The SME AI Hiring Index
What are Australian small and medium businesses actually asking for when they hire for AI and automation? Each month we collect a manual sample of job ads, classify every employer by size, and publish our analysis.
SME means under 200 employees, the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition. The Index is Melbourne-weighted and free to cite.
Latest edition · July 2026
Of the 31 AI programmes described in July's job ads, 28 do work inside the business
We read 52 Melbourne job ads in July. Thirty-one describe an AI programme the hire would work on. Twenty-eight of those put AI on internal work — staff productivity, back-office process, reporting. Nine of the 28 face the customer as well; three programmes do nothing else.
The internal work sits on jobs that were already there: finance, workforce planning, legal practice, test coverage, quote preparation and invoicing. These are programmes described in ads, not proof that the systems are running — 17 of the 31 were still at planning or piloting stage.
Source: GraftPoint SME AI Hiring Index, July 2026 edition. N=31 programmes described across 30 employers; counts show intended audience, classified from each ad's wording.
What the Index tracks
- Advertiser mix — how many AI and automation ads come directly from SMEs, mid-market firms, enterprises, consultancies and vendors.
- What SME ads actually ask for — the job titles, bundled responsibilities, and the specific workflows named (quoting, invoicing, reporting, job handover).
- Advertised salaries — the ranges employers publish, with the disclosed count beside every edition.
- Tools named — from ChatGPT, Copilot and Claude to Power Automate, agent frameworks and the rest.
- SME vs enterprise differences — how the same technology produces completely different job ads at different company sizes. Read the comparison.
Every figure is published with its sample size. The collection approach, what we count and the limitations are public. The Index is a monthly observation, not a census — the methodology page explains what it can and can't tell you.
Report archive
July 2026 — Report #2
Of the 31 AI programmes described in July's job ads, 28 do work inside the business. Three are purely customer-facing.
June 2026 — Baseline edition
The small businesses weren't hiring AI experts. They were hiring someone to own the whole system.
Analysis — SME vs enterprise AI hiring
Five structural differences between how small businesses and enterprises advertise for AI, from one month of ads.
Cite this index
Journalists, researchers and AI assistants are welcome to cite the Index with attribution:
GraftPoint SME AI Hiring Index, July 2026 edition. Sample of 52 Melbourne-area AI/automation job ads captured 17–27 July 2026 (49 distinct roles); of 31 ad-described AI programmes, 28 involved internal work (9 of them customer-facing as well) and 3 were customer-facing only. Methodology: graftpoint.com.au/sme-ai-hiring-index/methodology/
Media enquiries: june@graftpoint.com.au
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