38910 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Tertiary Education

38910 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Tertiary Education: How much, if any, was spent in the 2025/26 financial year in the Minister's departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any, on artificial intelligence, including costs on training staff, deploying systems, maintaining subscriptions and any other associated costs?

Hon Penny Simmonds: The Tertiary Education Commission spent $287,003.74 on artificial intelligence in the 2025/26 financial year. $68,599.88 of this expenditure included artificial intelligence software licences and subscriptions, deployment of artificial intelligence capabilities, specialist advisory services, and costs associated with the artificial intelligence component of the Assessment Tool project. The Assessment Tool included both artificial intelligence and non-artificial intelligence components. The artificial intelligence-related expenditure associated with the project was estimated at $218,403.86, based on a resource-level attribution methodology that assessed the proportion of project effort attributable to artificial intelligence functionality.