Why AI will hand profit and power to smaller organisations
John O'Neill
Mar 31, 2026
For the first time in history, smaller organisations can grow their capability without growing their cost base.
That’s because AI and associated opportunities for automation, plus highly skilled tech teams in off-shore hubs, have collapsed the fixed cost of accessing those capabilities.
For decades, the structural advantage was afforded to enterprises – think CBA, Telstra, and even large Government agencies – via a combination of access to capital and specialist capability.
They had free cash for R&D and could build dedicated teams of data scientists, systems architects, UX researchers, and financial analysts.
We’ve been working with Austrade, RMIT Vietnam and other leading universities and local engineering partners to be able to offer expert offshore AI teams and AI platform capabilities for Australian organisations.
These were permanent capabilities that businesses of 50, 200 or even 500 people simply couldn’t afford to establish, let alone have the headspace to run.
But listed company announcements by Atlassian, WiseTech Global and Car Group in the last month illustrate how quickly things have changed. These are profitable, established ASX companies making deep workforce cuts to try to stay competitive that come with real costs to people, morale and culture.
We’ve been working with Austrade, RMIT Vietnam and other university and engineering partners to be able to offer offshore delivery and platform capability for Australian organisations.
The model is straightforward: Australian strategic oversight combined with highly capable offshore engineering teams with strong AI expertise.
Two of Australia’s big four banks, NAB and ANZ already have their own hubs Saigon (HCMC) and our model makes it possible for smaller organisations to now do this too.
Large organisations are bearing the cost of that transition. Smaller ones get to build AI-first from the ground up. This is how and why AI can shift power to smaller organisations that combine it with judgment, proprietary context, workflow redesign and disciplined execution.
