About
Hi, I’m Stuart and I’m the founder of Restive, a full-service technology consultancy that…
Activity
4K followers
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisBack in Melbourne after an awesome week at Shopify dotDev in Toronto. Really great few days catching up with the Shopify team, partners and friends from around the world and Aus. It's one of the few events where you can corner the product team and engineers building the platform and get a much better feel for where things are heading. My notebook (granola AI) is full. The biggest conversation wasn't a new feature. It was how AI is becoming another way people discover and buy products. Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and pair that with the Catalog API and you can see where Shopify is going. Making merchant catalogues available in a structured way for AI agents is a foundational shift and huge opporunity for early adopters. The other thing is how much Shopify has invested in Unified Commerce. POS has matured enormously, the hardware and app ecosystem keeps improving and it feels like the platform is reaching the point where online, retail and operations genuinely work together. This opens the door for merchants to deliver deeper, more personalised customer experiences. B2B was another area that keeps moving in the right direction. Every release closes another gap for more complex wholesale businesses. Highlight was the firesiode chat with Tobias Lütke and Harley Finkelstein. Tobi talked about AI leading to an explosion of creativity on the web by giving more people the ability to build things that simply weren't possible before. "Al changes what people can create, similar to the early web. Things that used to be impossible are now becoming possible, which should lead to more creative software and experiences" --Tobi Lutke Also caught some insight about River which is Shopify's Slack-native agent, now coauthors roughly one in eight merged pull requests across the company code bases. It only works in public channels, so every session becomes shared learning. Looking forward to putting some of these ideas into practice with our clients over the coming months. If you're thinking about Shopify, AI or what agentic commerce actually means beyond the buzzwords, always happy to chat. And feel free to reach out if you would like a download from dotDev 2026. #Shopify #AI #Commerce #AgenticCommerce #ShopifydotDev #dotDev2026
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisExcellent day at the Google Cloud Summit in Sydney yesterday. It was great to see how much the conversation has shifted towards agentic AI, experiences with many of Australia’s leading retail and consumer brands exploring everything from conversational commerce and AI chat experiences through to voice agents for customer service. The technology is moving fast, but success will come from solving the right customer problems and designing experiences that people actually want to use. Great UX and customer experience will be just as important as the AI itself. A lot has progressed since last year’s Summit, but it still feels like we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible. If you’re thinking about bringing GenAI or agentic experiences to life at scale, feel free to reach out to us at Restive. We’d love to chat about how to turn those ideas into real customer outcomes. Fantastic event and the Daft Punk show was definitely a highlight. Thanks Google!
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisAt Restive, we're seeing increasing demand for our services across AI strategy, agentic platforms, data, and engineering. We're looking for exceptional people who can identify opportunities, lead discovery, and shape AI-enabled products, experiences and business outcomes. If you're looking for a career-defining opportunity and want to work on some of the most exciting AI initiatives in Australia, helping shape the future of leading organisations alongside smart, ambitious people, we'd love to hear from you. Check out the Forward Deployed Engineer role below or reach out directly for a chat. #AI #AgenticAI #Consulting #Technology #Hiring #Careers
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisBlackbird Sunrise wrapped. Big week, big energy. 🌞 Met a heap of founders, startups and ecosystem builders across the days. The future for Australian startups is strong. A few pics from the week 👇 #Sunrise2026 #AustralianStartups #Founders #AusTech
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisAccessibility done well isn't a nice-to-have. it's a mark of a team that genuinely cares about the people using what they build. This is something we've been committed to at Restive from the ground up and I'm proud of the work Florencia and the team are doing to make it real and practical, not just a checkbox. If your team is thinking about where to start, this is worth a read. https://lnkd.in/gCE6GWXEStuart Oliver shared this95.9% of websites fail basic accessibility checks. Not the complex stuff, the basics. Image alt text. Contrast ratios. Labelled form fields. And most of the time, the people affected just quietly leave. They don't send feedback. They don't complain. They just don't come back. We wrote this guide because accessibility shouldn't feel overwhelming. It's one of those things that - once you understand it - you realise how much of a difference small fixes can make. For your users, your SEO, and ultimately, for doing the right thing. If you're not sure where your site stands, this is a good place to start > https://lnkd.in/gCE6GWXE #Accessibility #DigitalStrategy #UX #WCAG
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisOver a month ago I couldn't write code. Today "I" pushed to GitHub before I woke up and had a coffee. I studied computer science almost 20 years ago and barely passed. I talked my way through most of it. My career since then has been product, strategy, delivery work - understanding technical teams, bridging the gap, but never actually building. That was always someone else's job. Something shifted in the last few months. I've been using Claude Code and a bunch of AI agents daily now and the honest version of this isn't "AI does everything." It's more like: I can finally keep up with my own ideas. Some of what we've shipped in the last 60 days, with help from some brilliant people around me: --A telephony AI that sounds like a real human, can be fed info about an organisation, and answers calls - live in front of a client within 24 hours of starting --Conversational chat interfaces for internal use cases that would've taken a sprint to spec, let alone build --Marketing and sales agents running in the background --Requirements written, backlogs structured, roadmaps drafted, what used to take weeks of workshops happening in a working session None of this replaces the technical expertise. We've still got people on the team who make sure we're building securely, with the right architecture, proper access controls, sandboxed environments where I can test and break things safely. That matters A lot! The speed is meaningless if the foundations aren't right. But the gap between "I have an idea" and "this thing exists" has compressed in a drastic way. Here's a photo of one of our Mac minis - home to a whole agency of AI agents we've built out: Buttons, Billie, Buzz, Banjo, Boggles, Blazer. Bonus points if you can guess which one does what. :) If you want to talk about any of this, what it looks like in practice, what's worked, what's been a disaster just hit me up. I could talk about it for hours. Fair warning. #AI #ClaudeCode #OpenClaw #AIAgents #DigitalTransformation #AgentRestive #Restive
-
Stuart Oliver posted thisBack in the day the internet would go out at work and we’d pack up and go home… 🛜 Now I get this error message ⚠️ API rate limit reached — the model couldn’t generate a response. Please try again in a moment Andddd pack up and go home. 🫠 #AI #ClaudeCode #OpenClaw #anthropic #FutureOfWork
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisAt the Data & AI Summit in Sydney today. The stat that was repeatedly quoted: 80% of AI POCs never reach production. A few themes threads from the day :→ Boards want AI now, but for many the data foundation is not ready, nor does the governance exist. → The orgs doing well have built guardrails into the architecture - red teaming, adversarial stress testing, AI harnesses. Designed in, not bolted on → Trust was the thread.. When AI is making decisions at scale, people need to be able to understand reasoning and have transparency to be able to trust and challenge those decisions. Some numbers and stats: →85 million jobs will be lost to AI in the next 12 months. 92 million created.Net positive on paper. But those aren't the same jobs held by the same people. →Only 1 in 10 Australian orgs has an ethical AI policy. Someone is making decisions about acceptable error rates. Usually without most people in the organisation knowing. Clear challenges ahead but the orgs adopting and investing now will be a long way ahead when it matters.
-
Stuart Oliver shared thisAmazon. Temu. Shein. They already account for ~25–30% of Australian online retail. By 2026, it could be over a third. Most retailers are still treating this like competition. It’s not. It’s a shift. The brands I’m speaking to aren’t panicking. They’re rebuilding around what these players can’t replicate, local trust, seamless experience and real loyalty. The rest are stuck on legacy stacks, fragmented data and slow execution, and it’s showing up in conversion. We’ve mapped 15 trends already shaping where this goes next. We’ve broken it down in our 2026 retail report. Worth 10 minutes if this is on your radar: https://lnkd.in/g8GSirtZ #UnifiedCommerce #RetailStrategy #AustralianRetail #EcommerceStuart Oliver shared this36% of Australia's online retail market is on track to be captured by Amazon, Temu and Shein in 2026. That's a significant shift, and it's prompting smart retailers to rethink their commerce strategy now. We've put together a free report on the 15 trends reshaping Australian retail this year. AI personalisation, omnichannel fulfilment, social commerce, recommerce and more. Real examples, real data, clear actions. If unified commerce is on your radar for 2026, this report is for you. Get the free report: https://lnkd.in/g8GSirtZ #AustralianRetail #UnifiedCommerce #RetailStrategy #Ecommerce #RetailTech
Stuart Oliver replied to a comment
1mo
Absolutely agree Gavin. I believe the storefront of the future will look very different over the next few years. We're already trialling some of these concepts today and it's interesting to see how quickly things are evolving. Product data is becoming just as important for AI agents as it is for human customers.
-
Stuart Oliver liked thisStuart Oliver liked thisMost of a dev's week runs on the same loop; pick up a Jira ticket, read the acceptance criteria, write the components, add the tests, open a PR, wait for review, then do it again. A decent chunk of that is mechanical, and it starts to eat away at the hours you'd rather spend on the problems that are hard. So one of our engineers, Gim Yong, wired Jira, the Cursor SDK and GitHub into one workflow. It reads the ticket, proposes an approach, and tells you exactly which files it wants to touch, but nothing gets written until a human approves the plan. Gimyong has written a blog post on how he built the agentic Jira to PR workflow, and how it changed his week > https://lnkd.in/g3f-z868 #AgenticAI #SoftwareEngineering #DeveloperProductivity #AI #EngineeringLeadership
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisI've earned my Claude Certified Architect credential at the Foundations level, the first step in the Architect track. This credential validates the skills to design, build, and deliver production-grade AI solutions with Claude. #ClaudeCertified #Restive #AIClaude Certified Architect - Foundations was issued by Anthropic to Quan Minh Hoang.Claude Certified Architect - Foundations was issued by Anthropic to Quan Minh Hoang.
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisExcited to share that I have earned my Claude Certified Architect credential at the Foundations level, the first step in the Architect track. This credential validates the skills to design, build, and deliver production-grade AI solutions with Claude. A huge thank you to Restive for sponsoring this certification and supporting continuous learning. By the way, we have open roles for Senior/Mid-level Java engineers based in Melbourne. If you are interested in working with cutting-edge technologies and building impactful products, check out the hiring link in the comments or reach out to me directly. #ClaudeCertified #Anthropic #AIArchitecture #Hiring #TechCareersClaude Certified Architect - Foundations was issued by Anthropic to Dai Thach Do.Claude Certified Architect - Foundations was issued by Anthropic to Dai Thach Do.
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisAfter almost 10 years, I've made the decision to leave KPMG. It's hard to summarise a decade in a few lines, but I'll try. I've had the privilege of working alongside genuinely talented and generous people. Colleagues who taught me, challenged me, and became friends along the way. Together, we built things I'm proud of: work that was much bigger than a report that sat on a shelf, together we built algorithms, and data platforms, that continues to make a difference and genuenly benefit the nation. I'm grateful for the trust that was placed in me, for the opportunities to grow, and for the platform to do work that mattered. Ten years is a long time, and it's shaped how I think, lead, and show up. I'll carry that forward into my next adventure. To everyone I worked with, thank you. It's been an honour.
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisI was proud to collaborate with Dr Mohammad Azam Ali and the School of Business Studies, IBA Karachi Life Design Lab team on this last Saturday. It was a practical showcase of blending design thinking with rapid experimentation: explore possibilities, challenge assumptions, build something, test it, learn and try again. Thank you to Qimam for the opportunity to work with such an inspiring group of young leaders. Alberto SavoiaStuart Oliver reacted on thisWhat if we approached our lives the way designers approach a challenge — with curiosity, experimentation, and a willingness to explore? 💡 IBA Life Design Lab was delighted to bring Designing Your Zindagi (DYZ) creating an interactive learning experience around curiosity, conversations, design thinking and dreams. The journey began with Unlocking the Designer Mindset — from completing 30 Circles in 30 Seconds to exploring and listing 10 different ways we define success, or have heard success defined by others. These activities encouraged participants to challenge assumptions, think beyond familiar patterns and open themselves to new possibilities. The Career Imagination Design Sprint then took participants on a “Time Travel – Back to 9th Grade.” Stepping into the shoes of a 9th grader, teams worked as researchers to uncover the biggest pain points that may have limited or narrowed their career imagination at that stage — before identifying the two most important challenges to take forward into the design sprint. Through DYZ Talk — the story of a once 9th grader to CEO, participants saw how a career journey can evolve beyond what we might initially imagine for ourselves. They then moved from insight to action, brainstorming around one central design challenge: “How might we help a 9th grader imagine a wider range of career possibilities in a way that feels relevant, safe and exciting?” The experience reinforced an important life-design lesson: we don’t always need to have everything figured out before we begin. #DesigningYourZindagi #Qimam #IBALifeDesignLab #LifeDesign #DesignThinking Abeera Tariq Mohammad Azam Ali Muhammad Asghar Azmi Leslie Barry Muhammed Mekki #DesigningYourZindagi #Qimam #IBALifeDesignLab #LifeDesign #DesignThinking
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on this🥳 After 6+ incredible years, I’ve decided it’s time to log off from Google. What a ride it’s been. From partnering with the region's largest brands to help build our Retail vertical from the ground up, to building and scaling our Startups & Scaleups business, and ultimately leading the AI business across ANZ during the most chaotic, exciting shift in tech history—it’s been a genuine privilege. More than the tech itself, it’s the work we did together that made it special. We partnered with visionary customers to turn complex hype into actual, grounded business value. We built phenomenal, high-conviction teams that punched well above their weight every single day, creating a fantastic and resilient business along the way. None of that happens without the brilliant folks in the trenches—huge thanks to the team, our partners, and the tremendous leaders who made this possible. Thank you Gary Denman, Alister Dias, Helen Stewart, Paul Migliorini, Dale Finlay, Oliver Parker, Karan Bajwa, Harsha Konduri, James Benson, Sebastian Henrici, Nick Diamond, Angela Coronica, Matt Pancino, Matthew Zwolenski, Michael Bill, Courtney McWatt, David Thiessen and many more for the debates, the big wins, the occasional sanity checks and above all, your support. For now, I’m taking a breather to unplug, spend time with the family, and tinker with a few personal passion projects (and maybe appreciate what a calendar without back-to-back meetings looks like). I won’t stay away from the arena for too long, but until then—thank you to everyone who made this chapter unforgettable. See you all out there soon! ❤️ 🏌♂️
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisFamilies lose hours (and peace of mind) hunting for documents when it matters most - insurance claims, medical emergencies, estate admin. We just helped a Sydney start-up fix that. In 6 months, we built their AI-powered life admin platform from the ground up: AWS Bedrock automatically reads and categorises documents across licenses, insurance, medical, legal and financial, while allowing users to stay firmly in control. Shipped as a single React Native codebase, secured with end-to-end encryption and household-level permissions, and ready on day one for 2,000 customers migrating in from a competitor. The Restive team delivered production-grade AI, without cutting corners on security or user trust. Read the full case study here: https://lnkd.in/gQ_hmGqr #AI #ProductDevelopment #StartupBuilding #AWS
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisI've been working on codifying how we go from high-quality, company-relevant idea generation, rather than just general AI ideas, through to creating and defining the full Lean Canvas, Pretotyping capability, hypothesis, and experiment design. It's now working really well. I tested it live with Gemba last week during a workshop for pre- and post-workshop setup, and I just wanted to share what it's producing. We can now compress three or four hours of workshop time per idea into a quick start for high-quality idea generation and high-quality experiment generation. I'll be sharing more on this soon. This was all generated using the Rapidly MCP for Claude or ChatGPT/Codex, which is now live, and I'll make it available soon so it can be deployed at scale. This is really helping us move faster from ideation to validation and focus more on working with the humans in the room to manage our exploding portfolio of product ideas. ** These are not real ideas from the workshop. They are simulated ideas just to demo how this works. 🙏 I'm looking for beta testers for the MCP. If you're interested, just drop a message below. Thanks. Alberto Savoia Claus Berthou Madsen Evert Eero Tim Vang David Bland Patrick Smith Dan McMahon
-
Stuart Oliver reacted on thisStuart Oliver reacted on thisFrom an idea in an SMS to a world first all-in-one Res, Voice AI and Functions product in a year. This is easily our biggest launch since we started. I am super proud for so many reasons, here are a few. Took a bet on ourselves. A year ago, we were very lucky to have a few of Australia’s most AI-forward engineers eager to build something significant. Not simple workflow automation tool, a module or a widget - they wanted to create a product that could be as big as, if not bigger than our core order & pay business. At the time, we couldn’t find examples of scale ups doing this - instead of waiting for others to prove it out, we made the bet and started early, before we could confidently say it was risk-free. AI has changed SaaS - unit economics, roles and team structure - we wanted to disrupt ourselves from ‘in the tent’, so we could apply first hand learnings to the way we build products at me&u. Thank you to Luca Bonelli and Ryan Hendler for being the first believers and to Jordon Hughes, Miguel De Andrade, Ben Fragiacomo and Ben Friebe for turning the bet into a genuinely impressive product. And to Stefan Kovacevic for being our day 1 GTM whizz and hype guy. We remained profitable. We wanted to prove it out without raising further capital so we could keep it stealth - we funded the build of this massive product out of revenue and continued to be profitable. It’s taken a significant amount of discipline to achieve this, big thank you to the leadership team and everyone at me&u. New standard for collaboration between the incredibly entrepreneurial team at me&u + co-design customer partners who have contributed hundreds of hours and whose belief never wavered. I have had the privilege of being on daily stand-ups, witnessing insanely fast iteration cycles, thinking about problems from first principles with a team of product, eng, sales and customers has been so cool. It has felt like a startup all over again. I’ve loved the collaboration - thank you so much to Solotel, Artemus Group and others we will name soon. Special shoutout to Elliot Solomon for the video. “If it works at Aria, it’ll work anywhere.” 🙏 Check out the full marketing video and customer interview: https://lnkd.in/g7piSzbQ Forbes Australia article: https://lnkd.in/g7-QwTeN
Experience & Education
Other similar profiles
Explore more posts
-
CroftCorp
Why IT Feels Complicated (And How to Simplify It!) As a trusted IT partner supporting businesses across South East QLD we’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself, technology feels complicated when it’s being managed reactively. After years of helping organisations simplify their systems, eliminate avoidable downtime, and gain full visibility over their IT environment one thing has become clear, complexity disappears when prevention becomes the priority. If you're a business owner, you've probably asked yourself why technology feels so complicated? The truth is IT isn’t meant to be confusing. It’s meant to make your business run smoother, faster, and safer. But when technology becomes reactive instead of proactive, it quickly turns into a source of disruption. At its core, effective IT management comes down to one principle - Prevention over Reaction. Instead of waiting for something to break, a prevention first approach builds resilient systems that stop issues from happening in the first place. The key? Planning and structure. When you know which areas of your technology are critical and you have visibility and governance around them everything becomes more manageable. This proactive mindset shapes how we support teams, select tools, strengthen security, and maintain operations. Good IT isn't about putting out fires, it’s about making sure those fires never start. When your technology is stable, predictable, and well-managed; your business can focus on what truly matters, growth. Read more about how to structure your business IT here: https://lnkd.in/guFBwfg5
Explore collaborative articles
We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
Explore More