Meta AI head Clara Shih speaks at Spark Accelerate summit

Meta AI head Clara Shih at the Spark Accelerate tech summit. Photo: BusinessDesk

Tue, 11 Nov 2025

UPDATE 11.29AM: Theresa Payton, Fortalice Solutions CEO, a top global cybersecurity expert and the first female CIO for The White House, is on stage now, giving her keynote speech on leading digital transformation with security at the forefront.

UPDATE 11.25AM: 95% failure rate not a bad thing - Meta AI head urges more experimentation

Meta AI head Clara Shih acknowledges 95% of AI pilots are failing, but she sees that as a good sign rather than a bad one. “I actually think a 95% failure rate for initiatives isn't a bad thing, because it means that people and organisations are running experiments.

“And when we run experiments, we don't expect all the experiments to pan out. If all of our experiments are panning out, then we're not running enough experiments.”

Shih was referring to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study that caused a ripple in US equities earlier this year with its results.

She made the comments as part of her keynote speech at Spark’s Accelerate conference. Her speech largely revolved around what she saw as the seven habits of successful AI initiatives at companies. Those habits included:

Those habits included:

Driving AI transformation from the top-down and the bottom-up.
Making AI “everyone’s job”.
Balancing short-term wins with long-term bets.
Going faster to learn faster.
Building for today’s models but expecting future ones to change.
Shifting your mindset to one of “abundance”.
Getting people to embrace their new role as managers of AI agents.

As part of her comments, she also singled out the Briscoe Group as a company that, in her observation, had adapted well to change over the years.

“Anybody here from Briscoe Group? Good. Or if you’re online, congratulations.

“It’s really inspiring to see how an existing traditional organisation can make the right investments, update strategy and really thrive in the face of disruption.”

- Dileepa Fonseka

UPDATE 10.30AM: Meta Head of Business AI, Clara Shih, takes the stage at Spark Accelerate

UPDATE 10.10AM: On the agenda to start day one

10.30am: The seven habits of highly successful AI enterprises: Clara Shih - Meta Head of Business AI, board director for Starbucks, former Salesforce AI CEO.
11.20am: Leading digital transformation with security at the forefront: Theresa Payton – Fortalice Solutions CEO, Top global cybersecurity expert, first female CIO for The White House.
12pm: Panel - Inside the economic pulse - Business outlook for Aotearoa, with Spark CEO Jolie Hodson, ASB Chief Economist Nick Tuffley and Deloitte NZ Chief Executive Mike Horne.

UPDATE 10AM: The Spark Accelerate summit is about to begin. We will be providing updates through the day.

UPDATE 9.45AM: Spark staff revved up before mega-tech conference, Meta AI head Clara Shih set to talk

Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre is electric this morning as 648 senior company executives flock to the Spark Accelerate summit.

In a pre-event briefing, sales staff manning a raft of exhibits were told to take opportunities to encourage Kiwi businesses to invest in technology.

“Holy moly, how good is this place? This is unbelievably world-class,” more than 30 staff were told before doors opened.

“This is not retrenched, this is not hunkering down. This is how we generate growth,” said one senior executive.

“We're absolutely backing the trend, so you should be really proud of how your company is turning up into the market to try and stimulate New Zealand businesses to generate growth through technology.”

“Take the opportunity and turn this into growth for the economy and for Spark.”

Displays of technology at the waterfront venue include radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology systems, new health technologies, and autonomous ground robots.

Spark staff are also promoting cloud technologies that respect data sovereignty as part of the conference.