Aussie organisations falling behind on AI adoption

While Australian organisations show promising signs of AI investment, they are not using it to the same degree as other leaders around the globe, nor to its full potential, new research from Deloitte has shown.

According to big four firm Deloitte’s new 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise: The Untapped Edge report, Australian businesses lag behind their global counterparts in AI adoption standards.

Over 3,000 leaders involved in AI decision making for their company, ranging from director to C-suite level, were surveyed for the report, which revealed that businesses are struggling to move beyond AI introduction to full-scale production, and only 65 per cent of Australian respondents are planning to increase AI investment in the next financial year, almost 20 per cent lower than the global average.

However, Australia isn’t alone in the pilot-production crevasse, with only a 3 per cent difference between Australian and international respondents who have moved AI pilots into production.

At this stage, company appears to be the determining factor, with both parties also expecting to reach production levels with AI within the next three to six months.

Australia does lag in assisted productivity use – while 61 per cent of Australian respondents reported that AI improved efficiency and productivity, one-third remain focused on AI automation for existing processes.

The report follows similar findings from big four rival PwC last month, whose research showed that Australian CEOs are trailing their counterparts overseas in attracting AI talent.

According to Deloitte, the real potential of AI lies in the strategic differentiation and competitive edge achieved from experimentation and reimagination of what is possible for business.

National AI market lead David Alonso highlighted that Australian leaders must “stop treating AI as isolated use cases, and make the enterprise-wide decisions that turn ambition into a repeatable capability and scale AI across products, services and operations”.

Australia also lags in agentic AI, with just over half of Australian companies claiming talent and skills gaps prevent widespread adoption, and just over 40 per cent blame cost and technology or data availability.

In addition, only 22 per cent of Australian companies use an advanced model for agent governance – the very thing that, according to Deloitte, turns intent into growth.

In addition, the report suggested that company success stemmed from building integration at the same level of governance capability.

Deloitte’s APAC Trustworthy AI leader, Dr Elea Wurth, said: “When systems can decide and act, organisations must embed real risk management – clear accountability, guardrails, and intervention points – into agentic workflows.

“That’s how trust is maintained as autonomy scales.”

While Australia doesn’t exhibit a difference in the early stage to mid-levels of AI adoption, it continues to fall behind when considering long-term intention and investment. And the results match this – only 12 per cent of Australian participants report that generative AI is transforming their business and industry, compared to a combined global figure of 25 per cent.

Perhaps the key for Australian leaders will be in to find a way to move with the times while making choices appropriate for their organisation.

According to Stuart Scotis, national leader for technology, innovation, and GenAI at Deloitte Australia, closing this gap can be achieved. He said: “Leaders need to move beyond incremental improvements and single use cases, and rethink how work is done in a world of abundant digital labour.”