Cristina Spratt, president of the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce, chairs the National Coalition for Caymanians government's Digital Transformation Strategy Task Force. She gave the update in her address at the Chamber's Parliamentary Luncheon at the Kimpton Seafire on 9 October 2026. The Premier gave the keynote speech at the same event, which the Chamber said had sold out. The task force was launched on 6 October 2025 with what Spratt then called "a six-month timeframe" to deliver guidance to government.

The report is meant to shape how government uses artificial intelligence, data, digital identity and cybersecurity, and how residents and businesses deal with government online. Premier André Ebanks told Parliament on 6 March that government aims to bring forward draft AI legislation by the second quarter of 2027, according to IFC Review's report of that sitting.

What Spratt told the luncheon

Spratt said she would not pre-empt the report itself. "Allow me to give you a brief update of our work without pre-empting the report's final submission to government," she said. "We look forward to formally presenting the work in the following days."

According to the same IFC Review report, the Premier told Parliament the task force had been set up "to provide expert advice and coordinated leadership on the opportunities and the challenges as we approach digital transformation in the country, including the responsible use of AI across government and the wider economy".

"AI is developing at a phenomenal pace," the Premier said in the same sitting, according to IFC Review. "We must therefore act in a way that both safeguards the health, safety and fundamental rights of Caymanians and enables responsible innovation that improves public services and strengthens our economy." IFC Review reported that the task force was then expected to deliver its recommendations by the end of May.

Spratt said the task force's work had "confirmed that digital transformation is not simply an information technology exercise". She said: "It affects how businesses interact with government, how residents access essential services, how personal information is protected, how our people prepare for the future of work and how Cayman remains competitive."

She said Cayman already had "many of the necessary building blocks", listing "established institutions, data protection legislation, expanding online services, digital identity initiatives, modern telecommunications, and considerable experience in regulation, compliance, and cybersecurity". She added: "The principal challenge is connecting those strengths."

Ownership, systems, people and phasing

She said four themes had emerged from the work. The first was ownership. "Cayman needs clear national coordination and accountability," she said. "Responsibility is distributed across several institutions, but every significant initiative must have a clear, identified owner, understood dependencies, and measurable outcomes."

The second was that "digital government, data, identity, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity must be treated as connected parts of the same system". She said: "Better technology will not produce better services unless the underlying information is reliable, the systems can work together securely, and the public has confidence in how they are used."

The third was people. "Digital skills and training must connect to real employment, career progression, and knowledge transfer," she said. "At the same time, essential services must remain accessible to people who need assistance or cannot use a digital channel independently."

The fourth was phasing. "The answer is not to launch every possible program at once," she said. "Instead, establish clear ownership, assess capacity and cost, put appropriate safeguards in place, and expand initiatives only when they demonstrate public value."

She said the decision on what to adopt rests with ministers. "Consultation does not require government to accept every recommendation," she said. "Elected leaders remain responsible for policy, funding, and implementation. But private sector experience can strengthen the evidence, identify practical obstacles, and reduce the risk of costly mistakes." She added: "The decision on adoption and implementation properly belongs to government. Our responsibility was to provide an independent, practical, and evidence-informed perspective."

What AI asks of workers, employers and government

Spratt put AI at the centre of what she asked of workers, employers and government. Employees, she said, must be "prepared to learn, adapt, and build the skills required in a workplace being transformed by artificial intelligence, automation, and new business models". Employers should invest "in technology, training, succession, and Caymanian advancement, rather than relying on familiar ways of operating". She said: "Employees cannot assume that today's skills will remain sufficient for tomorrow's work." She said the Chamber already ran programmes to build those skills, naming the Chamber Training Centre, Leadership Cayman, Mentoring Cayman, Junior Achievement, the Careers Expo and Vo-Tech Stars, and asked members to "invest in your people, use our training programs, become a mentor".

Of the public service, she said the questions now facing private companies should be asked of government too. "Are responsibilities duplicated? Can processes be simplified? Can technology reduce repetitive work? Are agencies sharing reliable information? Is performance being measured by outcomes or mainly by activity?" she said. "A leaner government is not simply a government with fewer people. It is one that has clear priorities, removes duplication, uses technology responsibly, makes decisions promptly and directs people and money to the services that matter most."

She said the choice facing Cayman was between replacing people and augmenting them. "That distinction between replacing people and augmenting their abilities is central to the conversation Cayman must now have about technology, productivity, and the future of work," she said.

She proposed what she called "a national productivity compact". Under it, she said, government "should commit to simpler services, quicker decisions, better data, disciplined spending, and transparent measurement", employers to "investment, innovation, Caymanian development, responsible recruitment, and meaningful workforce planning", and employees to "adaptability, continuing education, accountability, and high performance".

She tied the same test to a Government Accountability Scorecard the Chamber is building to track ministries' stated priorities against results. She said it would also relate those priorities to the Chamber's three advocacy pillars: "sustaining economic success, building a future-ready workforce, and advancing the quality of life". Among the questions she said it should answer were: "Are public services becoming faster and more accessible? Are training programs leading to employment and career progression?" The measures chosen must be "meaningful, verifiable, and consistently updatable", she said, and the Chamber would work with ministries, the Economics and Statistics Office and public agencies to select them. "We must distinguish between activity and outcomes," she said. "Announcing a policy, establishing a committee, or launching a program tells us that something has started. It does not in itself tell us whether conditions have improved."

On public spending, she said major projects should not be launched without their full running costs being known. "Before launching a major project, we should know its total cost of ownership: not only construction or procurement, but staffing, maintenance, cybersecurity, insurance, upgrades, and eventual replacement," she said.

An address prepared with ChatGPT

Spratt opened the address by saying she had used AI to prepare it. "I used artificial intelligence, an LLM, ChatGPT to be specific, an authorized paid version that my company has for me to use," she said. "This technology helped me organize my ideas, test how they might be expressed, and improve the clarity of my message. But these are my thoughts, topics that as a Chamber of Commerce we discuss and we advocate for. I decided what belonged, what needed to change, and what I was ultimately prepared to stand here and say for myself. AI did not replace my judgment. It helped me apply that judgment more productively."

She asked the audience not to dismiss work because AI was involved. "We do not dismiss an analysis because a spreadsheet performed the calculations," she said. "And we do not dismiss an architect's work if design software helped produce the plans. The same consideration should be had with using an LLM. The real questions are whether the technology was used responsibly, whether human judgment was applied, and whether the person presenting the work understands it and accepts responsibility."

She said the same need for coordination applied to Cayman's preparation for the fifth round of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force mutual evaluation, which she said was scheduled for 2027. Protecting Cayman's anti-money-laundering progress "requires effective implementation, reliable data, properly resourced supervision, and strong cooperation among government, regulators, and industry", she said.

How the task force was set up

The task force was announced by the Premier at the Grand Cayman Marriott on 6 October 2025. "We are in an exciting time in the Cayman Islands, and this will affect every facet of society," he said at the launch, according to the government's release. Isaac Rankine, Minister for Social Development and Innovation, whose ministry acts as the task force's secretariat, told members their work "will help ensure that our transformation is guided by accountability".

At the launch Spratt said the group was "working to a six-month timeframe to deliver guidance and takeaways for Government to consider", the release said. "Each of us brings unique expertise and perspective, and it is this diversity of skills and viewpoints that will make our work both meaningful and impactful," she said then.

The task force has nine members drawn from the private sector. Alongside Spratt they are Jeff Goddard, Kaitlyn Elphinstone, Jason Nehra, Alexandra Forssell, Lucy Frew, Tamsin Deasey-Weinstein, Lucia Gallardo and James McFee, according to the government. Its work is organised under three pillars set out in the government's launch release. The first, digital trust, is to build "a secure, resilient and trusted 'digital backbone'" through data governance, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity and digital identity. The second, intelligence and transformation, is to "harness artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies to modernise Government, empower business innovation and build a future-ready workforce". The third, digital assets and economic growth, covers "the responsible adoption of digital assets, tokenisation, and emerging financial technologies".

At the launch the Premier said: "Digital transformation is the next logical step and, as we have done with financial services, we'll proceed with prudency and yet pace," according to Cayman Independent's report of the ceremony. In January, Rankine told the Chamber's Economic Forum about the launch of the Cayman Digital ID, which the Chamber's own account of the event described as a step towards improving access to services.

Its final public engagement was a series of surveys that closed on 17 May 2026, including a business survey the Chamber promoted to its members as "the final phase of the Task Force's stakeholder engagement". Announcing them, Spratt said: "We are now at a pivotal moment in this process. As we move into the final phase of our work, these surveys give us the opportunity to listen, at scale, to the voices of our country."

Deasey-Weinstein, who leads the task force's AI strand, told Cayman Independent in May that she had spoken to governments and technology professionals in the UK, Estonia and Singapore to inform the work, and that her reading of meetings with government was that ministers "are fully on board".

Spratt is a former country manager for Flow in Cayman and founded Tidal Edge Consulting, the Cayman Compass reported when the task force was launched.

Government has not announced a date for receiving the report, said whether it will be published in full, or set out when it will respond to its recommendations. The recommendations are advisory; Spratt said adoption rests with elected leaders.