Our annual GRAZIA Game Changers initiative celebrates bold ambition and fearless innovation. These are the people reshaping industries, communities, and culture—one daring move at a time.
Here, meet Christel Buchanan, who founded AI superapp ChatAndBuild and invented a new class of intelligent digital assets known as Non‑Fungible Agents. She’s redefining what it means to build, create, and interact with AI.
In your opinion, what’s one risk every Game Changer must be willing to take?
A true Game Changer has to be willing to risk being early. History shows that the people who truly change things are often misunderstood at the beginning. When the Wright brothers first talked about powered flight, many thought that the idea was absurd. The same was true when the first computers were built—most people believed that only governments or scientists would ever need one. When you’re doing something genuinely new, it’s a bit like trying to describe a colour no one has ever seen.
The risk every Game Changer must take is the willingness to build the future before the world fully understands it—and to keep going long enough for that future to become obvious.
What’s the boldest decision you’ve made in your career?
That would be choosing to build ChatAndBuild around a simple but radical idea: that software should be something people can create simply by describing it in plain language. For decades, building technology was like entering a cathedral that only a small group of people knew how to navigate. You had to learn the language, understand the architecture and spend years training before you could participate. But every major technological shift has opened the doors wider—the printing press allowed more people to publish ideas; the internet allowed more people to communicate.
I believe that artificial intelligence is doing something even more profound—it’s allowing more people to create technology itself. So the boldest decision I’ve made was committing to that vision early and building a platform around the belief that the next interface for software is conversation.
What does being a “Game Changer” mean to you?
To me, a Game Changer is someone who changes who gets to participate.
If you look at history, the most important innovations weren’t just clever inventions—they shifted access. The printing press gave ordinary people access to knowledge. Electricity transformed how societies function. The internet allowed billions of people to connect and publish. Being a Game Changer isn’t about building something impressive—it’s about creating systems that allow more people to contribute, create, and shape the world.
Each of these moments expanded the circle. I think of it as building new doors into a room that was once closed. The real impact comes when people walk through those doors and begin creating things you never could have imagined.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photography Joel Low
Creative Direction Kelly Hsu
Styling Marisa Xin
Hair Sveta Klyn/The Suburbs Studio, using Goldwell
Makeup Kat Zhang/ The Suburbs Studio, using Armani Beauty
Producer Cheryl Lai-Lim
Photography assistant Eddie Teo
Fashion assistant Nur Hazwani
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