It has been a week in which artificial intelligence hit the business and political mainstream, and where Australian leaders were well and truly exposed, caught with their pants down.
Having focused its attention on regulating AI risks rather than exploiting the AI opportunity, the Albanese government has been embarrassed, caught short by fast-moving events overseas.
A week ago, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked at the National Press Club about AI and productivity, and to also reflect on the US$500 billion Stargate AI project announced by US President Donald Trump in his first days in office.
The rambling response was not what someone who has spoken often and in-depth about artificial intelligence or its looming impact on everything would say.
Of course, a Prime Minister cannot be expected to be into the weeds of detail about every single issue in every single industry.
But if he had been asked about aluminium smelting or green steel production or battery manufacturing, you can be sure he would have a detailed answer, top-of-mind and ready to roll.
It was a tricky moment for the PM, but given artificial intelligence has not been a part of the national political conversation in Australia, it was not a deal.
But the launch of the Chinese ChatGPT-style DeepSeek in the days that followed, and the global media storm it created, suddenly put AI at the centre of political conversations all over the world.
Suddenly everyone, everywhere, was talking about AI – even in Australia.
By Wednesday of this week, the Industry minister Ed Husic was chairing an industry roundtable on AI capability, while the Prime Minister was visiting a Microsoft demonstration lab to talk about AI’s promise.
But it was all so implausible.
The minister was talking up the urgency of addressing the AI opportunity, despite having put his focus over the past two years on doing exactly the opposite.
In December, Mr Husic announced a plan for a National AI Capability Plan, which would not provide advice to government until December 2025.
If the timeframe already looked ponderously slow when the plan for a plan was announced, in the wake of the events of the last week the reporting time seems like parody.
And the Prime Minister’s automatic response when everyone was suddenly talking about AI this week was to go straight to Microsoft for a photo-op. What to make of that? He could have visited any one of the many Australian tech companies that are selling AI products to the world.
This really does say it all. It is jarringly similar to that time when Mr Albanese stood next to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in late 2023 to announce a “collaboration” on AI with the company, which involved the Australian Government buying the Microsoft ‘Copilot’ AI product.
The most immediate consequence of Mr Albanese signing Australia up to this contract was that an Australian AI company – Trellis Data – which was poised to sign a deal with the government had its contract discussions scrapped.
Mr Husic has spent his energies on building a regulatory regime with ‘guardrails for high-risk AI, an as-yet incomplete process that has taken 18 months.
The industry has had enough. It had been supportive of the need for ‘guardrails’ when the process was started, but now says the uncertainty is actively hurting AI adoption.
The government had promised a speedy design of sensible regulation and delivered the opposite. A sensible regulatory regime was supposed to provide industry certainty but has instead delivered uncertainty.
The process has dragged on. The final consultation was completed last October and yet still there is nothing.
The government is exposed here. It does not have a credible story to tell on building national capability in artificial intelligence. That was made clear by Mr Albanese’ at the National Press Club last Friday.
His minister has ignored the calls from industry and from AI researchers to put more investment attention on the upside opportunities of AI rather than focusing only on regulating the downside.
In one of his first acts as President, Donald Trump issued an executive order that a national AI strategy be developed and delivered for the US in 180 days, which does not reflect well on the full year that the Australian Government has given itself.
At a time when Australia is seeking to find its place in a geopolitical environment dominated by platforms and powerful tech, it has to do better.
Ed Husic’s office would not say who attended the ministerial roundtable this week or to reveal what was discussed.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.