Special artificial intelligence visas and revamping the school curriculum to put bots in Australian classrooms earlier are expected to be floated by a tech giant facing a parliamentary grilling.
Amazon on Friday is set to tell MPs and senators examining the technology's perils and potentials that Australia risks missing the boat if it doesn't act quickly to nurture home-grown AI.
"When it comes to improving domestic AI capability in Australia, there is still much to be done," the company wrote in its submission.
Amazon is urging Australia to start teaching tech literacy from kindergarten. (George Chan/AAP PHOTOS)
The nation was sitting on a winning hand, with good education, stability and data privacy protections putting it in the frame to become a global AI hub, Amazon said.
But its own analysis had found fewer than one in five employers felt their workforces were prepared to throw themselves at the task of adopting AI over cost concerns and lack of knowledge.
It suggested adding an AI stream to Australia's skilled visa pathways and injecting tech literacy programs deeper and earlier into school curricula, right from kindergarten.
Amazon Web Services is the retail and tech giant's dog in the AI fight, which essentially functions as a utility company - like electricity and water - but for computing power.
That business raked in more than $185 billion in revenue globally in the 2025 US financial year.
But Amazon has also laid off nearly 30,000 workers across all its divisions since late 2025 amid major restructuring partly related to its adoption of AI.
The ACCC accused Microsoft of misleading consumers when it integrated its Copilot AI assistant. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)
Meanwhile, a strategy think tank also to appear before the committee has labelled AI "the most consequential technology humanity has ever invented and likely will ever invent" in a submission awash with grim forebodings.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said individuals now had a power previously only available to whole nations to conduct cyber-attacks, but stressed biological weaponry was the next development to worry about.
"There are many fish in the barrel for malicious cyber actors to shoot," it wrote.
"Biodefences could involve inoculating humans against novel pathogens - a logistical, political and social nightmare compared with patching software vulnerabilities."
Also set to appear at Friday's hearings is Australia's consumer watchdog, which will warn that shoppers need additional protection against retail surveillance pricing and commerce driven by AI agents.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has also pledged to keep policing dodgy corporate practices related to AI products, after it took Microsoft to court for misleading 2.7 million consumers about price increases when it integrated its Copilot AI assistant.
SOURCE/AUTHOR : AAP NEWS/Will Nicholas in Canberra
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