Applied AI Australia

10 December 2026: The AI Decision Deadline Executives Can’t Ignore From 10 December 2026, Australian organisations covered by the Privacy Act face new automated decision-making disclosure obligations under APP 1.7. If AI, automation, scoring tools, workflow engines or legacy SaaS platforms help make decisions about customers, employees or applicants, executives need to know where those decisions h...

Season 3 of Applied AI Australia starts now - with new episodes every week. In this short update, Ramon shares the next chapter for the show, including Applied AI Australia joining Acquire Intelligence and a sharper focus on helping Australian leaders stay clear, current and in control with AI. Expect weekly executive conversations with leaders from Salesforce, Workday, Finder, Compare Club and ot...

Machine Customers Are Here. Your Business Was Built for Humans | Katja Forbes, Author of The Machine Customers. Subscribe: If your board is talking AI strategy but nobody has raised machine customers, this episode is the briefing. Your Next Customer Won't Be Human: 5 Machine Buyer Types Hitting Australian Commerce. Adobe reported a 4,700% year-on-year increase in AI agent traffic to retail web...

The AI Risk Your Board Can’t See: Identity, Fraud and AI Agents | Dan Mountstephen, Okta Subscribe - know a director who still thinks cyber is an IT problem? Forward this. CBA self-reported $1B in suspected AI-generated fraud this year and committed $900M to fight back. For every human logging into your systems, there are 82 machine identities. Service accounts, API tokens, AI agents. Most have no...

Fewer People, More Output: The Vacancy Strategy (Diego Mogollon, VentureCrowd) Subscribe: Know a leader still hiring the same org chart? Forward this. You can drive AI transformation in compliance heavy industry! This episode proves it! Diego Mogollon wears two hats at VentureCrowd: CMO and CTO. The regulated FinTech platform has raised $440 million. Over the last two years, Tech team shrank 60%....

$28M Spent on AI. One Question Tells You If It's Working. Subscribe - Know a CFO still measuring AI by project count? Forward this. Episode Summary: 90% of Australian companies have invested in AI. Only 40% are seeing results. The problem isn't the technology. In Part 1, we showed you which type of AI leader you are: Believer, Driver, or Builder. In Part 2, we reveal why that's only ha...

AI Ready in 2026: Know Your Type (Part 1) Applied AI Australia In Conversation With: Anthony Mittelmark. Technology executive with 20+ years delivering enterprise-scale AI strategy and digital transformation across ASX 100 companies and high-growth ventures. Duration: ~28 minutes EPISODE SUMMARY Every Australian executive falls into one of three AI leadership categories. The problem: most think th...

Tasks tell you what happened. Decisions explain the outcome.  If you aren't capturing the logic behind your decisions, your workflow is broken. 90% of Australian executives believe AI is critical for survival, yet only 3% have successfully operationalised it. Why the gap? Because their data is fragmented across too many tools. In this episode,  Andrew McCarthy (GM, Notion APAC)  joins us to disman...

The CTO Trap: Why 80% of AI Pilots Fail | Dawid Naude, Pathfindr Episode Description: 80% of Australian AI investments are currently failing, costing enterprises north of $28M per failed pilot. The data proves it: this is not a technology problem; it is a leadership failure. In this episode, Dawid Naude (CEO & Founder, Pathfindr) joins us to dismantle the "CTO Trap"—the dangerous illusion grip...

Invested in AI and got no results? You’re not alone - and it’s not the technology. In this episode, Ramon Rodriguez sits down with Brad Granger, Managing Director at Podium, to unpack why Australian executives keep getting burned by AI pilots and how to escape the “Test‑First Trap.” Brad shares a practical framework and three critical questions every CEO and CFO must ask before approving the next...

Episode Title: The Death of the Search Bar: Mastering Intent Resolution | Anthony Mittelmark, Ex-PwC Partner Episode Description: Australian online retail is a $65B market, but up to $19B of that is now influenced by AI-led curation, not traditional search. If your strategy relies on customers typing keywords into a box, you are optimizing for the past. In this episode, Anthony Mittelmark (Ex-PwC...

Why AI Fails: The Hidden "Data Gap" Killing ROI | Samir Ghoudrani, AI Director Episode Description: 72% of Australian enterprises aren’t seeing measurable ROI from their AI spend. On average, companies are burning $28M in CapEx, yet most projects never deliver shareholder value. In this episode, Samir Ghoudrani (Data Scientist & AI Director) joins us to expose the "Invisible Lay...

In this episode of Applied AI Australia, I launch the new In Practice series, focused on how leaders are using AI to drive real business outcomes. I sit down with John Foong, recent Chief Commercial Officer at Domain and a global tech operator in executive leadership roles at both Uber and Google. He brings a very direct view on what actually moves the needle with AI. John shares a simple filter h...

Agentic AI in the Boardroom: Who's Accountable When AI Acts? OpenAI dropped Atlas, their new agentic browser. Within hours, executives across Australia were texting me asking: "Should we use this?" Wrong question. The right question: Who owns decisions your browser makes when it's authenticated in your profile and making decisions on your behalf? In this episode, Ramon Rodriguez breaks down the ag...

Ramon unpacks zero-FTE departments, agentic task equivalence (TEA), and the audit trail every board expects. With Australian case studies from Telstra and Woolworths, you’ll learn what to automate first and a four-step rollout you can run in 48 hours. Lead people and agents with confidence, and turn efficiency into EBITDA and imagination.00:00 Introduction to Applied AI Australia00:20 The Leverage...

The AI Execution Playbook: Turning AI into Measurable Business Results In this episode of Applied AI Australia, Ramon Rodriguez highlights the critical importance of AI adoption for businesses to stay competitive. He discusses the high failure rate of AI pilots and the substantial returns for those who execute effectively. The episode introduces the AI impact loop, emphasizing the importance of ut...

In this episode of Applied AI Australia, Ramon Rodriguez highlights the transformative impact of AI on the customer journey. He shares a personal experience where AI, specifically Perplexity, streamlined his decision-making process to invest over $10,000 in home renovations without visiting a traditional website. Ramon highlights how businesses can capture 'invisible customers' and adapt to the ne...

Unlocking Strategic Decision-Making with AI: The Power of Structured Prompting Most executives think prompting is about clever questions. With GPT-5, that’s outdated. The real advantage is structured briefing - managing AI like you would a consultant. In this episode of Applied AI Australia , Ramon Rodriguez shares how structured prompting turns GPT-5 into a boardroom asset, delivering consulting-...

In the launch of Applied AI Australia , Ramon Rodriguez unpacks the rapid rise of AI and what it means for business leaders who don’t come from a technical background. Drawing parallels with the fall of the Yellow Pages, he shows why companies that delay risk being left behind. Ramon highlights how AI adoption is moving faster than any past technology wave, already reshaping industries and decisio...