Former Atlassian futurist Dom Price argues that Australian companies are mishandling AI adoption as national output growth sinks to a 60-year low, turning a supposed productivity revolution into a source of burnout.
Australia’s federal government is leaning hard into the promise of AI, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese projecting the technology could add up to $600bn to the economy by 2030. The plan includes building a legal and regulatory system that aims to cover almost every foreseeable AI risk or scenario rather than dealing with issues piecemeal.
An AI Office is set to sit inside the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, charged with pulling the government’s scattered, issue-by-issue AI responses into a single, coordinated framework. Dom Price warns that this push is unfolding while many workers using AI-enhanced tools daily feel they are being pushed to do more, faster, without redesigning how work is structured.
Policy experts argue that regulation focused only on safety and risk, without tackling organisational design and incentives, is unlikely to deliver the productivity and wellbeing gains that AI promises. The clash between soaring economic expectations and stubbornly low output growth signals that Australia’s AI strategy may need to move beyond technology deployment and into deeper workplace reform.
