Latest Learning Out Loud

Most retailers I speak with have already bought the AI tools. The forecasting module, the personalisation engine, the marketing copilot. What they haven't worked out is who is going to make any of it pay.

Every week a hiring manager tells me some version of the same thing. They advertised an AI engineer role, got a flood of applications, and still can't find anyone who has actually shipped. That's not bad luck. It's the shape of the market right now.

Most Australian hiring teams still treat AI as a faster inbox. Agentic AI hiring is different. The system doesn't wait for a prompt. Give it a brief and it drafts the ad, searches, screens, sequences outreach and books the first conversation. I'm watching employers buy the tools and then leave the process looking exactly as it did last year. That's why time to hire barely moves. The software is agentic. The operating model is not.

Every week another Australian business decides it needs an AI Adoption Lead. Far fewer know what that person should actually do.

Ninety-five per cent of executives say roles and team structures in their organisation are already changing because of AI.

Every week someone tells me the AI market is "hot." That's a feeling, not a number. So here are the numbers.