For the past few days, some of Australia’s top chief executives – including Commonwealth Bank’s Matt Comyn, NAB’s Andrew Irvine and Telstra’s Vicki Brady – have been bunkered down in the US city of Seattle, for one of Microsoft’s most exclusive and influential events.

The tech giant’s annual CEO summit has an exclusive guest list that includes many leaders from America’s Fortune 500 companies. Comyn, who has spent the last two weeks touring the US, and nerds out on the detail of technology like few other Australian CEOs, says the Microsoft conference has become bigger each year, as the artificial intelligence revolution gathers pace.