AI keynote speaker in Doha.

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Who he is

Rahim Hirji is the author of SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI (Kogan Page, 2026) and founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. He is based in London and speaks worldwide. He founded EtonX, the online learning venture of Eton College, and led Quizlet's international expansion across sixty countries. The argument rests on research across more than 200 organisations in 30 countries, published openly with every source graded.

The argument

AI rarely takes a whole job. It takes the first draft, the initial analysis, the routine review. Those were also the tasks through which people built the judgement that made them senior. The work still ships and the output often improves, so nothing triggers an alarm.

The question for a leadership team is whether the organisation is drifting into AI through a thousand small reasonable decisions nobody quite made, or designing it by deciding in advance where human judgement has to remain.

Three keynotes

Drift vs Design, the signature keynote for boards and executive teams. We Are Superheroes, the seven human skills that grow more valuable as tools spread, for whole organisations and conferences. WTH, What the Human, a live judgement test for boards, December to March only. Full descriptions at keynotes.

Doha, and control without competence

Qatar's ministerial AI guidance requires that AI systems not autonomously make decisions of significant consequence, and that people be able to appeal or override those that carry substantial impact. Humans keep control.

What it does not do is require anything of those humans. There is no obligation that they be trained, assessed or kept current. Control without competence is the least stable arrangement of all, because it satisfies a governance checklist while changing nothing about whether the oversight works.

Two corrections worth having before quoting the document. The phrase human in the loop appears nowhere in it. And its human-centred principle concerns cultural values, feedback, diverse teams and accessibility, not oversight. It is also legally non-binding, and carries no publication date, version number or reference number.

Qatar's national AI strategy remains a 2019 blueprint written by a research institute and adopted by the ministry. It has never been publicly revised, and its labour analysis rests on a 2016 survey. There is no official Qatari statistic on AI adoption or AI-related employment.

For a Doha audience that is an opportunity rather than a criticism. The ground is genuinely open, and an organisation that decides where judgement stays human is ahead of its own regulator.

The full verified picture for the region, with every document read at the issuing body's own page, is at AI and work in the Gulf.

Practical

Keynotes run 40 to 90 minutes, in person or online, tailored after a briefing call. Booking is usually three to six months ahead. Delivery is in English only. Travel from London to Doha where the brief justifies it.

Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.