Small business will decide whether AI delivers on productivity
If Australia is serious about productivity, it needs more small businesses to adopt AI confidently and at scale across the economy.
In its short history, generative AI has largely been a big business story. Titans of technology are racing to innovate in an arms race to create the best products and win customers. It is exciting and scary. Much remains unknown. But, critically, it misses a much bigger story unfolding around us.
When electrification spread through the economy last century, its impact did not come from a handful of power stations. It came from millions of businesses rewiring how they worked. Productivity lifted across every industry as electricity allowed manual tasks and processes to be completely overhauled. It quickly became ubiquitous. Today, it touches everything and everyone.
AI is washing across society like the internet and electricity once did. It is a general-purpose technology that will deliver its full value only when it is embedded at scale.
Its true value will not be realised by a small number of frontier firms, but when it becomes part of the fabric supporting productive activity everywhere, from large enterprises to households and corner stores, and when thousands of busy small business owners feel confident enough to use it and reap the benefit of getting time back in their day.
