My view is that Australia is roughly five years behind the US on AI. That sounds bad. I think it could be the best position we could be in, but only if we actually use it.
What being behind gets us
1. We know which ideas die. The generic AI wrapper era already played out over there. Thousands of them got funded, launched and disappeared. That is time we don’t have to spend finding out the hard way.
2. We know where the money ended up. Not in general purpose tools. In one industry, one workflow, one buyer who already pays a person to do that job.
3. We know the timing. What is getting funded in the US now is roughly what gets funded here a few years later. That list is public, and almost nobody treats it as a forecast.
Four things that shrink the gap
1. Build for a global market from day one. Australia is a great first customer and a terrible only customer.
2. Go after the industries nobody wants. Insurance, freight, mining, agriculture. We have real depth in those, and very few people are building AI into them.
3. Fund earlier. The headline deals keep getting bigger, but the gap doesn’t close at Series B. It closes when more founders get their first cheque.
4. Keep the people. We train great people and then export them. Keeping them here is the one that actually compounds.
My read
Being behind is not an advantage on its own. Knowing what is likely to happen next is, and only if we move on it. A roadmap is worthless if all we do is read it.