Australia launches Office of AI to drive world-first national framework

The Australian government has established an Office of AI within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to coordinate national artificial intelligence (AI) policy, as prime minister Anthony Albanese pledged to make Australia the first country to govern the technology through a single national framework.

Announcing the move in a speech at the University of Sydney today, Albanese said the office, established with immediate effect, will work with industry and innovation minister Tim Ayres and assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy Andrew Charlton to coordinate the design of new Australian Standards for AI.

The effort builds on work already under way across government on energy, copyright, productivity, employment, education, online safety, defence and national security.

Claiming Australia would be the “first country in the world to bring these issues into a single, national framework”, Albanese said that the government's response to AI had until now been conducted issue by issue and sector by sector, likening the moment to the coordinated national approaches taken to civil aviation in the 1920s and genetics in the 1990s.

The standards will build on the expectations for large AI datacentres announced in March 2026, including a legal obligation to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their full share of grid connection costs so energy bills are not affected, and be as energy and water efficient as possible. These rules are expected to be legislated in early 2027.

Albanese pitched the framework as a means of attracting, rather than deterring foreign investments. “Getting this right will enhance our appeal to international investors,” he said, pointing to greater clarity, faster approvals and a streamlined process for verifying compliance.

The prime minister also promised the strongest possible protections for Australian artists and media, noting that “not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs” and that writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work – including control over its price and value – with anything less amounting to theft.

The announcement comes as global AI suppliers press Canberra for regulatory certainty. Anthropic, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the government in April 2026 to explore local operations aligned with Australia's datacentre expectations, has reportedly warned that its planned investments in the country hinges on clarity over copyright and its legal obligations.

Ayres framed the standards as part of the government’s Future Made in Australia industrial agenda, which he said meant “securing critical AI investments here so Australians shape the future” and ensuring AI investments proceed on Australia's terms.

Charlton said establishing “a clear and enforceable social licence for AI" was fundamental to ensuring the technology delivers inclusive, safe and sustainable growth with shared benefits for workers and communities.

The new AI comes at a time when Australian organisations are trailing regional peers on AI adoption. Research by Cisco and the Governance Institute of Australia found the country’s slow AI uptake was putting A$142bn of economic opportunity at risk, hampered by governance gaps, unauthorised shadow AI use, a lack of formal training and uncertainty over return on investment.

The federal government has moved to close that gap on several fronts over the past eight months. Its National AI Plan, released in December 2025, committed about A$30m to establish an AI Safety Institute in early 2026, while the Digital Transformation Agency’s five-year volume sourcing agreement with Microsoft, which commenced on 1 July 2026, is aimed at speeding up AI and cloud adoption across the Australian Public Service.

Gartner research suggests the public sector is moving, with 56% of government CIOs in Australia and New Zealand reporting generative AI deployments under way in 2025 – though few agencies have progressed beyond pilots to scaled adoption.