A/NZ companies to spend $151M on GenAI – are employees ready?

Companies in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) are expected to spend US$151 million on GenAI this year, growing at 150 per cent, but a new report has found that employees in the region aren’t as ready, compared to the rest of the APAC region.

This is according to the Infosys Knowledge Institute (IKI), the research arm of Infosys. This is a higher percentage than the APAC growth rate, which is expected to be 140 per cent by the end of the year, to US$3.4 billion.

However, A/NZ employees have a combined readiness level of GenAI of 56 per cent, as opposed to other companies in the APAC region, which sit at nearly 70 per cent.

“Although company leaders across APAC have been more cautious than companies in the rest of the world, they are set to outpace firms in other regions,” said Andrew Groth, executive vice president for APAC at Infosys.

“Additionally, they are already delivering more value from their spending on generative AI. To continue to make the most of this technology and to become AI-first organisations, they should focus on talent development and making AI more accessible through a platform ecosystem.”

Making up the regional bulk of the investment is China, with a forecasted US$2.1 billion to be spent on the technology by the end of the year, representing year-on-year growth of over 160 per cent.

Across the region, the high tech industry – which the IKI defined as IT companies, such as cloud services, solar technology, IT consulting, data centre services and mobility solutions, as well as business process services companies, engineering, communication technology, security technology and software development businesses – has the highest level of implantation of GenAI solutions, at 61 per cent of businesses.

Past this however was the energy, mining and utilities industry at 55 per cent. Next was automotive at 49 per cent; retail and hospitality at 44 per cent; logistics and supply chain at 43 per cent; manufacturing at 38 per cent; consumer packaged goods and telecommunications at 37 per cent apiece; insurance at 36 per cent; financial sciences and life sciences at 33 per cent each and healthcare at 26 per cent.