Microsoft announces Australia’s largest AI skilling commitment: three million people by 2028

Microsoft today announced the largest AI skilling commitment in Australia’s history: a pledge to help three million Australians build workforce ready AI skills by the end of 2028. Delivered with partners across government, industry, education and the community sector, the commitment will expand access to practical, responsible AI training. This will help build an AI-ready workforce and supports the goals of Australia’s National AI Plan to lift national capability and ensure AI is adopted safely and responsibly. 

The expanded commitment triples Microsoft’s 2024 pledge to skill one million people with digital skills across Australia and New Zealand, and the 2023 commitment to train 300,000 Australians – both achieved ahead of schedule – showing strong demand for practical learning. The new commitment deepens our support for Australians across three areas: the future workforce, the current workforce and the community, and addresses the skilling need in different ways – through our customers and partners to skill at scale, and through community and education to provide specialist skills. 

This new commitment is part of a series of investments into Australia’s AI future made today by Microsoft, including the company’s largest-ever global technology investment in Australia. By the end of 2029, the company will invest A$25billion (USD 18 billion) in new digital infrastructure, national cyber defence capability, and workforce skilling programs. 

“Australia doesn’t just need more people who can use AI tools, we need a much broader set of capabilities: how to apply AI to real work, how to use it safely and how to judge when not to use it. Our goal is to make AI skills as common as writing a document – so this technology drives shared prosperity, creating opportunity that reaches students, workers, and communities right across the country,” said Jane Livesey, President, Microsoft Australia and New Zealand.  

The need is increasingly urgent. The 2025 Microsoft Work Trend Index found 53% of leaders say productivity must increase while 80% of workers feel they lack the time or energy to do their jobs. At the same time, recent global LinkedIn research shows that AI has created a net increase of 1.3 million new AI-related roles since 2023 – with eight in ten C‑suite leaders now prioritising candidates with AI confidence over experience alone. This highlights the growing need to equip Australians with the skills required to work effectively alongside AI. 

“Helping to skill three million Australians in AI is ambitious, but it matches the scale of change underway. From classrooms to the frontline and the community, we’re committed to helping Australians build the confidence to use AI responsibly and turn new capability into new opportunity,” Livesey added. 

Future workforce: bringing AI into classrooms and clearer pathways into careers 

To prepare the next generation for an AI-powered economy, Microsoft Elevate for Educators is launching today in Australia to help schools and education institutions empower educators and transform learning. Offered at no cost, the program supports educators and school leaders help schools move from early experimentation to consistent, safe AI adoption by combining trusted credentials, professional learning communities and system level guidance. 

Through Elevate for Educators, teachers and school leaders can access the AI Literacy for Educators credential – a globally recognised standard for understanding, applying and leading responsible AI in schools – alongside community connection, practical training, implementation guidance and classroom‑ready resources. Together, these help education systems move from experimentation to everyday use, building the practical AI capability needed to improve teaching and learning outcomes over time. For students, this means earlier access to the skills needed to understand and apply AI in real‑world contexts, helping them graduate with the confidence to use these tools responsibly and participate more effectively in an AI‑enabled workforce. 

Recognising a growing gap for young people across all parts of the workforce, we’re partnering with Anyway (previously, Year13) to support the launch of their latest tool to support school leavers – an AI-powered Career Coach that delivers personalised career guidance to young people, built on Microsoft Azure. The tool enables schools and governments to scale personalised student guidance, reduce counsellor workloads, and deliver measurable improvements in youth outcomes and workforce readiness.  

The Career Coach tool helps address a real capacity challenge for schools. With limited guidance counsellor availability across many Australian schools, too many students miss out on timely, personalised career advice, often at the exact moment they’re making high-stakes decisions about subjects, training and first jobs. To fast track this support, Anyway and Microsoft will offer up to 1,000 schools across Australia free subscriptions to the tool, delivering personalised advice to students quicker. Educators can register expressions of interest to be included in this program here. 

Beyond classroom learning, Microsoft is also helping create clearer pathways into the high-growth technical roles that will underpin Australia’s AI economy. Microsoft’s Datacentre Academy – launched last year in Sydney with TAFE NSW and expanded in March to Melbourne in partnership with Victoria University – provides practical, job-ready training and accessible entry points into datacentre and cloud careers. By connecting learners to in-demand skills and industry-recognised experience, the Academy helps more Australians move from learning to employment, supporting local jobs and the digital infrastructure needed to scale AI responsibly. 

Current workforce: building frontier-ready skills for every role 

AI adoption can’t be limited to specialists. As more organisations rapidly adopt AI, we’re seeing the rise of the “frontier worker” – people in every function who combine domain expertise with AI literacy, sound judgment, and the ability to work effectively with AI tools and agents. 

One of Microsoft’s flagship workforce skilling partnerships, the Institute of Applied Technology Digital (IATD), is helping Australians build job‑ready skills at scale, with enrolments reaching 500,000. Through free microskills and heavily subsidised microcredentials, the program provides fast, practical access to critical capabilities in AI, data and cyber – skills that are increasingly essential across every role. Co‑created and co‑delivered with TAFE NSW, Macquarie University and the University of Technology Sydney, the strength of the model has led to IATD being recognised as a TAFE Centre of Excellence, jointly funded by the Australian and NSW governments to skill an additional 50,000 people each year.  

Across the workforce, partnerships with major employers – including Telstra, Wesfarmers, and Westpac – will continue to deliver AI training at scale, with 150,000 workforce learners trained in the past year. Through bespoke programs that support both technical and non‑technical workers, these tailored initiatives provide free training pathways that help employees apply AI safely and effectively in their day‑to‑day roles.  

Microsoft is working with partners including training provider Akkodis Academy to deliver AI learning modules designed specifically for field and deskless workers. The training is built around how field and trade-focused employees would use AI in practice, often on site or in the field, and accounts for job-specific language, acquired shorthand, and a greater reliance on voice-based tools over typing. Through the AI Academy, over 14,500 enterprise learners in Australia have been trained, along with a further 10,000 educators and students, helping build practical AI capability across both frontline and knowledge‑based roles. 

Microsoft’s ongoing work with the Australian Council of Trade Unions will ensure the worker voice and skilling remain at the heart of Australia’s AI transformation, including through co-developing curriculum with the Australian Trade Unions Institute to equip union workers with the knowledge they need to support their members as they navigate AI transformation in the workplace.   

Through tools like AI Skills Navigator, we’re making it easier for workers and employers to find the right learning pathway, including trainings available through LinkedIn Learning, whether someone is starting with the basics or building advanced, role-specific capability. By bringing together curated training from Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning into a single, accessible experience, the platform helps individuals build practical AI and human skills through flexible, online learning that can be completed at their own pace. Free trainings such as Investing in Human Skills in the Age of AI – inspired by the book Open to Work by LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky and LinkedIn Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman – and this selection of free courses to earn professional certificates on AI, cybersecurity and more, look to explore the growing importance of critical thinking, empathy, communication and creativity as AI reshapes the way we live and work. 

Community: expanding access to AI opportunity with trusted partners 

For AI skilling to create national impact, it must be inclusive, reaching people and communities who have historically been underrepresented in technology. Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Report shows Australia ranks 11th globally, with 37% of the working-age population using generative AI tools at the end of 2025. Yet the report also finds adoption is accelerating unevenly and the digital divide is widening – reinforcing the importance of ensuring AI capability and opportunity are shared broadly. 

To strengthen community and nonprofit leadership with responsible AI, Microsoft Elevate for Changemakers is launching today to support Australian nonprofit and social impact leaders who are driving practical AI adoption in service of their communities. Designed to meet organisations where they are, the free program builds hands-on skills with free AI readiness credentials, alongside access to a fellowship of global champions for deeper applied learning, while also helping teams strengthen internal capability so AI can be used safely, effectively and in line with community expectations. 

The launch of Elevate for Changemakers builds on existing work with not-for-profits, including working with Indigenous-led organisations such as Deadly Coders. Through Minecraft for Education, we’re supporting culturally relevant pathways for First Nations students to build skills in AI, coding and cloud, helping grow Indigenous representation in Australia’s future technology workforce.  

To date, Deadly Coders has reached 5,328 students and 147 teachers across communities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory – building digital capability and opening pathways into future technology careers. The program scales access to culturally grounded AI learning and supports more young people to build the foundational skills needed to participate in an AI-enabled economy. 

Learn more about Elevate for Educators here