books, including her latest release, How to Do More with Less: Future Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy, which just hit store shelves.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify or on your favorite podcast player. 

So, Sharon, your name may sound familiar to our audience since you were the keynote for last year's Asia-Pacific Community Meeting. Welcome back to our podcast! And you're the first keynote speaker to receive a perfect score on our survey from our attendees. So, after that, we knew we had to invite you back to an even bigger stage. As you prepare to speak in a new region, what can audiences expect this time around and what's new or evolving in your work right now?

Sharon Gai: Thank you so much, Alicia, first of all, for having me back. I did not know I had a perfect score. That is news to me, but glad to know that what I presented resonated. I think AI is something that's constantly in flux, and it's constantly changing. So, I guess what I presented that day really resonated with the audience based on what was happening then. And yes, new region. Well, it's actually my region because I reside in the US and actually in the city of Vancouver, where this meeting is going to be hosted, is where I grew up. It’s sort of very near and dear to my heart to come back to that city. 

What can audiences expect this time around? I think back then, or last year, it was more about companies experimenting and sort of gradually starting to talk about this term called “agentic commerce” and how AI agents would shop on behalf of us, browse things on behalf of us, look at things on behalf of us. And it was more of a mere idea, and little things were starting to form for that. But I think this year it's more where we're putting it into practice and looking at the case studies that's resulted. So, there's a lot of that.

And then what's new in my work right now. So yes, the book was just launched, and we're going through some launch events for that. Wrapping it with some keynote events as well and having a lot of good response from this bee versus beekeeper mindset, which I'm happy to talk about. That was definitely not mentioned during last year's event. So definitely a new framework that I'll be introducing to the audience this year.

Alicia Malone: That's so exciting. I cannot wait to hear you speak again. And as you've mentioned, you've just written a new book, How to Do More with Less: Future Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy. What was happening either in your work or in conversations you were having that made you feel like you needed to write this book? And what do you hope it sparks for people thinking about AI right now?

Sharon Gai: So, if you go to the book on Amazon or Google or the World Wide Web, you'll notice that on the cover there is a bee. And you might wonder what the heck is the relation to bees and AI? And yes, it might not seem like there's such a relation from just looking at this larger picture, but the framework that I introduce is pre-2022, which is sort of the big year that we launched the transformer models and the consumerization of AI and ChatGPT being launched and released to the world, is that pre that year, we looked at our work like busy bees. And we would open our laptop on Monday mornings, read through every single email, decide what's most important and coupling it with the leftover work from the week prior, and sort of deciding for ourselves what to tackle first and next and last and you know at maybe 5-6 p.m. the laptop closes and work stops. And that's a very traditional lens of looking at work. And that's common for three billion some knowledge workers in the world.

Post 2022 though, my philosophy is that we should approach our work like beekeepers, which are people that set up the correct environment for a lot of these bees or quote unquote “AI agents” to thrive and work for us. And so going forward, as AI features mature, as models get better and better, we have to think more in this mindset to not be the person to automatically execute and output a lot of these tasks ourselves because human hours should be spent in areas that really need human intelligence and human prowess. And that's a big shift that I don't think enough of us are thinking about. And not enough of us are reflecting on where do I spend my hours, and am I spending my hours correctly? Because a lot of the things that we used to spend time on, AI can absolutely take on. So that was the big premise of the book and the heart of what the book is trying to do.

And that's why the second, the latter, the second half tagline is how do you future-proof yourself? There're so many headlines and I think it can seem very scary with, what are my job prospects going to be? You know, if AI starts to encroach on my role, there is so much of that fear. So, the book is also meant to stabilize some of that fear that if you do this reflective exercise, if you read maybe a couple of chapters in the book, you will feel a lot more confident about yourself, your work. Because there's so much of work life that needs people to execute on. And we forget that sometimes, especially when we're in the thick of it and AI is getting so much better and better. Hopefully it's a balanced view of not too much hyping it up but also settling it right into reality.

Alicia Malone: I love that analogy to bees and working more efficiently rather than working harder or longer. I think that's really great, and I think that is also a good message for how the workplace is evolving, especially with AI. And I also love that you're going to give us a little bit of calm in regard to AI taking over our jobs, which I think is probably one of the biggest fears is just exactly how AI is going to work, and in which industries, and whether or not we're going to still have jobs to come to. So, I think that's great that you address that in your book. So, you've worked across markets, industries, cultures, which gives you a really diverse and unique lens. How has that global perspective shaped the way that you think about technology and innovation today?

Sharon Gai: I've had the pleasure of working within what I call sort of the Eastern realm and also the Western realm, and the two places really do have different approaches when it comes to technology, digital transformation, and the usage of AI. There're definitely pluses and minuses from both sides, but I think ultimately what it gives me is what I call a more culture fluid lens, or sense of looking at things, and the ability to take what works in either region and utilize it. For instance, in China, it's a very, it's a highly, highly experimental atmosphere. If we look at even the deployment of OpenClaw - I don't know if folks listening have set up their own claws or know about this OpenClaw craze where, you know, it's causing a sellout of Apple mini Mac computers where people want to set up their lobster claws -  which is for those of us who's trying to still learn it, a more autonomous AI agent that's a little more unleashed than the ChatGPTs or claws that we use because it's not confined by connectors. It's a freer version that you can use to run your daily tasks. You can set it up on your phone and call to it through WhatsApp or tell it what to do via WhatsApp or iMessage. And it is truly changing the way that a lot of us work. 

In China, when OpenClaw was rolled out, first of all, a lot of tech companies wrapped their own products around OpenClaw and developed their own versions. Tencent for instance, is a very prominent Chinese tech company. It houses WeChat, which is the world's second or third most used messaging platform. So, everyone in China has a WeChat. It's sort of like a WhatsApp equivalent or messenger equivalent. And when Tencent rolled out something called QClaw, which is their own version of an OpenClaw product, there were lines out the door in these pop-up community events and you had, 60 to 70-year-old grandpas taking their kids' leftover computer and saying, can you help me set up my OpenClaw on this laptop? And these Tencent solution engineers would be helping them set up QClaw. And so, a lot of people in China now have or can run their OpenClaw via WeChat. And so, that's sort of the messaging platform that you call your claw to go through your files or create PowerPoints or edit your Excel financial statements, whatever the task is that you want it to do. And so that level of experimentation, that level of agility also, I mean, also from a very non-technical audience. So these are, you know, 70-year-old sort of grandpas that maybe are already retired that you would think those are it's a group of people that's really not going to be affected much by this AI rollout, but contrary to what we suppose and believe in is, they're actually also very excited about it. So, sort of things like that give me a wider lens of things that are happening. And I think that's what I bring to a lot of the keynotes and stages that I go into are the stories from other corners of the world that might not be usually in front of us.

Alicia Malone: In your keynote speech from last year, you gave some examples that really stuck with me, like an AI agent waiting in line for concert tickets or deciding at checkout about which card to use. When you look at moments like that, what's something you've seen AI do recently that you find genuinely fascinating or that really excites you about where technology is headed?

Sharon Gai: I think OpenClaw is definitely one, but even though it was sort of launched last year, maybe in the AI world, something that's launched last month is already too old. These days, I think what's impressed me is Claude and a lot of these Claude features, not just the Claude Cowork that I've been using, but also Claude Design, which is something that was launched recently. So, helping you design anything from websites to presentations to marketing material. And it's actually a bit different than regular Claude or if you were to access it via Claude via the chat portal. It's a lot more in depth, and you can tell that the Claude creators of this product really refined a lot of the skills in design and design principles and developed that into this product. So that was launched very recently. Something called Claw Dispatch is also quite impressive, which is if you let your computer continue to run, you can hook that up to your phone and say you are far away from your computer. If you're, you know, picking up your kids from soccer practice and the only thing you had was your phone. And you know how sometimes we get an email, and the reply back is, “oh sorry, I'm not at my computer. So, can I send this to you when I'm at home or when I'm back at my desk”? Well, if you are linked up via Claude with your phone and your computer, you won't need to say that ever again because you can access anything that is on your computer via your phone. If you give it permission, and if you connect it; the caveat is, you do have to hook it up.

Alicia Malone: That is really incredible. Things are just happening so quickly now.

Sharon Gai: Yeah, it is sort of churning things out at an exponential pace, and I think sometimes it can get overwhelming. Something I also write about in the book is that AI will continue to improve and get better. And sometimes it can give us overwhelm. And so the other big piece of it is to not need to chase shiny new tools or always be kept up-to-date, I think the bee versus beekeeper framework will ring true through time, as long as you are quite informed with what AI is good at versus what it's not so great at. No matter what new future turns out, you'll always have a very good balance of the two.

Alicia Malone: Well, we are very excited to see you back on stage this fall as our keynote speaker at the North America Community Meeting in Vancouver. I know you spoke briefly already about some of the things that you might cover on stage, but what kind of a teaser can we give our listeners to entice them to come and see you on stage?

Sharon Gai: I think, come September, which is very far away to be honest, even though it seems like it's, only five months, but I guess one month in the AI world feels like one year in the real world. So maybe a lot of the things that I say today might already be outdated. But I think the larger themes are going to be there, which a big one is agentic commerce. I think by that time it's going to shape in a certain way. A lot of brands will have done a ton of experimentation on that. And so you'll hear about the latest cases and success cases of agentic commerce and how some merchants have really leveraged this new shopping behavior to become discovered and how have they sort of led the pack in utilizing this change of people searching for products or services via answer engines.

Another big thing is the frameworks that I talked about, some principles from the book, some of the future proofing principles that I talked about, like the bee versus beekeeper framework. Some things that payment companies would be very concerned about, which is the increase in fraudulent cases, as well as how do we put more governance and guardrails around AI systems that have now become more autonomous? So, the recent mythos model that Anthropic has is currently being tested with 40 or so banking partners that they have selected. By September, I think that model will have been released and there's going to be, I'm sure, changes within the payment space in response to that. So that's definitely going to be covered as well. But all in all, I think the hope that I try to give to all of the attendees is a quick snapshot of what is important to note, kind of a TLDR (too long, didn’t read) of what's happening in the industry and also the things that they should focus on in the coming years. So, I'm excited for doing that sharing.

Alicia Malone: Yes, I think that's going to be very well received and helpful information for our audience. So, one last question before we wrap things up. This year's North America Community Meeting is in beautiful Vancouver. And I was going to ask you if you've spent time there before, but it sounds like you're from there. So, is there anything you'd like to tell our listeners about what they should see or do while they're in the city?

Sharon Gai: Oh yeah, go to Stanley Park. That's sort of the Central Park of New York or the Golden Gate Park of San Francisco. But you know, I think the appeal of Vancouver is that there's a lot of nature within a metropolitan city. And I think Vancouver is a city that balances that really well. So, for folks that are not from Vancouver, that is definitely the place to go and experience some of that fresh Canadian air.

Alicia Malone: Awesome, that sounds great. I have never been to Vancouver myself, so I'm really excited to go and check it out and see the sights. I know it's really beautiful there. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Coffee with the Council, Sharon, and we are looking forward to seeing you at the Community Meeting this fall.

Sharon Gai: Thank you so much, Alicia. It's a real honor to be invited back and I can't wait to be back in Vancouver with you guys.

Alicia Malone: You can catch Sharon on stage as the keynote speaker at PCI SSC's North America Community Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, September 15th through the 17th. Registration is now open on our website, and we hope to see you there.

This episode of Coffee with the Council is brought to you by our podcast sponsor, Clone Systems.

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