We are pleased to share the latest instalment in our ongoing series exploring how Australian businesses are embracing and integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their daily operations — and how AI is positive for companies, their people and for Australian industry.
This page now brings together two editions of our case studies. Our original 2025 report, a collaboration with the Australian Government's National Artificial Intelligence Centre (NAIC), featured six diverse companies. Our new 2026 edition adds two more — Dy-Mark and JBS Australia — bringing the total to eight organisations, each at a different stage of their AI journey.
Across all eight, the message is consistent: businesses gain the most from AI when they focus on solving real problems, invest in their people, and use technology to enhance human capability rather than replace it.
Our 2026 edition explores two organisations in very different sectors, both taking practical, people-centred approaches to AI. Importantly, neither views AI as a replacement for people — instead, it improves access to information, supports better decisions and enhances workforce capability while keeping people accountable for outcomes.
Dy-Mark — an Australian manufacturer of aerosol marking paints and coatings with around 100 employees — has embedded AI across product development, regulatory assessment, manufacturing and customer engagement. What began as informal experimentation by staff evolved into a coordinated, executive-led program backed by governance, approved tools and role-based training. Using Microsoft Copilot and internal AI agents, Dy-Mark has reduced product and regulatory assessments from one to two days down to minutes — with staff reviewing and validating every output — and built an AI-enabled sales intelligence tool that turns simple inputs into tailored pre-visit briefings for its sales teams. The result: skilled staff spend less time gathering information and more time on analysis, decisions and customers.
JBS Australia — the nation's largest meat and food processing company, with around 15,000 employees — is applying AI in two ways. Its AI-enabled safety and security system uses smart cameras to detect unsafe behaviours, such as workers entering forklift zones, and triggers real-time alerts, shifting safety management from reactive to proactive. This is already operational at selected sites and expanding. JBS is also developing an AI Avatar Interactive Worker Support System — currently in early-stage pilot — designed to support its culturally and linguistically diverse workforce, including PALM Scheme workers, by answering questions in multiple languages via interactive kiosks drawing on controlled, company-approved information. As this project is still in its pilot phase, we'll revisit it in a future edition once it has been fully deployed and evaluated.
The experiences of Dy-Mark and JBS Australia reinforce the same three key observations we identified in 2025 — that AI creates opportunities for people, works best when it enhances human capability, and delivers the greatest value when guided by strong leadership and governance.
The 2026 case studies were based on interviews and consultations conducted in the first half of 2026.
Read the previous report from 2025, showing more case studies and findings.
