Up from just shy of $US300 million in 2020, this marked the biggest yearly jump since 2014, and put Australia ahead of South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain and Portugal. However, Australia remained well behind France ($US1.55 billion), Canada ($US1.87 billion), Germany ($US1.98 billion), Israel ($US2.41 billion), the UK ($US4.65 billion), China ($US17.2 billion) and the US ($US52.8 billion). "The approach to AI within organisations remains very siloed, with considerations of AI ethics and governance seen as the province of tech and data teams. "If [consumer confidence in] AI is not a current priority it won't feature in corporate strategy considerations, and important future opportunities may be lost. "In the absence of better AI business and governance practices, AI adoption will continue to lag in Australian organisations, with long-term consequences for innovation, productivity and international competitiveness."

I was speaking to my manager the other day over coffee and the conversation steered towards the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While on that topic, he commented that, "In the field of AI, many people talk but don't deliver". While what he said was true in general, I feel that success or failure of AI projects are predetermined at the point of hiring. Over the past few months, I have been interviewing with various firms across different industries for data analyst, junior data scientist or AI engineer positions. While interviewing, I noticed many differences between these companies I interviewed for.

Project Management Institute released its 2019 Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report: AI Innovators: Cracking the Code on Project Performance. The report provides an in-depth look at how artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting organizations and the project management profession. Findings reveal that AI disruption is happening and at a large scale: 81 percent of respondents report their organization is being impacted by AI technologies; 37 percent say adopting AI technologies is a high priority for their organization; and project professionals say they expect the proportion of the projects they manage using AI will jump from 23 to 37 percent over the next three years. These insights from a survey of 551 project management practitioners globally show that the presence of AI technologies will continue to grow, requiring shifts in how projects are managed and how organizations implement strategy. The report identifies six AI technologies that are impacting organizations globally.