Australia’s use of AI is growing faster than its foundations

New SAP 'Value of AI' research shows that Australian organisations have spent the past year completing ever more tasks with AI, and they expect its role to expand again over the next two years. But while organisations appear to be matching enthusiasm with investment, there remain fundamental foundations that need to be strengthened.

For example, the research identifies governance and clear ownership as critical areas requiring attention. In fact, that need is becoming more urgent as governments around the world tighten expectations for how AI is governed, with new European regulations and Australia’s evolving focus on accountability, risk management and human oversight, placing risk and compliance teams at the centre of responsible AI adoption.

Together, these internal and external pressures make strong governance essential to scaling AI securely and sustainably.

“So long as AI is just handling a limited number of tasks in a handful of teams, imperfect data and informal oversight is survivable,” explains Rachel Hunter, new Head of AI, at SAP Australia and New Zealand. “Once it supports a third of the work and climbing it becomes operating infrastructure, and it attracts the same expectations as any other system the business depends on.”

This becomes particularly important as AI adoption expands to include agents. Agentic AI tools can act independently, increasing both their potential impact and the importance of strong controls. A model that produces a poor answer may cost someone an hour of manual correction; an agent that takes a poor action can commit the business to it. Organisations that build the right oversight around these tools will be better placed to capture their value while mitigating the new risks they introduce.

“Organisations pursuing AI strategies at enterprise-scale face two challenges at once: risk that moves faster than most governance frameworks can keep up with, and value that is hard to measure than expected." continues Hunter. 

Hunter further describes the local trends as “improving, but still not working to its potential.” With an estimated AU$150 billion of AI-related infrastructure investment promised over coming years, she sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn national AI confidence into competitive advantage.

The research also highlights where the greatest opportunity lies. Conducted by Oxford Economics for SAP across 2,600 businesses in 13 countries, including 200 in Australia, it shows that most Australian AI investment is still deployed one project at a time. Because individual project budgets rarely cover enterprise-wide data quality or governance, this essential work can fall between owners. Giving those foundations clear funding and accountability would help organisations translate a strong AI strategy into sustainable enterprise value.

SAP’s answer to that is what it calls the Autonomous Enterprise, where AI is connected to the systems, data and processes already running the business so that context and controls travel with every decision an agent makes – all underpinned by human oversight. It treats the foundations as the thing that makes AI investment pay.

The investment case is holding up

The business case for AI is strengthening. SAP’s research shows that AI now supports 29 per cent of tasks in the average Australian business, up from 25 per cent a year ago, and leaders expect that figure to reach 48 per cent within two years. Average spend has risen from AU$27.5 million to AU$35.5 million, with a further 44 per cent increase forecast.

Returns have followed, climbing from 15 per cent last year to 20 per cent this year and forecast to reach 37 per cent within two years. Almost two thirds of Australian organisations report being satisfied with what their investment is delivering.

Agentic ambition, meanwhile, is running ahead of understanding. Two thirds of Australian businesses have already piloted agentic use cases and expectations of the returns available have more than quadrupled in a year. Yet fewer than half report a clear, shared understanding of what agentic AI means for their organisation.

Strong foundations can unlock the next wave of value

Australian leaders rank data availability and quality as a fundamental enabler of AI readiness, with 77 per cent calling it very important or critical. Only 58 per cent consider their organisation data ready, down from 64 per cent last year, and data issues remain the single largest reason Australian organisations are struggling to drive greater value from AI. Readiness is thinnest where the consequences are heaviest, at 33 per cent in finance and 23 per cent in legal and risk.

Governance presents an equally important opportunity for progress. Currently, just 11 per cent of Australian organisations feel their skills are fully ready to govern AI effectively, and nine per cent say the same of their processes and frameworks. Every Australian respondent working with agentic AI reported at least one issue with its adoption; almost half have had agents take incorrect actions, and 43 per cent are running agentic workflows with no human in the loop. Together, these findings give leaders a clear mandate to strengthen skills, oversight and human accountability as adoption scales.

For Hunter, the answer is to strengthen data foundations, governance frameworks and leadership structures alongside the deployments themselves. Without that, she warns, Australia risks “building the rails for an AI economy without being ready to run on them and that's exactly what we're focused on changing.”

Leadership structures can now catch up with the strategy

Strategic coordination is the next step in turning AI momentum into enterprise value. Almost half of Australian organisations still prioritise AI investment piecemeal, while 12 per cent take a strategic approach across the business. Only 16 per cent currently have more end-to-end cross-functional deployments than single-use capabilities, but organisations expect that figure to reach 42 per cent within two years.

Two thirds have a defined AI strategy aligned to business goals, while fewer than half have appointed a designated AI leader and a third tie executive KPIs to AI adoption. Strategy without ownership tends to remain strategy.

The workforce opportunity follows the same pattern. More than eight in ten Australian respondents are unconvinced their upskilling efforts are keeping pace with the tools, and uneven AI literacy ranks as their leading workforce concern. Close to 80 per cent recognise that creating value from AI requires more than technical training, pointing to a broader opportunity to redesign roles and workflows so people can work effectively alongside AI.

For SAP, each of these gaps points back to the same fix.

“Realising real value from AI demands a new approach,” Hunter said. “Businesses, large and small, will need to connect AI to the data and processes that run their organisations, and make sure it has the context and governance to drive trusted results. That’s what we call the Autonomous Enterprise.”

Australian organisations have the confidence, investment momentum and ambition to lead the next phase of enterprise AI. The opportunity now is to match that ambition with connected data, trusted governance and clear leadership. SAP will bring the research findings and the Autonomous Enterprise model tAP NOW AI Tour ANZ in Sydney on 12 o life with Australian business and technology leaders at SAugust. Registration is open now!

Read the SAP Value of AI Report 2026 and learn more about SAP’s vision for the Autonomous Enterprise.