The AI Era Is Here. Australia Needs a Path to Shared Prosperity.

Artificial intelligence will change how businesses operate and how people earn a living. The choices we make now will shape who benefits and who struggles to find a place.

In August 2026, Bill Gates published an essay warning that the world does not yet have a plan for the disruption artificial intelligence could bring, and calling for deliberate preparation. His essay raises a question I believe Australian business leaders need to confront directly: how do we prepare people for this transition while making useful technology more widely available?

At Sharktech Global, that question shapes what I build. We are developing technology to help businesses work better, alongside two new products aimed at helping workers displaced by artificial intelligence find new ways to earn a living.

Those ambitions need to be tested through results. A business tool should deliver value that customers can measure. A product intended to help displaced workers should improve their chances of finding work, winning customers or earning income.

At a glance

• Learning to use artificial intelligence is useful, but for someone whose job has disappeared, it is only part of the answer. They need a path back to income.
• Experience remains an asset after a role is lost. The challenge is helping people find where it has value and who will pay for it.
• Technology can lower the cost of the next step: testing an offer, finding customers and organising delivery.
• Success must be measured by whether people are better off, not by registrations or course completions.
• No single business can solve displacement. Employers, educators, communities and public institutions share the responsibility.

Retraining alone is not a plan

Much of the public response to artificial intelligence focuses on skills. Skills matter. But a person who has just lost their job does not only need a course. They need an income.

They need to know where their experience still has value, who needs it and how to reach those people. That is the practical gap I want to help close, and it is a gap that sits between policy, education and the market.

Experience should remain an asset

A person can lose a role and still hold valuable knowledge. They may understand customers, operations, an industry or a community better than almost anyone. Technology could help them apply that knowledge in a different role, test a service or build a small business.

But access to software alone will not make that happen. People need a clear starting point:

1. What can I offer? An honest view of the skills and knowledge that transfer.
2. Is there demand? Evidence that someone will pay for it before money is spent.
3. What will it take to deliver? The time, tools, capital and support required.

Some people will want new employment. Others will explore independent work or a small business. A useful product has to respect those different circumstances rather than push everyone down the same path.

Lower the cost of taking the next step

Large technology companies are now framing artificial intelligence as a tool for individual empowerment. Meta’s recent statement of its vision argues that artificial intelligence should empower people rather than replace them.

Statements of intent are welcome. What matters is whether ordinary people can actually use these capabilities affordably. I see a clear opportunity to make practical business capabilities easier to access: testing an offer, finding customers, managing enquiries and organising delivery.

For someone starting again, those tasks can be overwhelming. Good tools should help them make a sound decision before they spend money they cannot afford to lose. That includes helping them decide not to proceed when the evidence says an idea will not work.

Measure progress beyond activity

Registrations and completed lessons show interest. They do not establish that anyone is better off.

For the products we are developing, I want to understand:

• whether people found suitable work;
• whether they secured paying customers;
• whether they earned income, and how much;
• whether they avoided an unviable commitment;
• who the product helped, and where it fell short.

The commercial model must be tested too. A product needs a sustainable way to serve people, whether the buyer is the individual or an organisation supporting them, such as an employer, an industry body or a government program. Affordability and viability have to be designed together. A product that helps people but cannot sustain itself will not be there when they need it.

A shared responsibility

Sharktech cannot solve workforce displacement alone. Employers have a responsibility to redesign roles and pathways rather than simply remove them. Educators need to connect learning to real demand. Communities and public institutions need to support people through transitions that may take months, not weeks.

What a technology business can do is build practical tools and evaluate honestly whether they improve someone’s options. That is the contribution I want Sharktech to make.

Rebuilding the soul of Australia

That is where my vision of rebuilding the soul of Australia becomes practical. We need stronger businesses that compete globally from Australia. But we also need people to see a future for themselves in the economy those businesses are creating.

People should have reason to believe their experience still matters and that they have a place in what comes next. Stronger businesses, meaningful work and wider opportunity belong in the same ambition.

For conversations about investment, strategic partnerships or technology opportunities, contact Dainu Devis.

About the author

Dainu Devis is an Australian emerging technology CEO. As Chief Executive Officer of Sharktech Global and Divine Lab Worx, he brings a decade of international business consulting and political strategy advisory experience to building emerging technology businesses. His work spans engineering, operations, product development and economic strategy, with concurrent product and process design at its centre.