Quanton launches Australian operations amid AI scepticism

Quanton has launched its Australian operations, expanding the New Zealand-founded AI and automation consultancy's presence in a market where many companies are struggling to turn AI spending into returns.

Ursula Riemer, Strategic Engagement Director and Australia Country Manager, is leading the practice from Adelaide as the company builds an Australian client and delivery base.

The launch follows a decade of work across Australia and New Zealand, focused on automation and AI projects. Quanton says its work has saved organisations in the region more than six million hours of manual work.

The expansion comes as businesses continue to increase AI investment while reporting mixed results from deployments. Quanton argues that the main barrier is not the technology itself, but how organisations approach adoption, particularly in leadership, culture and change management.

Research cited by Quanton points to a wide gap between adoption and value. RAND Corporation's 2025 analysis, which the company says Gartner later confirmed, found that more than 80% of AI projects fail to deliver meaningful business value.

Other surveys suggest a similar pattern. A 2026 enterprise survey by Writer found that only 29% of organisations were seeing significant return on investment from generative AI despite broad deployment, while KPMG's survey of 274 Australian C-suite executives found AI-related issues had become their leading business concern in the near and medium term.

The Tech Council of Australia's 2026 Tech Leaders Survey added to that picture, finding that only 7% of business leaders believed the country had the capability and infrastructure to meet future AI demand.

Garry Green, Managing Director of Quanton, said many organisations still frame AI as a procurement decision rather than a broader business change issue.

"The question most organisations are asking is: which AI tool should we buy? That's the wrong question," Green said.

"The right question is: do we have the leadership capability, the appetite for behavioural change, and the maturity in systems and data to actually make this work? Most don't - and no amount of technology spend fixes that."

He said the company had repeatedly seen businesses run successful pilots but fail to scale them across the organisation.

"We've seen this pattern play out dozens of times," Green said.

"A business invests in AI, runs a successful pilot, declares victory - and then spends the next 18 months trying to figure out why it never scaled. The pilot worked. The organisation wasn't ready."

Regional expansion

Founded in Auckland in 2016, Quanton says it launched New Zealand's first Robotic Process Automation programme and has since worked with organisations in banking, insurance, utilities, logistics, healthcare and government. The Australian launch is also intended to provide closer support for existing Australian customers.

Riemer said the Australian market did not need another supplier focused only on AI tools.

"What Australian businesses need right now isn't another AI vendor. They need a partner who has already done the hard work - who knows where AI implementations stall, how the wrong company culture can kill transformation, and how to build the internal capability that makes AI stick," Riemer said.

"We've spent ten years learning those lessons in ANZ. We're bringing all of it here."

Quanton says it works across readiness assessment, implementation and executive enablement, and aims to help clients build internal capability rather than long-term dependence on external advisers.

Leadership focus

The company also used the launch to highlight an Executive AI Leadership Programme aimed at C-suite executives. Quanton says the programme combines AI transformation strategy with behavioural science leadership and is co-directed by Green and behavioural science expert Mark Carter.

Green said companies making progress with AI tend to share a similar set of organisational traits.

"The organisations winning with AI right now share three things," Green said.

"They have executive alignment on what AI is actually for. They invest in the change infrastructure - the people, the governance, the culture - not just the tools. And they start with a clear-eyed view of where they actually are, not where they wish they were. Most organisations are missing at least two of those three."

He said many executive training offers in the market remain too focused on explaining the technology rather than preparing leaders to manage organisational change.

"Most AI leadership programmes teach you about the technology," Green said.

"This one builds the capability to actually lead AI change - the strategy, the governance, the culture, and the peer accountability and right technology to make it stick. We are seeing real demand and have launched the programme with the APAC leadership of a global business, which immediately saw the value of what was offered, with sessions being run in Sydney, Singapore and Auckland over the next four months."