Kate Cooper joins Amy-Rose Goodey on The House is Digital for a wide-ranging conversation on digital assets, artificial intelligence and how humans navigate periods of extraordinary technological change.
Drawing on more than 25 years at the frontier of technology-led transformation, Kate reflects on her journey through banking, tokenisation, digital asset custody and the broader evolution of the digital assets industry.
The conversation explores the convergence of blockchain, stablecoins and AI, and why multiple technologies reaching their acceleration phase at the same time can make the world feel increasingly unstable.
Kate introduces the concept of “humanware” the human capability, judgement and behaviours required to unlock the real value of AI. She also discusses AI sovereignty, equitable access, governance and why Australia has an opportunity to lead by putting humans at the centre of technological transformation.
A fascinating discussion about technology, human judgement and what it will take to thrive through the next wave of change.
speaker-1: The Houses Digital podcast is where Australia’s tech future takes shape. Welcome to the front line of Australia’s digital revolution. Kate Cooper is the CEO of OKX Australia and a systems change leader with more than 25 years of experience driving technology-led transformation across government, global enterprise, banking, and digital assets. Kate Cooper, welcome to the House is Digital podcast. I would love to launch into how you got to this point. We’re going to talk a little bit about digital assets, banking.
speaker-0: Thank you, Amy Rose.
speaker-1: AI, your book, The Edge, which is a field guide to anyone trying to navigate tech change and perhaps a couple of the things that you’re working on at the moment. But can you take us through because it’s quite a story ⁓ from your banking days, I believe, at Westpac all the way to now. You’re also the co chair at DECA.
speaker-0: As well, which I love. That’s my favourite part of everything I do. ⁓ yeah, so I mean, first first last 10-12 years of my career has been spent in financial services. I was heading up innovation and transformation at Westpac, and actually, the very first thing I did on the first week of that job was a blockchain conference. So that was like back in 2015, 2016, which tells you quite quite a lot about how long it’s been taking for this journey to unfold. Well, we were at Westpac. Okay. ⁓ and then I moved over to NAB and it was at NAB that I chose actually I was given the option and I chose to kind of deeply get into the digital assets space at the time the board was kind of trying to understand tokenization. And so we ran a tokenization education session with the board.
speaker-1: Talking about blockchain in
speaker-0: And the CEO at the time was Ross McEwen. And he was ⁓ he was really, really clear that 98% of the bank’s job was to look after today in the next 12 months. But he carved out kind of two or three percent of the bank’s resources to be looking around corners. And one of the corners we looked around was ⁓ the tokenization of finance ⁓ and developed ⁓ a strategy. We developed risk frameworks, a whole year spent on risk management around ⁓ tokenization and blockchain technology. We also built and launched ⁓ an Australian stablecoin, which sadly then sat on the shelf for the last three, four years. ⁓ And we also took a strategic investment in a company that was founded by Standard Chartered called Zodiac. And that was because I fundamentally believed that part of a bank’s job in a digital finance world is to provide that safekeeping capability. And actually, I then went on to spend a year on Secondment with Zodiac. So I ran the APAC region for Zodiac and also launched Zodia Australia. and then I decided to go to the dark side or the light side if you look at it that way. Let’s call it the light side. and joined OKX as CEO of our Australian business in January twenty twenty five. So it’s been eighteen months and a and a wild roller coaster ride.
speaker-1: Can you take us back? You talked about risk in tokenization and stable coins back at the bank and now you’re in digital assets and obviously looking at risk as well, you’ve been across custody. How did the risks how were the risks perceived back then ⁓ compared to now? Are they the same? Are they different? Did the bank see it as different?
speaker-0: I think it’s it’s very different now to what it to what it was five, six years ago. crypto was and probably to be fair still is in the in the corridors of some banks a a swear word and ⁓ kind of synonymous with you know ultra volatility and risk. But for me what ⁓ has always been interesting is the underlying technology and what the underlying technology enables. ⁓ and so that was the conversation I had with the bank. It wasn’t really about crypto, it was about the the opportunities and the threats of the underlying technology and how we help to manage that through. We also worked on ⁓ how we provide banking services to the sector because ⁓ at the time the ⁓ the sector was considered too high risk to provide everyday banking services to. And I think if I look really hard, actually that was just more a case of really not understanding the nuances of the market. And if we we for fast forward to today, really, you know, there are there are players like OKX. It’s the main reason I joined OKX, is because I obviously had 10, 12 years of credentials in traditional finance. I wasn’t going to put those at risk by joining a firm that wasn’t absolutely top of its game when it came to risk management. ⁓ and so that was actually the fundamental reason why I joined OKX, because I saw them doing the right thing, doing the difficult things first, not always doing the things that are gonna generate the highest revenue, but making sure the safety of consumer assets is front and centre. And I I have to say, since joining the firm, looking under the covers, I it’s exactly what I found. ⁓ and I feel comfortable standing up in front of every room. In fact, I was in Westpac only last week. talking about kind of how ⁓ you you execute in this space as safely and responsibly as possible.
speaker-1: So we’re moving into, it sounds like a transitionary stage. We have that institutional, ⁓ I I’ve I guess the word we’ve got this institutional adoption or this incoming of institutional interest. There’s it feels like there’s a bit of instability as we move through that. Is there anything that you can pinpoint that might be the most unstable or something that might be ⁓ that’s pretty front and center for the industry, the digital asset industry to view. There’s consolidation, there’s a a shift in narrative, perspective around digital asset, there’s the adoption that’s growing more and more. But there’s still this transition stage and it feels a bit unstable. Do you see
speaker-0: See that? I s I see that, but I see it in a at a macro level. And I think that in 2026 we’re in a really fascinating phase of tech-driven change because we’re seeing multiple ⁓ different kinds of technology hit the acceleration phase of the S curve. So we’ve talked about the distributed ledger technology and blockchain. That is finally having its day. We’re finally seeing ⁓ production grade integration into the core financial system globally. We’re really hitting that acceleration phase. Stablecoins are really coming to the fore as a key instrument. Again, they’re hitting their acceleration phase of the S-curve. And then you’ve got AI, Anergenic Commerce, which is also hit its acceleration phase of the S-curve. So if people are feeling a sense of instability or uncertainty, I think that’s because we’re in this unprecedented phase of acceleration and the technology is moving faster than human biology can keep up. And so it feels very, very ⁓ I I c I I describe it as being like liquefaction, like in an a when an earthquake happens and the ground underneath your house turns base it behaves like liquid. And so it feels very unstable. And I think for all of us we are in this phase where we’re having to adapt so rapidly that that doesn’t always feel comfortable. And I think that’s the instability y you’re describing.
speaker-1: It it is and it’s hard to navigate, particularly if you’re trying to figure out what to do next with your career, with your life, with your investments. You’re trying to figure out what that intersection of the technology looks like and whether or not you’re on the right path. So I think Australians and actually the the whole world are c are currently trying to figure it out. And it is a bit daunting, to be honest. So what do you think ⁓ when it comes to regulation, I I think that’s a core contributor to the stability of the economy. So is there anything that you see coming in on the regulatory front that might ease some of that? Turbulence.
speaker-0: I think ⁓ regulation has a really important role to pet play in the maturity journey. ⁓ and fit for purpose regulation in the digital asset space is something I’ve been fighting for for five to seven years now. Like I knew back in those corridors of NAB, the number one objection I constantly got was, ⁓ but the regulation is uncertain. And so people almost use it as like an excuse not to engage. ⁓ And so I think that regulation has a really important role to play in setting the parameters, but also protecting people. And fundamentally, you know, most regulation in Australia is is around ⁓ people protection. And I think that’s really important as we go through this ⁓ this wave of unprecedented change, which by the way, like one of my favourite qu quotes from Ray Kurtzfell is the pace of change will never be this slow again. So it’s only going to accelerate. And we need government ⁓ and regulators and and and and the country’s institutions to help provide ⁓ the the the balancing rails, the guardrails for us all to operate within that environment.
speaker-1: I think we also need the tools and the capability to understand how to manage some of the risks with AI and some of the opportunities, which we’re still trying to come to terms with at the moment. I know that you’re working on AI yourself in different corners of the AI industry, and obviously that intersects with with digital assets and stable coins and and payments. So what are you working on with respect? I’ve got a little inkling, but I don’t have all the details. With respect to humanized. Yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah, so I I recently published a book, ⁓ which I think it was called Edge, and it’s all about navigating tech-driven change, and it’s basically looking at my last twenty-five years on the forefront. I’ve always been on the kind of frontier tech side of any wave. So I was the first ⁓ he head of social media for the UK government, for example, back in the noughties. And there were themes and practices and techniques that I mastered over the years, many mistakes I made. And so I wanted to capture that in a book. And actually, I wrote the book for my children and for my nieces and nephews because I look ahead and I see complete uncertainty for them. And so through the year that it took me to write the book, I kept that kind of front of mind. And so the book is a basically a field guide, it’s designed to be very practical. ⁓ some vignette stories from my career, like I say, some of it is telling one on myself where I really didn’t get it right. But what’s really interesting since I launched the book back in January is first of all the feedback that I’ve had from people who’ve read it, it’s been a it’s been a real two-way dialogue. ⁓ and so I’ve got really interested in understanding at a much deeper level what I call humanware. So if you think about the tech stack, we’re all familiar with the hardware. So the devices we all use every day, ⁓ the GPU, the energy, even the compute. And that layer’s being commoditized. It’s obviously having a huge amount of investment in it at the moment. And then on top of that, you’ve got the software layer. And the software layer is obviously the LLMs, the models, the agents we’re all building, ⁓ which too is commoditizing. And actually, interestingly, the amount of spends that is going into that layer is increasing exponentially. Personally, I’ve just upgraded ⁓ to Claude Max Pro, which is 400 bucks a month, because I need to have the best version of Claude for the work that I’m doing. And then there’s a third layer which people don’t really talk about, and that’s the humanware layer. So the the layer which is how humans interact with the technology. And since I’ve had time on my hands, because I finished writing my book, I’ve been deeply studying the interaction between the humanware layer and the technical layer. And the thesis that I have come up with is that it’s actually humanware that is the binding constraint on value creation. And so where we as individuals are seeing some productivity gain, but perhaps not the productivity gain we would hope, ⁓ where institutions are investing heavily in AI and the ROI isn’t turning up. where nations are investing heavily in data centers and models and you know actually you know their sovereignty is at risk because those models are coming from other countries. We need to really be thinking about engineering that humanware layer as carefully as we engineer the hardware and the software. So the Humanware Institute is my answer to that. I’ll be releasing basically open research into this humanware layer as I uncover it. I’m going to also be launching a diagnostic which will help us to understand the the inner trends that are going on. Obviously completely anonymously with ⁓ data ⁓ carefully stored, but really deeply looking at what we can do to unlock the human capability in an AI-driven world.
speaker-1: One of the things that I didn’t plan on talking to you about, but you are my AI guru and the person that I go to on all things AI. I often contemplate the the disadvantage that some might have when accessing AI. There are some people that won’t be able to benefit from the $400 or $20 or $10 a month. And so when they go out into their careers, they don’t have the capability that others might have. And there’s y we we have status ⁓ we different layers of social economic ⁓ Australians at the moment. So d have you thought about what that looks like in the future for access to AI?
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was actually ⁓ Larry Fink’s annual letter this year, released a few weeks ago, that really got me thinking because he talked about the ⁓ the the democratization of access to wealth specifically, which obviously decentralized finance really underpins. That’s part of where DeFi came from. And I think when it comes to AI, we’re also seeing a very, very similar challenge, which is Not just access to the capabilities, because even a twenty dollar subscription can get you a lot, ⁓ a lot of value. But I think that the extent to which we are able to augment ourselves and develop ourselves as human to make the most of the productivity uplift, the reinvention opportunity that AI represents, I think is not equally distributed. And we’re entering into another era where of the haves and have nots. And it’s actually at a jurisdictional level that we need to be supporting the equity of access to that capability, which yes, includes tools, but it also includes how we as human beings interact with and use those tools. And I think that’s still very, very underbaked, which is why, by the way, I think one of the reasons why the ROI isn’t yet being realized. And it’s exactly that that we’re studying and looking at what is it. Going to take to unlock that human wear layer. But I think there are some fundamental issues with the way models are evolving. And I think this comes down to sovereignty, both individual sovereignty, institutional sovereignty and national sovereignty. And if we are, as Australia, importing all of our tools from, for example, the US, we are also importing an hard coding into the way that we’re operating. ⁓ morisms that are relevant to a US audience, not relevant to an Australian audience. We are ⁓ we are baking in hard coding in, for example, gender bias, because the vast majority of people who are building these models and tools still remain men. And ⁓ so I think that there’s work that needs to be done at a structural level to make sure that at the fundamental tool development stage where we’re putting in place the safeguards and the governance structures, that those are being architected by people from all walks of life, not just ⁓ individuals who have a computer science degree and have probably had a a very privileged journey to where they’re at today. And so I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done around that.
speaker-1: So how do we do that? Considering the the pace of change and innovation is it’s exponential. Yeah. While simultaneously there’s an expectation from Australians that our government is just as capable as every other country in the world when it comes to tech and particularly AI. So the sovereign capability needs to be achievable, needs to be accessible right now. Yes. But at the moment we don’t have that capability.
speaker-0: ⁓
speaker-1: So what is the solution if if we need to keep up but also can’t build at the pace that everyone else sits?
speaker-0: So it’s exactly that I’m researching to understand the unlock. I have a hypothesis based on both the research I did to write my book, my last 25 years of trying to work this out myself, but also I’ve been deeply engaged in research since ⁓ January 2026 in this area. And what I observe, and I’ve I’ve looked historically at every general purpose technology that has come in, so electrification, for example. And they actually all follow the same pattern, which is the technology becomes available. We as humans try to use it, and we try to use it for what we already do. And then we hit a plateau because actually there’s only so much that can be done ⁓ in adapting to that technology and placing it within the old operating models. And at that We develop ourselves as human beings and we develop our skills and techniques. And then you hit the S-curve of accelerated value creation. So transformation basically follows an S-curve. And this is ⁓ I don’t even know whose model it is, it’s just well known in academic modelling. So it starts very, very, very slowly. Think about crypto for the last 10 years, value is accretive but incredibly slowly. And then all of a sudden something shifts. And my assertion is it’s the humans who finally understand how to use it. And value gets delivered very, very, very cr rapidly. And that’s the acceleration phase of the S curve. And then it plateaus. And that’s the point at which it me reaches maturity. And so this acceleration phase is the phase I’m really interested in. And my assertion is that what we need to do is find the humanware unlocks to that ⁓ acceleration phase and actually give people those unlocks.
speaker-1: Can you give us an example of that humanware unlocked?
speaker-0: What does it look like? I’m gonna give you a really tangible example from my world. So how did I how how did I unlock the the gains from AI myself in the last 18 months? ⁓ first of all, I built tools. So I started off back when ⁓ you had to be able to code in order to build agents. I didn’t co I didn’t know how to code, but I taught myself how to code in order to kind of deeply get into this. And I built myself what I call an AI chief of staff. ⁓ I call they them Sage. And ⁓ Sage has been on a journey with me to really understand all the different elements of AI as it’s come to the fore and how I can integrate and use it to make ⁓ my life better. The first round of kind of I guess gains I made were the productivity gains, which is pretty much where everyone is now. And I and I kind of went through cycles of productivity gain. So I’d have the aha moment where Sage can suddenly provide me the prep for what I’m gonna say in a podcast without me having to do too much work. And then I went through the ⁓ phase where I realized Sage had made mistakes because of hallucinations, and I realized I as a human being really need to evaluate the output that came from Sage. Then I mastered more context engineering. So, how do I provide Sage with my context so that more and more of what Sage produces is relevant to me? How do I make sure that they take the M-dash out of any content so it doesn’t sound AI generated? ⁓ And then kind of continued on this learning journey to the point now where ⁓ I have I actually have Sage operating across three different LLMs. I’m very deliberately not attaching myself to one LLM because they all keep moving forward so rapidly. Right at the moment, Claude is the one in favour. Two months ago, Gemini with Nano Banana was the one in favour. So I I’m I’m kind of continuing to ⁓ work and flex my tech muscle. And the and and so basically it’s using the tools, but it’s using the tools in a very particular way. And in my book, I I talk about the importance of authorship and remaining the author of your life, which I think is more relevant than ever in an AI-driven world. And so my thesis is the the tools that we need to unlock the value of human beings is around authorship. So it’s things like judgment. Some people call it human in the loop. is a is a phrase that’s used a lot at the moment. But fundamentally it’s the point at which we reinsert ourselves as humans and we do the thing that the machine cannot do, which is make the judgment call. And I think over my 18 month journey with Sage, I’ve realized the extent to which I kept defaulting to to to letting Sage ⁓ make the judgment call and understanding more and more about how the technology works. understanding the potential risk to that. And so at an institutional level, one of the things that is hot at the moment is is the governance that needs to be put in place in order to make sure that the productivity uplift is delivered, but also in the safest possible way. And so one of the things that I’m working on at the moment is what does governance look like or what does it need to look like in order to be the best possible version of itself. So humans are always at the end of the decision making.
speaker-1: And is anyone doing governance well? Is there anything that you’ve seen that really does that you can share that really does showcase the best of the best globally when it comes to governance of AI?
speaker-0: So ⁓ we have been doing what we’re calling barometer reports where we have ⁓ the humanware index and we have done outside in research looking at ⁓ you know kind of o publicly open data around specifically financial institutions and how they are operating i AI in an AI world but with that humanware lens. And ⁓ from the outside in, bear in mind I’m not on the inside. I actually do think CBA are doing a really, really good job. They are basically the talent factory for the rest of the Australian ⁓ AI ⁓ in ⁓ ecosystem. And ⁓ you know, there’s been a lot of movements of of individuals over the last ⁓ twelve months moving to some of the other banks, but also ⁓ CBA have have taken their responsibility quite seriously. And have published their thinking and their working and their standards. And I think that that’s been ⁓ really good to see. And certainly if you look at something like Evident ⁓ Index, which is kind of the benchmark for financial services and AI CBA, comes in at at very near the very top, which is great testament to an Australian business doing it really well.
speaker-1: And that’s what I wanted to hear really, if Australia is doing well in that department. But it’s something that we can look to, a North Star leadership, which is what we need in Australia around AI.
speaker-0: kits of Australia are doing well. Well, I think in one of the conversations I was having actually with Andrew Charlton recently is I think being Australian and ⁓ Australianness is very, very distinct and we don’t often kind of ⁓ value it as much as we could. And actually it was Anzac Day a couple of a couple of weeks ago, and I was so present to my pride in being Australian. And I think one of the things that Australians do brilliantly is be real and be humans. And so the conversation I was having with Andrew is actually where we can punch above our weights. Okay, maybe we’re not going to produce the best LLM in the world, but we could do humanware better than any other jurisdiction. And that is definitely distinctive of Australian. So that’s, I guess, my mission now. ⁓ alongside my day job as CEO of OKX is to see if Australia can punch above our weight. We can be the country that could be the best in the world at getting human in the loop right.
speaker-1: It’s funny because I f I sometimes wonder if Australians are
speaker-0: The
speaker-1: I guess the country that pops into chat GPT, be more human. Be more human. ‘Cause I know that’s what everyone is asking to be. Be more human.
speaker-0: If only if only I had access to look under the hood of the data that’s coming out of anthropic or out of open AI, I would I I would love to put my humanware lens on that data and understand that more about that human journey because I think it’s gonna be mission critical to retaining our sovereignty as as individuals but also as institutions and as nations moving forward. ⁓ And ultimately, you know, that’s that’s what we’re here to do. H human beings have been phenomenal at evolving ⁓ throughout civilization. And this is the next phase of that.
speaker-1: So to wrap up, I guess that’s on a positive note. Apart from the governance angle, what do you think Australia is doing really, really well when it comes to the intersection of all these technologies?
speaker-0: That’s really good question. I think ⁓ what Australia Australia is very rarely first to the party. ⁓ But Australia is is good at being a follower and then getting it right. So Australia is known to have one of the most robust legislative, ⁓ regulatory ⁓ environments in the world. And I think that’s because we wait, we let others go first, we take a look at what’s worked and what hasn’t, we learn. And then we apply it to our own jurisdiction. And I think that that has ⁓ served us incredibly well, especially when you want that stabilising factor to be at play. And then I think we do a brilliant job of making sure that the humans that are on the receiving end of the legislation, the regulation, the technology actually benefit from it. provide as equal access as we can and I think we we are one of the best in the world at that. ⁓ so long may it continue.
speaker-1: And what would be one recommendation that you would make to the Australian government?
speaker-0: That’s a really good question. I think I would say you’ve got three layers of investment. You’re investing heavily in the hardware. That means data centers. It’s really important because that will ⁓ produce value ⁓ and productivity for Australian. You’re investing heavily in the software. You’re building out relationships with the LLMs. We recently had Anthropic announce their arrival onshore here in Australia. Where you’re not investing yet hard enough is that human wear layer. And I think it’s incumbent on government to lead the way on investing in that layer, which means le ⁓ investing in everyday Australians and helping them to build the capability that they need as human beings working the technology.
speaker-1: Well it’s wonderful to have you on the show today. Kate, thank you for joining us. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
speaker-0: Thanks, Amy Rose.
speaker-1: Digital, where policy meets innovation. Stay curious, stay inspired, and be part of the movement Building Australia’s next economy. The future is happening now. See you in the next episode.