Future Skills Organisation AI Forum - Canberra

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional custodians of the land in the act. And pay my respects to the elders, past and present. I'd also like to acknowledge the CEO of Future Skills Organisation, Patrick Kidd, and I want to highlight the importance of the FSO as a tripartite jobs and skills council, bringing together employers, unions and governments to find collective solutions to workforce challenges.

That tripartite approach is also incredibly important when we are considering the adoption of AI in the workplace, because this is not a challenge that government, industry, employers, unions or the education and training sector can solve alone. It requires genuine partnership, shared commitment and coordinated action. Without that, there is a risk that trust in the technology will be undermined.

Many workers are already concerned about how AI will affect their working lives, and if those concerns are not addressed, organisations risk creating resistance to the adoption of AI in the workplace, undermining potential productivity gains. That's why I have convened the tripartite AI Employment and Workplaces Forum, bringing together government, unions and employers to work out how AI can be adopted in Australian workplaces in a way that shares the benefits between employers and workers.

And I'd like to thank Patrick for his contribution to these meetings as a sitting member of this forum. Collectively, members of the forum have identified five key themes to enable the successful adoption of AI in workplaces trust, capability, transparency, safety and productivity. And through the forum, we are looking at what actions can be taken to address these key themes.

I know many of you in this audience have also been thinking extensively about these issues, and today's event has been about building on this momentum. It's great to see that your conversations have been focused on how to enable successful adoption, particularly when it comes to building the capability for successful adoption. Because what's clear is that the question about AI adoption is no longer if or when, but how.

How can we build trust at the individual workplace level and across society, that the adoption of AI represents a net positive for everyone? How do we adopt AI in a safe, transparent, way? And how can we ensure that Australian workers and businesses have the capability to adopt AI in a way that boosts productivity, while ensuring those gains are fairly shared?

Trust is absolutely essential to answering all of these questions. Trust that AI can make people's lives better at a societal level and in the workplace. Trust that can lead to more fulfilling and well-paid jobs that will deliver benefits for everyone.

Trust was the first issue that the government's AI Employment and Workplace Forum discussed, and through the forum, we are working on developing best practice guidance to develop a shared understanding of what successful adoption looks like in the workplace, with an emphasis on building trust. And in my view, trust in the adoption of AI in the workplace depends on both organisational and individual capability, not just the capability of workers and employers to use AI, but the capability to adopt AI in a way that maintains trust.

A major piece of research from Jobs and Skills Australia last year showed that in the medium term, AI is much more likely to augment work rather than automate it. But successful augmentation depends on every level of the workforce. Having the capability to adopt AI from boards and senior leadership to middle management to individual workers.

Senior leaders need to have the capability to clearly understand how AI can enable their strategic vision for their organisation. This requires the capability to understand when and where AI and other technologies can actually boost productivity and open new business opportunities, including how AI can be integrated into workflow processes and transform job design.

However, the adoption of AI will also require senior leaders to have the capability to manage this change effectively within their organisation. Critical to this will be senior management's ability to clearly communicate and meaningfully consult with their workforce. If organisations are able to do this well, it will ensure that everyone in the workplace has a clear understanding of why AI is being adopted and the benefits it will bring, which is critical to maintain trust.

Senior leaders will need the capability to genuinely engage with their workforce as AI is increasingly adopted. That's because workers have a deep understanding of their roles, and they can share their expertise and knowledge of how work is actually performed within a company. So by meaningfully consulting is not only good for trust, but also good for business.

Research from Jobs and Skills Australia also shows that businesses get the best return on their investment in AI when they involve their workers in its delivery through co-design. How and why AI is being adopted in the workplace are also key questions for managers, and they must answer these questions in order to maintain trust with their workers. Managers must have the capability to implement AI adoption effectively by supporting their teams as the technology is rolled out in their workplace.

As AI reshapes workers roles, managers need to help their teams adapt to these changing job requirements and develop the skills they need to keep performing at their best. Of course those workers will need the technical capability to successfully operate AI in their particular professional context. But as AI increasingly takes on routine tasks from people's roles, managers will need to support workers to adapt to new ways of working.

For example, a worker who is used to focusing on a single task at any one time may now need to use multiple AI agents simultaneously. These workers will need to be able to integrate output from multiple agents, while also using their judgment and expertise to check the quality and accuracy of that output. That represents a very different way of working for those employees.

So when we think about the capability that a worker will need to adopt AI into their role, we need to be thinking about boosting capabilities that are much broader than just AI technical skills or knowledge, skills and capabilities such as multi-tasking, teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving. And it is vital for businesses and organisations to prioritise boosting these capabilities within their workforce just as much as their investment in AI technologies themselves.

Of course, with such a new technology, we all need to grapple with the breadth of what AI capability represents, from the CEO to the middle manager to the individual worker. I know that the FSO is doing some really important work on defining what we mean by AI capability, by developing nationally recognised units of competency, and I'd like to recognise the really important leadership role that FSO is playing in this space, including through convening this forum.

In fact, the results of your conversations over the last two days will be translated into a product that will help inform our discussions at the next meeting of the AI Employment and Workplaces Forum. So I'd like to finish by thanking all of you for your willingness to contribute to this important national conversation. Unions, industry, government and education and training providers all have an important role to play in shaping that future, and I look forward to continuing to work together.