Conference program
The conference theme, ‘Intelligence in Action: Strategy to Delivery’, will examine how intelligence capabilities are conceived, operationalised, and measured. Within this overarching theme, we will explore three critical sub-themes:
Operational Agility
Partnerships
Impact and Integration
Each sub-theme reflects a core component required to sustain, evolve, and future-proof the intelligence profession in Australia.
This program is under development, and AIPIO now invites abstract submissions that are clearly aligned with the Intelligence 2026 theme. For more information about Intelligence 2026 theme and sub-themes please visit the Conference Theme page.
This session explores what it means to lead intelligence organisations in an era of strategic competition. It examines how leaders can provide clarity of purpose while navigating ambiguity, balance risk with opportunity, and enable decision-making when information is incomplete or contested. Drawing on contemporary intelligence practice, the session will highlight how leadership must evolve from directing activity to shaping adaptive, resilient systems capable of responding to constant change.
Aligned with the conference focus on translating insight into action, this session will consider how leaders foster organisational agility, integrate emerging technologies, and build trusted partnerships across agencies and sectors. It will also address the human dimension of leadership—how to sustain trust, accountability, and professional judgement under pressure.
This session reframes leadership not as control in uncertain environments, but as the ability to guide organisations through them—turning uncertainty into strategic advantage and ensuring intelligence remains a decisive force in national security, public safety, and organisational resilience.
Well-being like you have never heard it before! This session will provide you with the real biology you were never taught at school: The chemical changes that occur in your body when you are stressed, why they occur, the damage they can do, and how to recognise and most importantly alleviate them.
In this session, we will focus on why focusing on the mental health aspect of stress is a mistake.. There are two aspects to a person – the body and the mind and both are vitally important in a person’s ability to be happy, healthy, and perform at their best.
As a double act, Dr Zoe Billings and Mark Pannone will cram in as much information as possible to help you identify signs of stress within your body and equally importantly, identify techniques that you can use to address physical symptoms of chronic stress, which can manifest far earlier than the mental symptoms, providing you with the ability to adopt an early intervention approach to your wellbeing and support your personal resilience. In a (hopefully) fun and engaging presentation Mark and Zoe will help you to protect health and wellbeing and provide evidence-based approaches to avoid dying… yet!Â
Do you identify with the following traits:
Empathetic
Active Listener
Emotional Intelligence
Non-judgemental
 All of these traits are required for rapport building with anyone but even more so when operating in high stakes environment. You may be on a deadline however to get what you need you may have to listen, more than talk. You will need to understand your own morals, biases and judgements and be able to compartmentalise this dependent on the situation before you. Rapport is more than just being nice; it is about building trust and at times you may have to do this quickly. Whether it be a high stakes business deal, covert engagement or just trying to make new friends rapport building is an essential life skill that can help you achieve your end goal.
This session explores the practical application of social media and digital footprint reviews in investigations, with a focus on how online information can be used to assess behaviour, activities and overall capacity.
Drawing on real-world experience, the session will demonstrate how open source intelligence (OSINT) is applied in workplace and liability matters, including identifying undisclosed employment, business interests, lifestyle indicators and inconsistencies with stated restrictions.
It will also cover how digital enquiries are used to analyse online behaviour, identify linkages across platforms, and work with limited or potentially misleading information, including matters involving anonymous or pseudonymous profiles.
The session will highlight common challenges, including managing uncertainty, avoiding confirmation bias and maintaining evidentiary standards.
Attendees will gain a practical understanding of how digital enquiries support decision-making, along with key considerations when interpreting and reporting findings.
The Admiralty Scale has inherent flaws - particularly in how it is applied - and misapplied to intelligence products. Rediscover the real value of properly evaluated intelligence products. In this workshop, participants will learn and apply an alternative model that can either support or even replace the admiralty scale.
Drawing on recent practical experience, this tradecraft session introduces GenAI as a useful addition to the analysts' toolkit, provides real world examples of the use of GenAI for analytic tradecraft, and highlights emerging challenges for the wider use of GenAI.
Dennis Richardson AC
