Interactive launches company-wide AI adoption program

Interactive Australia has launched a company-wide artificial intelligence adoption program and is using it internally before offering related services to customers.

The program brings together technical specialists and the company's People and Culture teams. It covers skills development, data and architecture changes, and workflow redesign. Interactive is treating AI adoption as an operational effort rather than a standalone technology project, with internal testing intended to shape how new tools are introduced more broadly.

Lizzy Jones, Head of Data and AI, is leading the next phase of the company's data and AI work after helping build the internal program. Her remit includes applying those lessons to customer engagements, with a focus on methods already used in the company's own operations.

"AI is everywhere right now, but the real difference comes from making it useful," Jones said. "That means designing solutions around real workflows, not abstract ideas. For example, our procurement team is now onboarding vendors and suppliers around 20 per cent faster by using clearly defined, repeatable processes supported by enterprise AI agents."

Jones said internal use is important before external deployment. "By testing and refining these solutions ourselves, we gain practical insight that enables us to provide informed, experience-led guidance to customers. Our AI integration and system design work has real-world experience informing what we build with customers."

Workplace rollout

Interactive has set a target for 80 per cent of employees to complete its internal AI literacy certification program by the end of FY26. Hundreds of staff are already using AI tools in their daily work, including for meeting summaries, research, operations, and service delivery tasks.

It has also introduced internal "AI Playground" sessions, where employees show colleagues how they are using the technology in practical settings. The sessions are intended to create shared learning across business units and among staff with different levels of experience.

Christina Anthony, Head of Learning and Development, said the certification program was designed around organisational change as well as technical training. The aim, she said, is to help staff understand how AI affects work patterns and reduce uncertainty as processes change.

"AI adoption is as much a people challenge as it is a technology challenge," Anthony said. "Our focus has been keeping the human in AI. We want employees to see it as an extension of their own capability - supporting both their day-to-day effectiveness and their long-term career development."

Interactive has also created a network of internal AI Guides and AI Champions across business units. Their role is to help teams identify where processes can be automated, where productivity can be improved, and how staff can test new tools within agreed safeguards.

Anthony said hands-on use is central to uptake across the business. "What we're seeing is confidence grows very quickly once people have the opportunity to experiment. When employees can try AI in a safe, supported environment, they begin to see how it can remove friction from everyday work. Our role is to give them the skills, guardrails and encouragement to explore those possibilities."

Security use

The internal approach has already informed work in Interactive's Security Operations Centres. The company has added AI-assisted triage and investigation workflows alongside workforce training, reducing average threat detection and response times from 40 minutes to seven.

That reduction matters because security teams are often judged on how quickly they can identify and contain threats before they spread across customer systems. Interactive said AI has also shifted analysts away from repetitive assessment work and towards more detailed investigation and response activity.

The company is now developing a library of secure internal AI agents for tasks including research, service desk support and knowledge retrieval. The effort reflects a broader push among technology service providers to prove commercial AI use through internal deployment first, particularly as customers ask for evidence that tools can be introduced safely and repeatedly in day-to-day operations.

Interactive, founded in 1988, provides managed and professional services across cloud, cyber security, data centres, business continuity, network services, systems maintenance, serviced office and the digital workplace. It said it supports more than 2,000 customers and employs more than 600 people.