How much, if any, was spent in the 2023/24 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?

Answer

I am advised that, in the 2023/24 financial year, neither the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) nor the Electricity Authority (EA) incurred any expenditure specifically on artificial intelligence. A number of software products and services used by EECA may have introduced AI functionality as part of existing licensing or service arrangements. EECA did not incur any additional expenditure, or make any purchasing decisions, specifically in relation to the inclusion of this functionality. EA staff had access to the basic version of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is included within the EA’s broader Microsoft SaaS subscription, as well as AI capability within its Azure Databricks subscription. In both cases, the AI component is bundled into the wider service, so it is not practical to separately identify the AI-specific portion of the total cost.