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Good practice Imported

Australia's AI Assurance Framework Pilot — Testing AI Risk Assessment Across 21 Federal Agencies

Australia · Canberra · See the Australia profile · See the Canberra profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 14% 80/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Australia's Digital Transformation Agency piloted a draft AI impact-assessment framework with 21 volunteer federal agencies, testing whether it caught risks existing processes missed. Most found it useful, and findings now shape a national toolkit.

21
Agencies piloting the framework (Sep-Nov 2024)
>50%
Respondents finding the process useful for risk mitigation

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), Australian Government
Period
September–November 2024 (pilot); findings published 2025
Keywords
AI governance, risk assessment, public administration

Context

Australian Government agencies had no standard, government-wide way to identify and manage the ethical and operational risks of AI systems before deployment.

Activities

Between September and November 2024 the Digital Transformation Agency piloted a draft AI impact-assessment tool with staff from 21 volunteer federal agencies, walking teams through structured questions against Australia's AI Ethics Principles at each stage of the AI lifecycle.

Results

In DTA's post-pilot survey, more than half of respondents rated the process useful for managing risks their existing processes would not have caught, and nearly two-thirds said it helped identify risks existing processes would have missed entirely.

Conclusions

DTA is folding pilot findings into an updated, public impact-assessment toolkit, but the tool remains voluntary and the evidence is a single self-reported survey round rather than an independent audit.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
DTA project team, volunteer agency staff completing assessments

Conditions for success

  • agency willingness to volunteer for a draft tool
  • staff time to complete structured assessments

Common failure modes

  • tool remains voluntary, not mandatory
  • evidence is self-reported rather than independently audited

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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