In the World of AI: Week of 23 June 2026, ABS Puts Australian Business AI Use at 12 Percent

The official numbers on business AI use arrived this week, and they are lower than most vendor surveys suggest. Anthropic also launched a new default model and brought a banned one back, and two of Australia's biggest retailers described how they are building AI assistants. Here is the week from 24 to 30 June 2026, with one step for each story.

1. The ABS counts 12 percent of businesses using AI

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its Characteristics of Australian Business 2024-25 on 25 June. It found 12% of businesses reported using AI, compared with 1% in an earlier survey year. Among innovation-active businesses, use was 18% for micro businesses (0 to 4 employees), 19% for small (5 to 19) and 28% for medium (20 to 199). Among businesses that did no innovation activity, small business use was 4%.

Why it matters: Other surveys quote much higher figures because they measure different things. The official count shows most businesses are still at the start, so a patient approach is normal.

This week: Name one task a person on your team does weekly that you would like to speed up. Our answer on a good first AI project helps you choose.

2. Claude Sonnet 5 becomes the default

Anthropic launched Claude Sonnet 5 on 30 June. It calls it the most agentic Sonnet model yet, with performance close to Opus 4.8. It is available across all plans and is the default for Free and Pro. Team and Enterprise users get it included, and rate limits were raised across chat, Cowork, Claude Code and the Claude Platform. Anthropic notes an updated tokenizer, so the same input can use roughly 1.0 to 1.35 times more tokens.

Why it matters: Staff on a Free or Pro plan are now on a different model than last week, and answers may change on prompts you rely on.

This week: Rerun two or three of your most-used prompts and compare the results to what your team expects.

3. Fable 5 returns after a three-week freeze

Anthropic published a redeployment notice saying the US export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5, applied on 12 June, were lifted on 30 June. Fable 5 returns globally from 1 July with a new classifier that blocks a known jailbreak technique and routes blocked requests to Opus 4.8. Anthropic says the classifier also flags more harmless requests, especially in coding. For Pro, Max, Team and select Enterprise plans, Fable 5 is included up to 50% of weekly usage limits through 7 July, and after that it requires usage credits. Mythos 5 returns first to a set of US organisations.

Why it matters: An included allowance that ends on a date can turn into a surprise bill.

This week: If your team uses Fable 5, ask who will pay for usage credits after 7 July.

4. Google Workspace adds Drive organising and formula fixes

Google's June Workspace feature drop of 26 June adds an option to organise files in Drive by suggesting or creating folders, a fix button for formula errors in Gemini in Sheets, and better editing after a Help me write draft in Gmail. Sheets also gains 28 more languages. Google says the updates are rolling out to Workspace customers now.

Why it matters: These are small time savers in tools your team already uses, with no new subscription.

This week: Ask one staff member to try the Sheets formula fix on a real spreadsheet and report whether it was right. Treat the result as a draft and see human review for AI output.

5. Bunnings and Woolworths describe their AI assistants

At the Google Cloud Summit Sydney, Bunnings said (iTnews, 26 June) it will use the technology behind its Buddy assistant to improve service for trade and commercial customers. It added that Buddy has more than doubled online conversion rates, and no features or dates were given for trade. Woolworths said (iTnews, 29 June) it will rebuild its Everyday assistant as an agentic one, and that its Olive assistant's agentic version reaches shoppers in July after two months of testing by 200,000 staff.

Why it matters: Your customers will come to expect an assistant that answers questions fast, and the large retailers tested internally first.

This week: Pick the five questions customers ask most often and write the answers in one document. It is the base for any assistant you build or buy. See what is an AI agent for business.

What to do this week

• Name one weekly task you would like to speed up.
• Rerun your most-used prompts after the Sonnet 5 change.
• Decide who pays for Fable 5 usage credits after 7 July.
• Trial the Sheets formula fix and check its answers.
• Write the answers to your five most common customer questions.

Sources

• Australian Bureau of Statistics, "Characteristics of Australian Business, 2024-25 financial year", 25 June 2026: abs.gov.au
• Anthropic, "Introducing Claude Sonnet 5", 30 June 2026: anthropic.com
• Anthropic, "Redeploying Claude Fable 5", 30 June 2026: anthropic.com
• Google Workspace, "June 2026 Workspace update", 26 June 2026: workspace.google.com
• iTnews, "Bunnings turns agentic focus to trade and commercial customers", 26 June 2026: itnews.com.au
• iTnews, "Woolworths to remake its 'Everyday' chatbot into an agentic loyalty assistant", 29 June 2026: itnews.com.au