Quebec wrote the strongest human-review right in North America and almost nobody outside the province quotes it. Its own regulator has since said in writing that the human who ratifies a machine's decision is where the safeguard fails. Keynotes for boards, conferences and leadership teams in Montreal.
Rahim Hirji is available for in-person AI keynotes in Montreal, Quebec, and for online sessions worldwide. He is a London-based keynote speaker specialising in AI and human judgement, and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026). He founded the skills platform EtonX, later acquired by Eton College, and led Quizlet’s international growth across more than 60 countries.
The local instrument
Sections 12.1 and 65.2, and the CAI mémoire of January 2025Read at the issuing body’s own page, and quoted in full below.
Watch the showreel · 2 minutes
A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
SuperSkills is endorsed by Karim Lakhani (Harvard Business School), Alnoor Bhimani (London School of Economics), David Rowan (founding editor, WIRED UK), Sherry Coutu CBE and ten others. Rahim has spoken to leadership teams at Google, Barclays, Kaplan, BPP University and Next 15. Published by Kogan Page, part of Hachette UK.
What organisers say
“I brought Rahim in to speak to the Luminary Community, a group of female leaders and high potentials working in HR and people. I wanted something that would make sense of AI for them without the hype and without the fear. Rahim started with the human rather than the technology, and that reframing was the thing. He made AI feel simple and made us feel capable, which is not a combination I have come across before. Our members left with something they could actually use.”
Azmina Kara, Founder, Luminary. Booked a talk for the Luminary Community.
“Rahim's keynote on human judgement in the age of AI was brilliant. We asked for something realistic rather than alarmist, and equally not falsely reassuring, and he delivered exactly that. Our students were captivated by every word, and we want him back.”
Charlotte Wanendeya, Head of Law, BPP University Law School. Booked a keynote and panel for law students.
On the book
“Whether AI is our ally depends upon how well we employ the SuperSkills offered in this book. Our humanity and our future are at stake. Read, heed, and relish this book, for your sake and the sake of the generations to come.”
Zoe Weil, Co-Founder and President, Institute for Humane Education
How a session in Montreal is put together
Every keynote is tailored after a briefing call, and the larger engagements start before the day rather than on it: a diagnostic of the client's own people, so the room hears its own evidence rather than somebody else's. What the room leaves with is written down.
What that has looked like: an agency business convening Asia, Asia-Pacific, EMEA and North America into one event, where the work was naming the recurring situations nobody had vocabulary for, and the company took that wording into its strategy; and a division of a very large company permitted exactly one AI tool, which after the constraint was examined moved to a multi-tool sandbox with different functions choosing different models, then repeated across further divisions.
Six of the seven engagements published on this site produced further work after the session rather than at it. The seven are set out in full at case studies, each with a line saying what it does not show.
How to read these examples. They are published to show how the work is put together, not as a client list for Montreal. Most engagements are covered by confidentiality and are described without naming anyone; where a client is named anywhere on this site, it is with their agreement.
The right to argue with a named human
Section 12.1 of Quebec’s private-sector privacy act has been in force since 22 September 2023 and has never been amended. Where an enterprise uses personal information to reach a decision based exclusively on an automated processing, it must say so by the time it gives the decision, and on request must give the information used, the reasons and principal factors, and the right to correct the data.
Then comes the sentence that makes it different from every other instrument on this continent. The person concerned must be given the opportunity to submit observations to a member of the personnel of the enterprise who is in a position to review the decision.
Read that carefully, because it is not a right to an explanation. It is a right to argue with a specific human being who has the authority to change the answer. Section 65.2 of the access act says the same thing for public bodies. Both were enacted in 2021 and both came into force on the same day.
A keynote can put the practical question to a Montreal room in one line. Who, in your organisation, is that member of personnel? Name them. And then the harder half, which is the subject of who supervises work they cannot do: could that person actually redo the analysis they are empowered to overturn?
Main stage, EdTech World Forum, London
Quebec's own regulator says the human is where it fails
On 27 January 2025 the Commission d’accès à l’information submitted a mémoire to the ministry of labour titled L’IA au travail: pour un meilleur encadrement. In the section on meaningful human intervention it says that where a human ratifies a decision proposed by an AI system without studying the whole analysis, there is a risk of biais d’automatisation, placing excessive trust in the system.
A North American regulator, in its own submission, naming automation bias as the mechanism by which its own province’s safeguard stops working. That document is the closest thing in Canada to an official statement of the argument in these keynotes, sitting sitting in French on a government website where the English-language conference circuit never looks.
The same mémoire is candid about the limits of sections 12.1 and 65.2, and honesty about limits is worth more on a stage than the provision alone. Organisations need not disclose at collection that the data will feed a fully automated decision. The sections do not apply where a decision is not fully automated, which is most of them. No criterion defines how consequential an action must be to count as a decision. And the burden sits on the individual to ask. A right that has to be requested by somebody who has not been told it exists is a right on paper. The Commission’s sixth recommendation goes further and proposes prohibiting fully automated decisions with significant effects on employees.
What Quebec has measured
The Institut de la statistique du Québec published its figures on 28 November 2025. In the second quarter of 2025, 12.7 per cent of Quebec businesses used AI, up from 9.4 per cent. Modest, and lower than most rooms assume.
The second number is the one that belongs on a slide. Among Quebec businesses, 37.7 per cent reported that AI use had reduced, moderately or largely, tasks previously carried out by employees. Set the two side by side and the arithmetic does not sit still: far more businesses report tasks being displaced than report using AI at all, which tells you how the question is being answered inside organisations that have not described what they are doing as adoption.
That is drift with a provincial statistics office behind it. The pattern, and what it does to the work juniors used to learn on, is at missing rungs.
On language, and being straight about it
Keynotes are delivered in English. Rahim reads the Quebec instruments in French and quotes them in French where the French is the operative text, because the official English version of section 12.1 is a translation and one clause is phrased impersonally in the original. A Montreal audience will hear the provision in the language it was written in, and everything around it in English.
If a room needs simultaneous interpretation or a French-language speaker, say so early and the honest answer will come back quickly, including a recommendation elsewhere if that is the right answer.
Who books this in Montreal, and who should not
Boards and executive committees, financial services, insurance, aerospace and professional services leadership, HR and talent conferences, and the AI research community around Mila and the universities. Montreal is unusual in having both a serious concentration of AI research and a statute that constrains how the output of it may be used on a person.
He is the wrong choice for a tools demonstration, a vendor pitch or a technical AI briefing, and for any brief that needs an optimistic message with the difficult part removed. If that is the brief, the guide to choosing an AI keynote speaker names four other kinds of speaker and when to pick each.
A note from Rahim
On sections 12.1 and 65.2, and on language
Quebec's regulator said something most regulators avoid: the person who approves a machine's decision is often where the protection breaks. Sections 12.1 and 65.2 and the Commission's January 2025 mémoire make that a current duty for organisations here. I founded EtonX, later acquired by Eton College, and my career has been about how people build capability. Your executive team will have a design for a human review step that does real work. I deliver in English and say so now, so you can plan the room, interpretation included.
Box of Amazing, a free weekly letter read by roughly 25,000 people, sits alongside Rahim's keynotes and his advice on how organisations design human review. Keynotes · Advisory · Box of Amazing
The three keynotes a Montreal room can book
Keynotes run 30 to 90 minutes, in person or virtual. A 30-minute main-stage version of each talk is available for conferences, and the full talk runs 45 to 60 minutes. The sector examples change for the room; the argument does not. All three, with the showreel, are at keynotes, and the programme copy is at the speaker pack.
Drift versus Design is built from your room. Your audience answers five anonymous questions beforehand, their answers shape the talk, and afterwards you get a one-page readout with the three decisions to look at first.
Drift versus Design: why most organisations hand their judgement to AI without deciding to, and how to design your way through instead.
Quebec gave people the right to argue with a named human about an automated decision. Montreal executive teams design that human role so it does real work instead of ratifying the machine.
We Are Superheroes
We Are Superheroes: AI is the suit. The human decides.
Curiosity leads for research labs and university audiences: the habit of asking how a model reached its answer, kept alive in people who use it every day.
WTH (What the Human)
WTH (What the Human): a live test of a board's own judgement.
The Commission d'accès à l'information said the ratifying human is where the safeguard fails. A Quebec board takes its last three sign-offs and asks whether each would survive that criticism.
Where these sessions happen in Montreal
Every capacity below is the venue’s own published figure. The Palais publishes its maximum capacities with a note that they are guidelines and may change, which is a more honest disclaimer than most venues offer and worth respecting.
Palais des congrès de Montréal
113 multipurpose spaces across seven floors, 508,756 square feet of rental space of which 396,785 is exhibition. Room 517abcd is the largest ballroom at 45,334 square feet and 5,615 theatre; the 220 series seats 12,143 theatre, and the building's stated maximum with the extensions in use is 13,863. The room decides the talk here more than anywhere else in the city.
Mila, 6666 Saint-Urbain Street, Mile-Ex
The Quebec AI institute, over 90,000 square feet at its 2019 inauguration, community of more than 1,400 people. The Agora and Agora-Café take up to 350. A different kind of room: an audience that will interrogate the evidence rather than accept it, which is the right audience for this argument.
Le Centre Sheraton Montréal
23 event rooms, 41,816 square feet in total, and a Salle de Bal seating 1,835. Downtown, with delegates in the building.
Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth
30 venues taking from 15 to 1,600 guests, the largest room 742 square metres seating 700 theatre. The default for a Montreal corporate conference that wants a plenary and a breakout ladder under one roof.
Grand Quai du Port de Montréal
Up to 4,000 people, with Terminal T1 at 3,478 square metres, 1,664 theatre and 3,275 for a cocktail reception. Waterfront, and better for an evening than a working session.
The Montreal calendar, from organisers’ own pages rather than listing sites. ALL IN runs 16 and 17 September 2026 at the Palais, with the organiser expecting over 7,500 attendees from more than 40 countries and 260-plus speakers. MTL connect runs 13 to 16 October 2026 at the Society for Arts and Technology. ConFoo is 24 to 26 February 2027 at the Bonaventure, and Startupfest 7 to 9 July 2027.
Two corrections worth having before a calendar is built. C2 Montréal is not running in 2026. Its own site says it is taking a pause from the annual May gathering and exploring a new format, and it has not announced a 2027 return in either language, whatever the tourism listings say. And Movin’On has left the city altogether: the summit now runs in Paris.
Formats and logistics
Signature keynote
Drift versus Design
Length
30 to 90 minutes, or a board session
Language
English, with Quebec instruments quoted in French
Region
Montreal and Quebec
Delivery
In person and online
Based
London, travels to Montreal
Local anchor
Sections 12.1 and 65.2, and the CAI mémoire of January 2025
What the first conversation usually sounds like, in composite“We want a session for a Montreal leadership audience that starts from Quebec's own law and its own regulator rather than from a global framework, and asks who here is actually reviewing what the system decides.”
Before you book
Questions asked about Montreal.
Who is a good AI keynote speaker in Montreal?
Rahim Hirji is a London-based keynote speaker on AI, work and human judgement and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026). He travels to Montreal for boards, executive teams, conferences and leadership offsites. The Montreal version of the keynote is built on Quebec's own instruments: sections 12.1 and 65.2, the Commission d'acces a l'information's memoire of 27 January 2025, and the Institut de la statistique du Quebec's measurements. The research behind the talk is published in full: 547 graded studies drawn from work across more than 200 organisations in over 30 countries, each with what it does and does not prove.
What does Quebec law actually require about automated decisions?
Section 12.1 of the private-sector privacy act, in force since 22 September 2023 and unamended, requires an enterprise making a decision based exclusively on automated processing of personal information to say so, and on request to give the information used, the reasons and principal factors, and the right of correction. It then requires that the person be given the opportunity to submit observations to a member of the personnel who is in a position to review the decision. Section 65.2 of the access act says the same for public bodies.
Are keynotes delivered in French in Montreal?
No. Delivery is in English. Quebec's legal instruments are quoted in French where the French is the operative text, because the official English version of section 12.1 is a translation. If a room needs a French-language speaker or simultaneous interpretation, say so early and you will get a straight answer, including a recommendation elsewhere where that is the right one.
How far in advance should we book Rahim Hirji for an event in Montreal?
Three to six months ahead for an in-person date in Montreal. Shorter is often possible for a virtual session, and sometimes in person where the diary is free and the talk already exists in the form you need. Ask earlier rather than later. There is one of him, he carries advisory clients and other commitments alongside the speaking, so not every date can be taken.
What does it cost to bring Rahim Hirji to Montreal?
Most conference keynotes come in around £10,000. What moves it: the time I commit, travel, how full the diary is that month, and how far the talk is built for your room. What moves the number is set out at what an AI keynote speaker costs. Tell us the room, the date, the audience and what you need them to do differently, and you will get a number within 24 hours. Schools, universities and charities are quoted differently. On travel there is one rule: outside London you book it and you pay it, because your rates are better than his and nobody is out of pocket waiting on a reimbursement. From London Heathrow to Montreal is seven to eight hours, so an economy plus fare, arrival the night before, and normally two nights in a standard room at or near the venue. The five hour time difference works in your favour on the way out and against it on the way back, so a morning slot the day after arrival is the easiest thing to deliver well. A London booking carries no travel, accommodation or expenses at all.
When is Rahim Hirji not the right speaker for an event?
When the decision has already been made and the session exists to announce it. When the audience has no authority over their own work, because the talk asks them to decide which repetitions are worth keeping. When the slot runs under thirty minutes, because the turn needs setting up. And when the session follows a vendor pitch, since order matters more than programmes usually assume. Where the conditions are wrong we will say so, and sometimes that means reshaping the session. Occasionally it means recommending somebody else.
Written by Rahim Hirji, AI keynote speaker and 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.
Montreal
Describe your Montreal room and the choice ahead
Send me the audience and the matter you are working through, and I will suggest a format and dates.
Not every brief is a talk. A board that needs to settle which decisions a machine may make wants a board briefing, a review or a standing advisor, and the five formats are set out side by side with what each one is for.
Box of Amazing
Rahim’s free weekly letter on AI and human capability
No enquiry today, or not yet the right time? The weekly letter is the low-commitment version of the same argument. Every week, an essay and ten links to broaden your view of the world. Read by 25,000 people, every week since 2017. Free, and one click to stop.
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Charlotte Wanendeya, Head of Law, BPP University Law School. Booked a keynote and panel for law students.
