A couple of weeks ago I was nine floors above Maroochydore at Fwd>>>Fest, listening to Craig Scroggie from NextDC explain how he allows one of his (many) AI agents access to his credit card (don’t worry, it only has a $2,000 limit). The day before, Luke Anear had described spending three days on a single AI prompt.
It was extraordinary. It was also a little terrifying.
Post Fwd>>>Fest, five themes have continued to rattle around in my head: trust, acceleration, adoption, authenticity, and value. Adoption is where I’m starting, because I think it’s the concept most distorted by the volume of noise around it.
The gap between the frontier and the floor
The people speaking at events like Fwd>>>Fest are operating at a scale and speed that most businesses in Australia and New Zealand will never achieve. The Fwd>>>Fest conversations and day-to-day reality are not describing the same world.
Australia and New Zealand both rank among the most sceptical nations in the world about whether AI adoption benefits outweigh the risks. Most of us know we should be doing something. We just don’t know what, or where to start, or who to trust.
Australia is in a particularly interesting position. The data shows relatively high GenAI usage among the working-age population, but sentiment sits notably low which means that people are using these tools but they don’t feel confident or clear about them.
My old boarding school motto
My old boarding school in Hawke’s Bay, Woodford House, has a Latin motto: Nunc Acceptabile Tempus. Now is the acceptable time. Or in Nike terms: Just Do It.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot since Fwd>>>Fest, because I think it works in the AI context, but not in the way the current AI hype machine wants you to interpret it.
I don’t disagree that there is urgency. If you continue to ignore AI entirely there is no doubt you will lose competitive ground, because it’s infrastructure, and the advantages that come from using it compound. But there is a version of “now is the time” that tips into panic, and panic produces poor decision making.
There is a meaningful difference between an AI business and a business running on AI. Both are growing rapidly across Australia and New Zealand. Most new businesses in Australia and New Zealand don’t survive their first five years, so adopting AI doesn’t change what actually makes a business work — strategy, positioning, customer understanding, operational discipline, and good advice. The tool does not make the business.
What readiness actually looks like
Luke Anear’s three-days-on-a-single-prompt story reframes the whole conversation. The founder of a multi-billion dollar company operating in 85 countries was telling a room full of entrepreneurs that the future isn’t about speed. It’s about the quality of the questions you ask – of yourself as much as the AI.
The readiness trap isn’t falling behind on tools. It’s not yet knowing what problem you’re actually trying to solve, what outcome you need, what your customer really wants. Understand that, and the technology question becomes much more obvious.
Practical, achievable readiness looks something like this:
- assess honestly where AI could genuinely reduce friction or improve an outcome in your business
- build one thing deliberately and measure it before expanding
- don’t automate a broken process and call it transformation.
The human connection
Humans were never built to navigate every new challenge alone. The current rate of change is exponential, but every generation that has faced a period of rapid change has needed guides, frameworks, trusted advisors, and community to navigate progress.
The intimacy of Fwd>>>Fest, supported by 55 speakers who donated their time, reflects a belief that the best way through uncertain territory is together.
For any Australian or New Zealand business watching the AI adoption conversation accelerate and feeling the anxiety of it – the goal isn’t to be first – it’s to still be standing, genuinely stronger, when the dust settles.
If you’re not sure where to start, we’re happy to be a sounding board. And we have a fabulous network of trusted specialists we can introduce you to.
Nunc Acceptabile Tempus – now is the time to adopt AI. But with intention.
