Cover Tommie Lo, founder and CEO, Preface—featured in the Tatler Leadership AI Coalition (Photo: Ken Leung)
Tommie Lo, founder and CEO, Preface—featured in the Tatler Leadership AI Coalition (Photo: Ken Leung)
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AI breaks new ground every week. Six Hong Kong executives—from McDonald’s to J.P. Morgan—explain why AI literacy, humility, curiosity and “the human touch” matter more than ever
In Cantonese, the words “opponent” and “assistant” share the same two characters, meaning “pair of hands”. Playing on this homonym, the education start-up Preface—which bills itself as an ‘applied AI’ start-up—emblazoned a question on buses and billboards across Hong Kong: “Is AI your competitor, or your companion?” Then, in English: “Is AI growing your pie, or taking your pie?”
The questions anchor Preface’s latest citywide campaign, encouraging debate on the promise and perils of AI. Founder and CEO Tommie Lo insists he’s neutral on the polarising subject. “To be very honest, I’m not advocating for AI,” he says. “I learn tech for a living, but on a weekday basis, I’m using pen and paper.”
Read more: Meet Kam Shing Kwang: the J.P. Morgan Hong Kong CEO on the importance of ‘softer’ skills alongside AI proficiency
Preface began life in 2017 as a coffee shop that hosted coding workshops, before growing into an edtech provider offering AI training to individuals, schools and enterprises. Lo, a Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow honouree and Tatler Most Influential honouree, describes Preface’s services as “change management”, helping students—aged three to over 80—and corporate clients keep pace as AI tools evolve.
To Lo, the “pie” represents knowledge and skills in a fast-evolving landscape. “Any pie … is a fast-moving consumer good,” he says. “It will expire.” Preface curates new lesson content every week to keep pace with industry developments. “A new [AI] model comes in every two or three months,” he says. “We see knowledge as an FMCG [fast-moving consumer good].”
But isn’t teaching AI literacy just supporting the technology? Lo pushes back: “I advocate for AI when we see the productivity … but I’m not a tech salesman.”
“We’re not a promoter of AI only on the positive side. Literacy [means being] aware of the downside,” he says. Preface’s module for students aged eight to 17 covers core concepts of AI, including ethics—a topic that’s dominated headlines this year.
In mid-September, a former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher publicly quit, citing fears that the world’s largest AI companies were ignoring dangers of technology going off the rails—such as AI agents, or software capable of operating without human oversight, “going rogue” and causing unmitigated damage. Three days later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a rallying cry for the AI industry to “pace the frontier”, or slow down the development of AI models, which garnered support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Read more: Meet Christine Ip: the UOB banking veteran and lifelong ‘early learner’ now embracing AI skills
“I would say maybe instead of slowing down, we should take a more conscious approach,” Lo says of the development, in a separate interview with Tatler in late September. AI could be used to kill humans, he says, but the question is, will it? “In order to make sure it won't happen, then we need a much better compliance and legal setup."
Yet compliance begins with what Lo calls a strong understanding of AI, beyond just the “how-to” of using certain AI tools. In 2025, Preface launched Just Start, an AI literacy initiative targeting one million Hong Kong residents, and an accompanying assessment tool, dubbed the AI-Q Test. “We have been advocating literacy before adoption of AI,” Lo says.
Read more: Meet Randy Lai: the McDonald’s Hong Kong CEO on leveraging AI for fast food experiences
Instead, Lo is pushing for future generations in Hong Kong to embody Preface’s core values of being humble and bold—building original AI applications rather than “a replica of ideas from Shenzhen or Silicon Valley”. Even as Preface’s marketing raises pointed questions about the technology, Lo remains optimistic about AI’s potential in the city—so long as education starts now.
“The use of AI—a clever, diligent way of using AI—doesn’t require a factory,” he says. “A tiny place like Hong Kong, with a limited population, can really be amplified with AI in this age. That’s why this is our time.”
In collaboration with Preface, a Hong Kong-based tech content and training company that helps people understand and navigate technology in today’s fast-changing world, Tatler presents the AI Leadership coalition: six industry heavyweights who are redefining what it means to lead today. Read the full cover story here.
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Cat Wang is an editor at Tatler Asia based in Hong Kong, where she covers business, wealth, innovation, and impact. Previously, she was a Forbes Asia reporter and assistant editor of the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, spotlighting startups and small companies on the rise across the Asia-Pacific. She began her career as a trainee reporter at the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s newspaper of record. Born in New York City, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in political science.
