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Lenovo has released its third CIO Playbook, and it looks like Australia is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world in harnessing artificial intelligence.
While the rest of the world, and even the Asia-Pacific region, is rushing to integrate artificial intelligence into their business processes, Australia and New Zealand are lagging, presenting a real risk to the productivity of the two nations.
AI is certainly on the table, particularly when it comes to business innovation and decision making, as well as combating cyber threats. Fifty-eight per cent of enterprises in the ANZ region either have no plans in place yet for AI or have only begun to plan to roll out AI in the next 12 months.
This is according to Lenovo’s CIO Playbook 2025 - It’s Time for AI-nomics, released yesterday (18 March) in Sydney by Lenovo’s Australian leadership team.
Speaking of the region’s uptake of AI, Silke Barlow (pictured, second from right) – general manager of Lenovo Australia – laid things out bluntly.
“How do we fare? In a nutshell, we’re too slow,” Barlow said.
“Why is that concerning? Well, in one word, productivity. Australia does have a productivity problem. If you look at the last Bulletin of the Productivity Commission in December, productivity in Australia shrank 4.8 per cent again in the year leading up to September last year.
“Digital technologies, including AI, can be a key opportunity to reverse that trend. Now, for us to be slow in the adoption is a missed opportunity. There’s a huge, huge opportunity for us to change this trend, but we need to move fast and adopt this now.”
One of the things that appears to be holding ANZ enterprises back is a matter of priorities. Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, organisations rank productivity gains as the number two priority for AI uptake, with regulatory compliance ranked as the most important issue.
In the ANZ region, boosting productivity ranks fifth, while improving regulatory compliance ranks fourth.
According to Barlow, there are three things currently holding Australia and New Zealand back.
“The first one is skill shortage – in Australia, as in many other places in the world, there is a skill shortage, especially when it comes to very specialised technologies,” Barlow said.
“The second thing is inadequate regulation – again, Australia is not the fastest when it comes to AI regulatory frameworks, so there’s a real uncertainty in the market, and it’s a very emotional topic.
“AI is a powerful tool – it can be used to do a lot of good, but it can also do a lot of harm. So having a lack of certainty around the regulatory framework is not supporting the adoption of AI.
“And then there’s inadequate funding by the government. When you compare the money that Australia puts behind the adoption of AI technologies, it is ridiculously low compared to what other markets do. And again, that is not good.”
The risks to a company falling behind on adoption are quite real, and even troubling on an individual basis.
“The concept that people are going to lose their jobs to AI is probably not the right way to think about it,” said Scott Tease (pictured, right), VP of Lenovo’s products, Infrastructure Solutions Group.
“You’re more likely to lose your job to a person that you’re eating against that is using AI. So, a civil engineer who is just a good civil engineer will likely not be able to keep up with a civil engineer who is supplementing their capabilities with AI. And the same with doctors, the same with radiologists and all these other skills.”
The issue, Barlow said, comes back to productivity.
“You need to look at the different types of AI – there’s the AI that helps you be more productive, and if, as a company, you’re not productive, then you can’t compete, you’re at a disadvantage,” Barlow said.
“AI, in itself, is not a strategy. You have to have your supply chain strategy supported by AI; you have to have your marketing strategy supported by AI; you have to use these tools to stay in the game.
“For the everyday company, you know, using AI … if you don’t use it, you lose.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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