The Australian Academy of the Humanities welcomes the Australian Government’s establishment of a new Office of Artificial Intelligence within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The new Office will coordinate a national approach to the opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence, including its implications for productivity, education, employment, copyright, energy, safety and national security. The Government has described the initiative as an effort to bring these interconnected issues together within a single national framework.
Academy President Professor Stephen Garton AM FAHA FASSA FRAHS FRSN said placing responsibility for AI coordination at the centre of government recognised that AI was not simply a technological or industry policy issue.
“Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how Australians work, learn, create, communicate and participate in public life,” Professor Garton said.
“The establishment of the Office of AI is an important recognition that Australia’s response must extend beyond technical development and commercial investment. It must also address questions of culture, ethics, language, creativity, trust, rights, inclusion and democratic resilience.
“These are not secondary considerations. They will determine whether AI systems earn public confidence, reflect Australian values and circumstances, and deliver benefits across the community.”
The Academy’s 2026–27 Pre-Budget submission called for a coordinated national investment in sovereign, inclusive and responsible AI capability, including an AI Sovereignty Fund, a National AI Skills and Workforce Initiative, national research translation hubs and a dedicated First Nations AI Capability and Inclusion Program.
The submission emphasised that Australia’s capacity to develop and deploy AI in the national interest would depend not only on engineers and data scientists, but on bringing together technical knowledge with the nation’s intellectual, cultural and social expertise.
“Australia needs the capacity not merely to adopt technologies developed elsewhere, but to understand, interrogate, adapt and govern them on Australian terms,” Professor Garton said.
“That requires sustained investment in humanities capabilities including ethics, history, languages, cultural knowledge, communication, creative practice, Indigenous knowledge, philosophy, media studies and the study of human behaviour and institutions.”
The Academy is also establishing a national AI Capability Forum to mobilise humanities and arts expertise and make it available to governments, industry, universities and the wider community.
The Forum will bring together leading researchers and practitioners to map Australia’s existing humanities and arts capabilities relating to AI, identify critical gaps across research, education and the workforce, and develop a program of trusted, evidence-based advice on issues of national importance.
“Commencing in August, the Humanities and AI Capability Forum will help ensure that Australia’s leading humanities insights are organised, developed and available for national benefit,” Professor Garton said.
“We look forward to working with the new Office of AI, the Australian Government, other Learned Academies and partners across the research, cultural, public and private sectors.
“A successful national approach to AI means to build, govern, and use AI in the best interests of Australia and its communities. Our sovereign capability lies not only in infrastructure, but in our combined understanding of technologies, people, institutions, culture and the environment.”
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