Despite high expectations of artificial intelligence (AI), only 17% of Australian businesses have officially implemented AI or AI-enhanced tools to support employees with their work, according to a new HubSpot report.

The research found that while organisation-wide adoption is low in Australia, individual use of AI is high, with over half (51%) of business leaders reporting that they personally use AI to support them with their work.

Not having proper guidelines and policies for safe use (37%) and concerns relating to data privacy and compliance (36%) and data quality (36%) were among the top reasons businesses haven’t started using AI yet.

This has led to a lack of clarity and transparency in the contribution of AI in organisational outputs, with 59% of businesses lacking visibility into how much of their output is AI versus human-generated. 

HubSpot vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific and Japan, Dan Bognar (pictured) said, “Generative AI is a disruptive shift that has the potential to transform how businesses market, sell to and service their customers. However, in Australia, adoption is falling short of expectations.

“To bridge the gap between personal and business usage, organisations must connect AI to the data and tools that workers actually use, while setting clear policies for responsible usage. Beyond that, investing in training and implementing proper measurement frameworks will be crucial for organisations to accurately track AI’s business impact.”

Leaders that track and measure the impact of AI are significantly more likely to report business and workforce benefits than those that don’t. These include increased productivity (77%), increased efficiency (74%) and increased revenue (62%). Employees in these organisations also have higher wellbeing and are happier overall. In comparison, leaders that don’t have formal tracking in place still report benefits from AI use, but on a smaller scale. These include 61% increased productivity, 66% increased efficiency and only 33% increased revenue.

However, over two-thirds of business leaders don’t have the systems in place to measure the impact of AI usage. A lack of guidelines or knowing what to measure, visibility, and relevant talent and skill sets were cited as the top challenges to achieving this.

A need for workforce upskilling

Heads of AI are on the rise, and thanks to the accessible nature of generative AI, leaders in non-technology-led roles, like business and marketing, are taking on the responsibility. 

As AI adoption grows, so will the demand for AI-related roles. In fact, 81% of business leaders expect their organisation to hire more roles to support AI rollout and implementation. Business leaders in New South Wales have the highest average planned AI investment at approximately $48,000 over the next year; almost double that of Victoria.

Additionally, only 14% of business leaders plan on using free AI tools over the next 12 months. However, while 69% of business leaders expect their organisation to employ a Head of AI in the next year, for organisation-wide adoption and usage to increase there must be clear pathways for AI to be implemented into everyday processes. 

Beyond this, there is a growing recognition of the need to adapt existing workforces through upskilling or reskilling.  As AI use matures, businesses will begin to identify opportunities for automation, empowering AI to undertake labour intensive tasks enabling the human workforce to use this new freed capacity to take on more strategic work.

This is likely to have a positive impact on job satisfaction and employee well-being. Almost two thirds (64%) of Australian business leaders have plans to restructure or redeploy their workforce as AI is used more frequently in their work. Increased AI adoption will also help to level the playing field, ensuring SMBs can compete with largescale workforces.  

“In Australia, we are seeing increased demand for AI-skilled workers as businesses look to better incorporate this technology into their everyday processes. This is particularly prevalent in the financial services, professional services and IT sectors. Furthermore, PwC research suggests that as AI adoption in these industries grows, job growth is expected to slow. This indicates a need for workers to develop new skills to adapt to the changing job landscape,” Bognar said.