AI Index demonstration

Australia is largely absent from global conversations about AI progress. International benchmarks like Stanford's AI Index measure AI development at a global scale, but countries such as Australia are typically folded into broad regional categories that don't reflect what's actually happening domestically. The Australian AI Index was created to close this gap, providing a clear, evidence-based picture of AI activity in Australia across five chapters: Research & Development, Economy, Responsible AI, Policy, and Public Opinion, so that universities, policymakers, and the public have an accurate local reference point rather than relying on global averages.

To build this picture, the project draws on multiple public data sources, including research grants, academic publications, university rankings, and researcher career records, and links them together to surface insights no single source could provide alone. This includes connecting grant funding to the research it produces, comparing Australian institutions' AI research output using independent quality rankings, and tracking the movement of AI talent in and out of the country. These findings are presented as interactive visualisations on the project website. Work on the Research & Development chapter is currently underway, with the remaining chapters to follow, and we are actively seeking collaborators with relevant domain expertise to help shape that direction.

Get in touch

If you'd like to learn more about the project, contribute domain expertise, explore a partnership, or get involved in any other way, contact us at tds@unsw.edu.au.