3 biggest AI questions for Australian leaders
Australia is facing a shortage of 600,000 workers to meet increasing service demands, according to ServiceNow research. The nation’s problem of scale cannot be solved by people alone. To meet growing demands, teams are looking to AI for support.
At major banks and telecommunications companies, frontline teams are using generative AI (GenAI) to collate customer information and summarize issues. In hospitals, AI is helping with real-time resource optimization so that medical staff can spend less time on administration and more time on patient care.
Software engineers are using AI to generate and review code, while teachers are using large language models (LLMs) to plan lessons. Soon, autonomous AI agents—yes, multiple agents, with humans in the loop—will be able to solve problems, orchestrate tasks, unlock 24/7 productivity, and help secure new business opportunities.
As AI technology continues to evolve, there are three pressing AI questions leaders in Australia must consider:
1. Where do I start with AI?
Headlines highlight extraordinary AI breakthroughs, but many organizations are still grappling with the basics, such as building the business case for AI investment.
According to Gartner, Australia is the only market where AI isn't among the top three priorities for chief information officers.1 Technology leaders are prioritizing cybersecurity and enterprisewide digitization projects.
Transformation is expected to be fast and nondisruptive and provide rapid returns. Large, costly, big-bang projects are things of the past.
Organizations want AI with minimal risk. In fact, 84% of decision-makers are fulfilling use cases by seeking GenAI capabilities from existing incumbent application vendors (Gartner 2024 AI Enterprise Survey).
Companies aren’t willing to take big risks with their data. Instead, they’ll focus on maximizing productivity gains from companies that understand the discrete complexities of existing workflows and tasks across enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), IT operations management, software development lifecycle processes, and more.
That’s why we at ServiceNow have applied AI to the problems our customers are facing by embedding it directly into the Now Platform, with controls to make it safe and responsible while driving productivity gains.
For ServiceNow customer Orica, IT Service Management was the starting point for a handful of proofs of concept, including incident summarization, resolution note generation, AI search, and Virtual Agent with Now Assist. Early results have been significant, from cost reduction to time savings to increased employee satisfaction—all while slashing resolution times.
Two months in, Orica’s service desk deflection rate soared from 18% to 94%. Usage rates doubled. Mean time to resolution (MTTR) across all incidents decreased by an entire day. These initial results have emboldened Orica leadership to extend GenAI capabilities to other departments. I share this story with every customer I meet to demonstrate the potential of AI.
The most pressing AI priority is getting started. Most leaders I speak with are rolling out AI to internal teams first to support their people, improve productivity, and help the organization get up to speed with the technology before rolling it out to customers.
2. Do I have the right foundation?
Organizations are navigating an explosion in data, technology debt, siloed systems, and a long list of small software vendors delivering point solutions. Leaders are under pressure to consolidate, reduce costs, and simplify.
At the same time, Australia is facing a skills gap. Employers must address skills shortfalls by working with industry, government, and academia to redesign jobs and work for the future, with more tasks split between people and AI.
AI is only as successful as the data behind it. To put AI to work, leaders must start with five steps:
- Map where your AI training data is stored when developing your own analytic models, and identify which platforms can access it safely, at scale. When using GenAI models, research the purpose for which the model was developed.
- Start small and run multiple pilots where you see gaps or opportunities. Use successes to gain buy-in from stakeholders.
- Articulate your organization’s workforce roadmap for the next five years to understand skills needs and adapt for future demand.
- Create a development framework to support how your employees currently use AI and GenAI, and determine training needed to support future job shifts.
- Educate yourself on two AI development fundamentals: training (phase one) and inferencing (phase two), along with the associated costs. This won’t matter for proofs of concept, but it will when you go to scale.
3. Where should I place my AI bets?
According to ServiceNow’s inaugural Enterprise AI Maturity Index, 81% of global leaders plan to increase their AI spend in 2025. Technology teams are juggling competing demands for AI tools from across departments.
Harnessing data from every corner of the enterprise is non-negotiable as the use of AI in customer experience increases. The ServiceNow Customer Experience Intelligence Report ANZ found speed is the most important factor for good service. Aussies also cited 24/7 access as the biggest opportunity for brands.
AI agents can help organizations meet these demands—but beware of departmental solutions that deepen silos.
I believe every business decision will be informed by an AI platform. My advice is to start with opportunities where AI can deliver measurable business impact and to partner with business units to accelerate how you can put AI to work.
Prioritize bringing AI to your data (not data to AI systems). Map your employees’ specific problems and tasks to be guided by the right metrics: productivity increases, cost reductions, revenue gains, and real-time insights for every team and department, all the way to customers.
Find out how ServiceNow helps organizations put AI to work for people.
1 Alastair Woolcock, Gartner, GenAI Go-To-Market Insights, Challenges, and Opportunities, 2024