Frequently Asked Questions
What is AI agency?
AI agency is a country’s power to shape its future – to steer outcomes, protect national interests, and capture value in a globally connected system.
What are the uses of the AI Agency Tool?
| Step | Use | Function | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Define | A common language | Defines 103 AI capabilities across 6 layers: the typology | Shared language that brings precision and comparability to national debates |
| 2. Assess today | Assess maturity | Stocktakes current capability across the 6 layers and 103 capabilities | Maturity ratings that produce a curated snapshot of existing national strengths, areas for development and missing information |
| Assess sovereignty | Maps international access, sovereign control, resilient choice and export leverage over AI capabilities through the sovereignty spectrum | Sovereignty ratings that move from a binary notion of sovereignty to a nuanced spectrum of sovereignty, delivering greater optionality for decision-makers | |
| Identify agency | Integrates maturity and sovereignty ratings, and global scarcity, into a single view in the agency score | Areas of competitive advantage that can be leveraged to compensate for areas of greater dependency | |
| 3. Prioritise tomorrow | Plan next steps | Combines maturity, sovereignty, agency, scarcity and public interest considerations to identify recommended actions | Transparent disclosure of analysis that underpins identification of most important areas for future attention |
| Inform and analyse strategy | Connects all components into one coherent policy design and assessment method | Grounds decisions in evidence. Comprehensive national strategies. Strengthens accountability, and trust |
Is AI agency a rejection of AI sovereignty?
AI sovereignty is a key input to the AI Agency Tool, via the dedicated ‘sovereignty spectrum’.
The debate about AI sovereignty has become trapped in a choice between complete self-sufficiency and complete dependence. But in today’s complex global AI landscape, this binary approach is increasingly insufficient. The reality is that no country, not even the US or China, is completely self-sufficient in AI. Modern AI depends on a vast international web of semiconductors, data centres, data, models, talent, energy, research institutions, governance and supply chains.
The AI Agency Tool expands sovereignty from a binary to a sovereignty spectrum. Do we have access to world-leading capabilities? Do we have sovereign control over key capabilities? Do we have a choice between sources of capability for resilience? And in the best-case scenario, do we have a competitive advantage that can be used as leverage?
An overview of how the Tool works can be found in the Quick Explainer, while a detailed discussion of these concepts can be found on page 1 of the final report the AI Agency final report (opens in new tab).
What time period does this national assessment cover?
Australia’s 2025 AI Agency Assessment is based on available evidence covering the period up to December 2025. At this stage, the Assessment is static, but the methodology may be repeated again in the future.
Did TPDi undertake consultations in the development of this project?
This project has been a collective effort, enriched by more than 250 experts from across government, industry civil society and research, in 14 roundtables across 5 cities. We are grateful to the experts who generously joined our roundtables, completed surveys, and participated in peer review. Contributors are listed in the full report, and detailed project methodology is included in Appendix 4: www.techpolicy.au/aiagency
Are there other future applications for the tool?
The AI Agency Tool’s applications extend beyond national assessment to regional strategy, enterprise assessments, international benchmarking, market-concentration analysis and tracking AI agency over time.