Originally published: Information & Data Manager, 02 July 2026
Australian organisations are delegating decision-making to AI systems faster than their governance frameworks can support, with half of C-suite leaders prepared to hand AI more autonomy than their current controls allow, new research from Insight Enterprises has found.
The findings come from Insight’s Assistance to Autonomy report, which examines how leaders are managing the shift from assistive AI to autonomous systems that execute tasks and make decisions within defined parameters. The research, conducted via Pureprofile between 30 April and 4 May 2026, surveyed 318 Australian and 220 Singaporean business decision-makers at organisations with 100 or more employees. The release is at au.insight.com.
Most Australian organisations remain early in their AI journey. Only 21 per cent are scaling AI across functions, 42 per cent remain in experimentation, 30 per cent are piloting and just 8 per cent have fully embedded AI into operations. Singapore is well ahead, with 37 per cent scaling across functions and 14 per cent fully embedded.
Despite that early-stage maturity, organisations are already delegating decisions to AI – a dynamic Insight calls the autonomy paradox.
