Hilary Walton is a technology strategist at Microsoft and a former chief information security officer. She explains in plain terms what AI means for health and safety people and where to start with it.
Hilary's advice is to lean in and start small: a couple of apps on your phone and some summarising or drafting, while being careful about what you paste into a public tool. We talk about asking a system in plain language to build a health and safety dashboard, responsible AI and risk tiers, the EU law that was in draft at the time, an inspection report I came across that looked AI-generated and whether AI belongs on the risk register as a risk of its own.
What we cover in this episode
- What AI is good for right now
- Where to start if you haven't touched it
- What not to put into a public AI tool
- Responsible AI and risk tiers
- Health and safety use cases
- The danger of copy and paste safety documents
- Should AI sit on the risk register
- Why people still decide whether technology works
Episode chapters
- 0:00 Meet Hilary Walton
- 1:00 From security chief to Microsoft
- 5:03 AI trends and security
- 14:09 A safety dashboard in plain language
- 16:11 The risk of ignoring AI
- 18:14 Where to start
- 20:15 Responsible AI
- 23:20 Risk tiers for AI models
- 24:20 Should we, not just can we
- 25:23 Health and safety use cases
- 27:24 What not to put into public tools
- 33:15 Productivity gains
- 38:22 Sustainability
- 42:27 Copy and paste AI in safety documents
- 46:31 People still implement it
- 53:39 AI on the risk register
- 57:42 The EU's draft AI law
- 59:49 Wrap up
Connect with Hilary Walton
Follow Hilary Walton on LinkedIn.
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About the host
Matt Jones is the founder of Advanced Safety and a HASANZ-registered health and safety consultant. He's a Professional Member of NZISM, holds a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health and founded the New Zealand Health and Safety Professionals community. His book is Raise the Standard: Why Good Organisations Go Blind and How Leaders Restore Visibility.
Guests share their own views and experience. This page is general information, not legal advice. Latest update: 13 November 2026
