In July 2024 Australia's regulator required all 203 higher-education providers to submit generative-AI risk action plans. Its 2025 guidance found detecting AI use is “all but impossible” and pushed providers toward assessment redesign, not detection software.
203 providers
Registered higher-education providers required to submit action plans (2024)
100 %
Provider compliance with the action-plan mandate (2024)
Details
Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA)
In July 2024, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), Australia's national higher-education regulator, required all 203 registered higher-education providers to submit institutional action plans addressing the risk generative AI poses to qualification integrity.
Objectives
Establish a sector-wide baseline on institutional readiness for generative AI and move providers away from relying on detection software toward assessment redesign.
Activities
TEQSA collected action plans from all 203 providers, then worked with assessment researcher Jason Lodge (University of Queensland) and collaborators to publish 'Enacting Assessment Reform in a Time of Artificial Intelligence' (September 2025), setting out three reform pathways - whole-degree assurance, unit-level assurance, and hybrid models - and cautioning against over-relying on invigilated exams.
Results
All 203 providers complied, giving TEQSA a full-sector baseline; the guidance's central finding was that 'detecting gen AI use with certainty in assessments is, at this point, all but impossible.'
Conclusions
TEQSA concluded that academic integrity must be assured through assessment design rather than detection tooling, directing the sector toward structural reform rather than a technology fix.
Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
TEQSA (national regulator), Jason Lodge (University of Queensland assessment researcher) and collaborators, Institutional assessment-design teams at each provider
Conditions for success
Mandatory, sector-wide compliance mechanism giving the regulator real leverage
Expert-authored guidance translating the mandate into concrete reform pathways
Institutional capacity to redesign assessments rather than default to invigilated exams
Common failure modes
Providers producing only a compliance action plan without substantive assessment redesign
Over-reliance on invigilated exams as a fallback, narrowing assessment variety and authenticity (a risk TEQSA's own guidance explicitly flags)
Where it fits
Governance type
national regulator mandate
Scale
national (203 providers)
Income level
high-income (Australia)
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Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
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