By Michael Fung, Executive Director, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
September 2026
At the recent National AI Skills Forum in Canberra, I posed a simple question: What if Australia’s biggest AI skills challenge isn’t the training content, but the system that delivers it?
According to EY, AI has the potential to unlock a $116 billion economic opportunity in Australia and transform industries, jobs and communities. But capturing that opportunity is not simply a technology challenge. It is a workforce challenge, an education challenge and, ultimately, a systems challenge.
Having had the privilege of helping to shape Singapore’s SkillsFuture movement and, more recently, working with governments, employers and education institutions across Latin America, Europe and Africa, I have seen a consistent pattern.
Workforce challenges do not stem only from a lack of good initiatives. More often, they emerge because the different parts of the system struggle to work together.
That is why the conversations at the Forum were both timely and encouraging.
Michael Fung at the National AI Skills Forum 2026
Why we need a systems lens
AI is one disruption among many. Across the world, we are navigating technological change, longer lifespans, shifting demographics, climate pressures, geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty, and the aftershocks of conflicts and pandemics. We wake up every day to a picture that looks a little different.
As a result, our operating environment has become far more complex, and many traditional human capital development policies and approaches are no longer fit for purpose. When disruption arrives at speed and scale, patchwork solutions are no longer enough. We cannot simply plug gaps here and there. That is why skills and workforce development demand a systems lens.
The difficulty is that many of the systems that have served us well for decades were designed for a more stable environment. Today, workforce systems must be designed for adaptability: the ability to sense change early, respond quickly, and keep learning pathways aligned to real demand.
Australia is not starting from zero
One of the strongest messages I took from the Forum and side meetings was that Australia already possesses many of the foundational blocks needed for success.
There is also another proof point. In the early 2000s, Singapore developed a workforce skills qualifications system that was modelled after the Australian Vocational Education and Training system and the Australian Qualifications Framework. It served Singapore well for many years before the launch of SkillsFuture.
That experience is a reminder that Australia has long been a source of good practice, not only a recipient of it.
Australia has a mature vocational education and training system, strong labour market intelligence capabilities, an emerging national skills architecture, excellent industry leadership and growing momentum around workforce transformation.
In Canberra I witnessed the genesis of a shared commitment across government, industry, education and the training sector to address this systems issue collectively. That matters because no single institution can build the workforce capability Australia will need.
I was particularly struck by the FSO Skills Accelerator-AI, one example of what becomes possible when organisations come together around a shared problem. In a single year the Skills Accelerator has grown from 12 partners to more than 1,600 individuals and 600 organisations. Scale alone does not prove impact; however, growth of that kind tells you something about an appetite not simply to discuss AI capability, but to test practical approaches and learn collectively.
Similarly, discussions about national skills taxonomies and draft AI Units of Competency highlighted the importance of developing a common language for AI capability. One of the lessons we learned through SkillsFuture is that skills ecosystems become much more effective when workers, employers, educators and policymakers are working from shared definitions, recognised standards and trusted frameworks.
The biggest gaps are between the parts
Across many countries, I have seen a familiar pattern. Governments launch workforce initiatives. Employers invest in capability development. Education providers design innovative learning experiences. Technology companies build powerful tools. Yet too often these efforts remain islands of innovation because they are insufficiently connected to one another.
The result is fragmentation rather than scale.
A responsive skills development system depends on more than goodwill and isolated programs. It requires the ability to align actors around a shared view of the skills landscape and a shared set of priorities, so that investments reinforce one another rather than compete or duplicate.
From capability building to ecosystem building
This is why I believe the next phase of Australia’s AI skills journey should focus not only on building capability, but on strengthening connectivity across the broader skills ecosystem.
The most resilient skills systems share several characteristics.
They align with economic priorities at the national, regional, and local levels, and translate these priorities into jobs and skills needs in the labour market.
They create stronger feedback loops between labour market demand and learning supply. They support modular, stackable and lifelong learning pathways that can evolve as industries change.
They help employers articulate emerging skills requirements more clearly.
They make skills more visible through trusted frameworks, credentials and assessment approaches.
Most importantly, they create mechanisms for continuous collaboration among industry, education and government.
In a world shaped by AI and advanced technologies, adaptability becomes a national capability.
Memorandum of Understanding
During the National AI Skills Forum, Future Skills Organisation and the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnológico de Monterrey signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a research and knowledge-sharing partnership.
The partnership will explore how AI is reshaping entry-level and early-career work, identify emerging workforce challenges and generate practical insights to help industry, education providers and policymakers respond more effectively to a rapidly changing world.
The Institute for the Future of Education (IFE) is an interdisciplinary research institute of the Tecnológico de MonterreyEducational Group. Its mission is to improve people’s lives by transforming higher education and lifelong learning around the world. IFE creates, disseminates and applies research-based educational innovation to improve learning ecosystems and practices through a range of activities, including research, EdTech entrepreneurship, consulting, impact projects, advocacy and community development on a global scale.