Why Australia’s Ai Future Depends On Vertical Solutions, Not Generic Platforms

For Australia’s 2.5 million small and medium businesses, artificial intelligence promises to be a game-changer.

The Tech Council of Australia projects Ai will add $115 billion to our economy by 2030 with much of that value creation happening at the SMB level.

OpenAI’s recent “Ai in Australia” also paints an optimistic picture of boosted productivity, new businesses and transformed workplaces powered by Ai adoption across government and enterprise. For SMBs watching from the sidelines, wondering how they can harness this technology without the resources of major corporations, the report offers hope.

But I believe there’s a fundamental flaw in their blueprint.

It focuses almost entirely on general-purpose Ai platforms rather than the specialised solutions that will actually drive Australia’s competitive advantage in the global Ai race.

The Real Ai Opportunity Lives In Industry-Specific Solutions

While ChatGPT and similar platforms grab headlines, the next wave of genuinely transformative Ai innovation will come from what’s known as “Vertical Ai”, solutions built specifically for individual sectors and use cases.

Think about it: a small business owner managing a plumbing company doesn’t need a general-purpose chatbot. They need Ai that understands their industry’s unique challenges, integrates with their existing systems and solves specific problems like scheduling, inventory management or regulatory compliance.

This is where Australia has a genuine competitive advantage. We’re already seeing early success stories across multiple sectors. Heidi Health is revolutionising healthcare with Ai medical scribes that reduce administrative burden for clinicians. Argon & Co’s IRIS platform is optimising manufacturing supply chains end-to-end. In sports technology, Golf.AI is pioneering the next era of golf technology, leveraging artificial intelligence to make the game smarter, more accessible and deeply personalised.

These aren’t just Ai companies, they’re industry transformation companies that happen to use Ai as their core technology.

Most importantly, our expertise in these sectors has created data advantages. Australian companies can train and refine Vertical Ai models faster than countries without the same domain knowledge, leading to more accurate and effective solutions.

When you combine deep industry knowledge with Ai capabilities, you don’t just get incremental improvements. You get a fundamental transformation of how entire industries operate.

For small and medium businesses, the difference between horizontal and vertical Ai isn’t academic, it’s the difference between vaguely useful technology and genuine competitive advantage.

Because generic Ai tools might help you write better emails or generate marketing copy. But vertical Ai solutions can transform your entire business model. They integrate directly into your existing workflows, understand your industry’s regulatory requirements and solve problems you actually face every day.

The challenge is that building vertical Ai is capital-intensive. It requires access to domain-specific data, deep industry knowledge and long development cycles. Without targeted support, these innovations struggle to reach scale.

How To Turn Australia’s Ai Opportunity Into Reality For SMBs

While the Albanese government’s measured approach to Ai regulation is welcome, light-touch governance alone isn’t a growth strategy.

If Australia wants to lead in Ai, we need policies that directly support vertical solution development.

Accelerated tax deductions for businesses integrating Ai into operations, particularly in traditional sectors with high impact potential. This means real incentives for that plumbing company to adopt Ai scheduling systems or for agricultural businesses to implement Ai-powered crop monitoring.

Direct grant funding for startups building Ai-powered products for clearly defined industry use cases. Instead of funding another general-purpose chatbot, we should be backing solutions that solve specific problems in mining, healthcare or manufacturing.

Investment in workforce training to ensure Ai augments Australian jobs rather than displaces them. This is particularly crucial for SMBs where every role matters and technology adoption needs to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them. It’s already changing how industries operate, from medicine and manufacturing to logistics and learning.

For SMBs, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is access to Ai solutions that are genuinely relevant to your business needs. The challenge is ensuring these solutions actually get built and remain accessible to smaller operators.

This requires vision, coordination and investment targeted where it counts. Not in broad platforms that serve everyone and no one, but in specific solutions that solve real problems for real businesses.

Ai isn’t a single technology, it’s a toolkit. And when that toolkit is put in the hands of innovators who understand the challenges of their domain, real transformation follows.

That’s Australia’s opportunity in the global Ai race. We just need the policy framework to support it.

Clive Mayhew is CEO of Golf.AI.

Last Updated on July 14, 2025 by Clive Mayhew