Agentic AI offers new opportunities for established Australian businesses

When Canva launched Canva AI 2.0, it rebuilt one of Australia’s best-known software products around agentic AI. Its new orchestration layer takes a goal, such as a multichannel campaign from a single brief, and coordinates the tools needed to deliver it. Enterprise operations teams are now comparing notes on the same shift — iTnews is gathering around 600 customers and partners, David Jones and Canva among the names attached, around automation, integration and agentic AI.

For established Australian businesses, the signal is practical. AI is no longer only a tool for small efficiencies. It is becoming a system capable of owning complex, multi-step workflows — and the businesses that design for that now will hold the advantage.

Understanding agentic AI: beyond the chatbot

For years, AI in business meant automating discrete, repetitive tasks: a chatbot answering FAQs, or a script extracting data from a predictable document. Agentic AI works differently. An agentic system is given an objective, then plans, executes, monitors and adjusts its actions to reach it. It breaks a goal into sub-tasks, works across multiple systems (CRMs, databases, external APIs) and handles the exceptions a fixed script can’t.

That is the shift Canva’s rebuild illustrates. Before an agent could orchestrate anything, every feature had to become something the agent could call. The same is true inside your business: an agent is only as capable as the systems it can reach.

Practical applications for Australian businesses

Owning the first touchpoint with AI voice agents

Inbound enquiries are where most businesses feel this first. A basic chatbot deflects simple questions. An AI voice agent holds a natural conversation, understands intent, and qualifies or resolves the enquiry itself. For a solar and energy business, that means an agent handles initial calls, pre-qualifies prospects on consumption and roof type, and books assessments without anyone picking up the phone. For trades, it means answering every call —services, hours, availability— and passing qualified jobs straight to the team.

Automating multi-step workflows

Internally, agentic systems earn their place in processes that cross several tools. Our AI workflow automation work centres on exactly this. Take client onboarding: an agent takes data from the enquiry form, creates the CRM record, sends the welcome sequence, sets internal alerts and flags anything missing. For an accounting or finance firm, it might process incoming client documents, check them against the engagement requirements, and route discrepancies to a person for review.

This is not digitising a paper form. It is engineering a system that understands the process end to end and takes responsibility for its execution.

Engineering for autonomy

Our approach to agentic AI is rooted in engineering. When we deploy an agent, we are building a new component of your operations — one you own, with transparent mechanics and auditable outcomes. That means attention to the unglamorous details: how the agent reads and writes to your CRM, how its decisions are logged, and where a human stays in the loop.

That grounding is what turns an AI pilot into a measurable improvement in pipeline and net profit, rather than an expensive experiment.

What serious operators should consider

1. Identify high-value, repetitive workflows. Look for processes that are manual, error-prone, or consume significant staff time across more than one system. These are the strongest candidates for agentic automation.
2. Define the outcome before the tool. Decide which metric should move — response time, lead qualification speed, admin errors, data accuracy — and design backwards from it.
3. Insist on ownership and transparency. Any agent you adopt should integrate with your existing systems, expose how it makes decisions, and leave you in control of the data and the architecture.

Agentic AI is a genuine step change in operational capacity. It doesn’t replace your team’s judgement; it removes the repetitive, multi-step work that currently consumes it. If you’re weighing where an agent would pay for itself in your business, request a growth audit and we’ll map the workflows worth automating first.

Written by

Gurdeep Saroa

Founder & full-stack engineer

Software developer turned performance marketer. Builds the automation, tracking and web systems GRIVITY delivers.

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