Agentic AI is already transforming how organisations work today. From healthcare institutions streamlining cancer care to government agencies modernising service delivery, autonomous AI agents are delivering measurable results. This article showcases real-world examples from five key sectors with practical applications you can apply to your organisation.
Healthcare: Accelerating Clinical Workflows
Healthcare organisations are using agentic AI to address rising patient volumes, complex data, and administrative burden that pulls clinicians from patient care.
Royal Melbourne Hospital: AI-Powered Diagnostic Support
The Royal Melbourne Hospital deploys AI-powered diagnostic tools that assist radiologists in detecting early-stage cancers. These systems analyse medical imaging in real time, reducing diagnostic errors and improving patient outcomes. The AI agents work alongside clinicians, flagging potential concerns and enabling faster, more accurate diagnoses.
Australian healthcare institutions are also adopting AI-based scribing software that automatically transcribes clinical consultations, reducing documentation time by over 90% and allowing healthcare professionals to focus on patient care rather than administrative tasks.
Health NZ: AI-Assisted Surgical Risk Assessment
Health NZ clinicians use AI tools to assess the risk of patients dying after surgery, helping inform pre-operative decision-making and care planning. These AI systems analyse patient data to provide risk stratification, enabling clinical teams to better prepare for complex cases and allocate resources more effectively. Since September 2018, the Accident Compensation Corporation has deployed AI to automatically process and accept straightforward claims, streamlining administrative workflows across New Zealand's healthcare system.
NSW Health: Supply Chain Intelligence
NSW Health leverages AI agents to predict supply shortages and monitor inventory levels across its hospital network. The system analyses usage patterns, delivery schedules, and demand forecasts to automatically reorder essential supplies, reducing waste whilst ensuring critical medical supplies are consistently available. This agentic approach has proven particularly valuable for managing the complex supply chains across regional and metropolitan facilities.
Financial Services: Customer Experience and Efficiency
Financial institutions across Australia and New Zealand are deploying agentic AI to improve customer service and streamline operations whilst maintaining security and compliance.
Commonwealth Bank: AI Factory and Customer Service
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has activated its "AI Factory" with AWS, processing over 55 million AI-powered decisions daily through more than 2,000 AI models. The bank's AI systems monitor transactions for fraud in real time, flagging unusual account activity to prevent potential losses before they occur.
CBA's AI-powered chatbot provides 24/7 customer support, handling millions of customer enquiries and providing instant responses to common banking questions. This AI augmentation frees human staff to focus on complex customer needs whilst routine enquiries are resolved faster than ever.
National Australia Bank: Document Processing Automation
NAB uses OpenAI to streamline how paralegals review trust deeds for financial transactions. The bank reviews approximately 15,000 trust deeds annually, with each traditionally requiring 45 minutes of manual work to capture relevant details. The AI agent completes this same task in just one minute, a 97% time reduction that allows legal teams to focus on higher-value analysis and client advisory work.
ASB Bank: AI-Powered Financial Guidance
New Zealand's ASB Bank has integrated AI-powered virtual assistants that provide real-time financial advice to customers through its digital banking platform. These agents analyse individual cash flow patterns, identify savings opportunities, and offer personalised recommendations, delivering value at a time when making the most of every dollar is crucial for many households.
Transport and Logistics: Optimising Operations
Agentic AI is driving efficiency gains across Australian and New Zealand supply chains, with logistics providers achieving measurable improvements in route optimisation, inventory management, and operational efficiency.
Toll Group: AI-Optimised Route Planning
Toll Group, Australia's leading logistics provider, has implemented AI-powered software to optimise delivery routes and manage its fleet across the country's vast distances. The system analyses real-time traffic data, vehicle capacity, weather conditions, and delivery windows to generate the most efficient route plans automatically. By processing multiple variables simultaneously, the AI reduces fuel consumption, shortens delivery times, and improves customer satisfaction, capabilities particularly valuable for managing Australia's unique geographical challenges.
Ministry for Primary Industries: AI-Powered Biosecurity Screening
New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries has deployed AI-powered 3D scanning machines to detect biosecurity risks in luggage and mail at Auckland Airport and New Zealand Post's processing centre. The system provides superior image quality compared to traditional 2D machines, enabling staff to more effectively identify potential threats. This AI-driven approach gives border protection staff better tools for screening inbound international mail and passenger luggage, accelerating processing times while maintaining rigorous biosecurity standards, critical for protecting New Zealand's unique ecosystem and agricultural industries from external threats.
Woolworths: Demand Forecasting and Inventory Automation
Woolworths leverages AI-driven analytics to optimise stock levels and predict consumer demand across its nationwide supermarket network. The AI system analyses shopping data, seasonal patterns, and local trends to forecast product demand and automate reordering decisions. This ensures shelves are stocked with the right products at the right time, reducing waste whilst improving sales. Research shows logistics companies implementing similar AI systems achieve over 20% reductions in inventory and logistics costs.
Government: Modernising Public Services
Australian and New Zealand government agencies are deploying agentic AI to streamline processes, free staff for mission-critical work, and improve service delivery, particularly relevant as agencies face pressure to do more with constrained resources.
Services Australia: Automation at Scale
Services Australia, which oversees Centrelink and Medicare, operates over 600 automated processes that support both staff and customers. The myGov Digital Assistant responds to millions of customer enquiries each year, providing 24/7 access to information about government services and payments. The agency uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and similar technologies to extract information from digital images and forms, supporting staff to process claims more efficiently.
The agency's 2025-27 Automation and AI Strategy emphasises trust, transparency, and human-centric design. Approximately 95% of Services Australia's automated workflows are rules-based, handling end-to-end process automation, partially automated processing with manual inputs, and information retrieval from high-volume data systems. The agency is also expanding into more sophisticated "adaptive" and "intelligent" automation, including predictive analytics and voice-enabled telephone routing that identifies patterns to improve service delivery.
New Zealand Public Service: Rapid AI Adoption and Framework
New Zealand's public sector has demonstrated rapid AI integration, with the 2025 cross-agency AI survey recording 272 AI use cases across 70 agencies, more than doubling from 108 cases across 37 agencies in 2024. Fifty-five AI cases are now fully operational and in use, up from just 15 in 2024, indicating genuine progress beyond pilot projects.
Hutt City Council's AI pilots have turned stacks of handwritten submissions into detailed reports in two days and rolled out 162 secure AI licences after small "AI Navigator" trials that saved some roles over an hour per day. Porirua's CRM-led AI approach delivered a 95.3% satisfaction rating, demonstrating an improved experience for users. Auckland Transport has deployed AI to help speed up its response to certain official information requests, while the Accident Compensation Corporation has been using AI since September 2018 to automatically process and accept straightforward claims.
The Government Chief Digital Officer coordinates adoption through the Public Service AI Framework, which is based on OECD AI principles and emphasises safe, transparent deployment with human oversight, transparency, security, and accountability.
State and Local Government Services
State and local government agencies across Australia are using AI agents for common resident enquiries, library hours, waste collection schedules, community events, freeing staff to focus on complex requests. In healthcare services, agents manage appointment scheduling and patient data. In HR departments, agents assist with benefits enquiries and training reminders. In IT support, agents troubleshoot issues and detect incidents, all whilst maintaining human oversight for high-stakes decisions.
Construction: Safety and Project Coordination
Australia's construction and infrastructure sectors are deploying agentic AI for predictive maintenance, safety monitoring, and project coordination—particularly valuable for the nation's major infrastructure projects.
Western Sydney Airport and Snowy Hydro 2.0: Digital Twin Implementation
Major Australian infrastructure projects are using digital twin technology, real-time digital replicas of physical assets to simulate, monitor, and optimise construction performance. The Western Sydney International Airport and Snowy Hydro 2.0 both employ digital twins for real-time project visibility, lifecycle management, and risk mitigation. These AI-powered systems enable project teams to model entire sites, simulate changes before implementation, and maintain comprehensive oversight of complex, multi-year construction programmes.
Predictive Maintenance and Safety Monitoring
Australian construction and mining operations are implementing AI for predictive maintenance, with sensors monitoring equipment health continuously. AI agents analyse data on temperature, vibration, and pressure levels to predict failures before they occur, automatically scheduling maintenance during optimal windows. This proactive approach minimises unexpected breakdowns and optimises equipment uptime, critical for projects operating across Australia's remote locations.
Construction firms using AI safety systems report significant improvements in workplace safety. AI-powered cameras and sensors provide continuous hazard monitoring, analysing site conditions and worker behaviour in real time to identify potential risks. Early implementations report 40-50% reductions in safety incidents through proactive monitoring and 20-30% operational cost reductions via optimised coordination.
Common Patterns for Success
These Australian and New Zealand implementations reveal five patterns for organisations considering agentic AI:
Target High-Volume Processes: Invoice processing at NAB, customer enquiries at Commonwealth Bank, supply chain management at NSW Health, workflows with clear patterns deliver quick wins.
Augment, Don't Replace: ASB Bank's virtual assistants and CBA's chatbots enhance human capability rather than replace it, with staff freed to focus on complex, high-value work.
Integrate with Current Tools: Services Australia's automation through existing systems, and Commonwealth Bank's Microsoft integration, reduce adoption barriers by working within familiar platforms.
Track Measurable Impact: Royal Melbourne Hospital quantifies diagnostic accuracy improvements, Toll Group measures fuel reductions, NAB tracks time savings. Define metrics and iterate based on results.
Maintain Governance: Healthcare, finance, and government deployments maintain human oversight for high-stakes decisions, with Services Australia's strategy emphasising trust and transparency.
Microsoft Copilot Studio: Build Your Own Agents
Whilst Australian organisations use various platforms to build their AI agents, from custom solutions to ServiceNow, Microsoft Copilot Studio offers an accessible, low-code platform for creating AI agents within enterprise environments. It integrates with Microsoft 365 tools and data whilst maintaining enterprise security and governance.
For Australian organisations already in the Microsoft ecosystem, Copilot Studio provides an entry point without requiring new technology stacks. It supports everything from simple chatbots to sophisticated multi-agent systems.
Your Next Steps
Ready to move from inspiration to action?
Identify one high-value process: Choose something repetitive, multi-system, or time-consuming.
Start with a pilot: Pick internal processes before customer-facing applications. Learn without risking critical operations.
Use existing platforms: If you're on Microsoft 365, explore Copilot Studio. ServiceNow users should investigate AI Agents. Build on what you have.
Define success metrics: Track results and iterate.
Build capability: Invest in training, whether through vendors or formal courses.
The organisations succeeding with agentic AI aren't the largest or most technical, they're the ones willing to experiment and adapt. The technology is ready. Is your organisation?
Ready to build your first AI agent?
Lumify Work offers hands-on training in Microsoft Copilot Studio, Azure AI, and is the authorised partner for AI CERTs, and the leading training provider for AWS in Australia with campuses across the country, in New Zealand and the Philippines. Explore our AI training courses to take your capabilities to the next level. Our courses are designed for ANZ IT professionals and business leaders looking to move from concept to deployment. Explore our AI training courses to develop the skills your organisation needs to succeed with agentic AI.
