Overcoming the AI hype for Australia's public sector

Australia’s new national benchmark for responsible AI adoption couldn’t have come at a better time. Government agencies are under pressure to modernise and move fast with AI and other emerging technologies. But while the temptation is to chase the shiny new thing, speed without sense risks wasting taxpayer dollars, overwhelming staff, and leaving agencies less capable than before.

Technology on its own doesn’t guarantee better outcomes. The real challenge is making sure AI is deployed in ways that actually support human decision-making and solve real-world problems; otherwise, agencies risk sinking under the weight of tech hype, legacy baggage and systems that don’t talk to each other.

Closing the gap between tech and people

Right now, there’s a gap between what AI tools can do and what staff members in the public sector are ready to manage. Tools are racing ahead, crunching data at speed, mapping vulnerabilities and firing off alerts, but humans are still expected to make sense of it all. This results in more dashboards, noise and stress, without the clarity leaders actually need.

If the Australian Government wants to make AI a force for efficiency, not confusion, it needs to consider how new technologies are rolled out to ensure strategic adoption. There are four steps to making this happen more seamlessly.

1. Understand the mission and the environment

As a result of the proliferation of connected devices and technologies, many agencies don’t have a clear handle on their own assets. How many licences do they hold? Are the tools running the way they should? Where are the blind spots? Without real-time visibility and contextual understanding of the attack surface, leaders are flying blind.

Manual processes are no longer adequate, so agencies should be looking to automate how they track assets, behaviours, and misalignments to streamline processes and maximise efficiencies.

2. Eliminate redundancies

Duplicated tech and overlapping contracts are rife across government. Take cyber, for instance: multiple departments have signed up to different monitoring tools, often doing the same job. That means wasted spend, clunky integration and slower response times.

Vendors are quick to sell ‘efficiency’ as a buzzword, but real efficiency means cutting dead weight. That only happens after a proper stocktake of what’s running and a willingness to make tough calls about what stays and what goes.

3. Always ask: “So what?”

Before adopting the latest technology, leaders need to ask the tough question: so what? Does this tool directly support the agency’s mission? Does it push objectives forward?

If the answer’s not clear and compelling, the tech isn’t worth the investment. If a tool can’t pass the “so what” test, it’s just a shiny distraction.

4. Stop enhancing a legacy model

Keeping a vendor’s offering in an environment because of longstanding relationships and internal skill sets can do more harm than good. Agencies are suffering from a shortage of talent that also brings with it a reliance on legacy skill sets, which in turn leads to a tendency to enhance legacy models by repeatedly layering on new functionality to legacy contracts. This worked in the past, but the attack surface continues to grow at a rate beyond what we have seen even one year ago.

In response, agencies need to embrace a model in which emerging technologies are elevated to meet emerging threats and a procurement process that is updated to treat cybersecurity not as an IT buy, but as an emergency response.

Efficiency that actually means something

Efficiency in government too often gets reduced to a buzzword. But true efficiency isn’t about chasing flashy dashboards or stacking tools on top of one another. It’s about building resilient, automated systems that strip out duplication, cut response times, and free up staff to focus on the decisions that matter.

That means putting technology to work for people, not the other way around. Public sector workers shouldn’t be drowning in alerts or stuck in outdated systems. They should be empowered with tools that give them clarity, context and speed.

Taxpayers don’t expect the government to be perfect, but they do expect their dollars to be spent wisely. Throwing money at technology for technology’s sake is the opposite of that. The public is right to demand that new tools lead to smarter, faster and safer services.

The bottom line

Australia’s new AI benchmark is a chance to get this right. By focusing on human decision-making, cutting out redundancy and modernising their cybersecurity approach, agencies can use AI to sharpen their missions, not dilute them. At the end of the day, technology is just a means to an end. The goal is a public sector that works better, responds faster to risks, makes smarter calls and uses taxpayer money with care. That’s the standard Australians should demand, and it’s the one our public sector must deliver.

Top image credit: iStock.com/Suriya Phosri