My name is Anna van den Breemer, Partner at EY and responsible for AI & Digital Transformation. In my current role, I work with organizations in both the public sector and the business community to ask how we use AI responsibly, scalable and people-oriented. In doing so, I'm not just focusing on strategy and governance, but especially on how technology really adds value to people's work. At EY, I am also responsible for the Microsoft Alliance in the field of AI and digital transformation. That means that I work every day at the intersection of innovation, platform technology and organizational change: a place where the speed of tech meets the reality of companies. For me, that partnership with Microsoft feels like a natural continuation of where I came from.

What international tech taught me about responsibility

After all, before that, I worked for years in international tech, including in a leadership role at Microsoft. That's how I experienced up close how technology companies are increasingly at the center of social and geopolitical issues. It taught me that AI decisions are never just technical: they're about responsibility, values, and who decides how technology is used.

That's exactly why I'm doing the work I'm doing right now. I believe that digitization only becomes powerful when we connect it to humanity, professionalism and conscious choices. Technology can do a lot, but it's up to us to decide what we want to achieve with it. We live in a time when work and processes are fundamentally changing and sectors are under pressure. AI is accelerating that movement, but the real change must come from us. It's about the choices we make in how we:

• collaborate
• develop talent
• redesign organizations

AI isn't just changing work, it's changing what makes work worthwhile. Where efficiency used to be the end point, the human distinction is now becoming more important: empathy, creativity, judgment and leadership. Technology automates noise, but meaning, direction and impact still come from people.

And that is exactly what my personal mission is:

Become the best version of myself every day, and support others to do the same. I believe that the future is not determined by technology, but by the people who shape it, by how we learn, dare, collaborate and empower each other.