Tech giant says AI visas, bots in kindergarten needed

Amazon calls for AI visas and bots in kindergarten to boost Australia's tech capabilities

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Amazon has submitted a proposal to the Australian parliament, urging the country to introduce special artificial intelligence visas and revamp its school curriculum to include bots in classrooms from kindergarten.

The tech giant believes that Australia is at risk of missing out on becoming a global AI hub if it doesn't act quickly to nurture home-grown AI. Amazon's submission states that the nation has a winning hand, with good education, stability, and data privacy protections in place.

However, Amazon's analysis has found that fewer than one in five employers feel their workforces are prepared to adopt AI due to cost concerns and lack of knowledge. To address this, Amazon is suggesting adding an AI stream to Australia's skilled visa pathways and injecting tech literacy programs deeper and earlier into school curricula.

Amazon Web Services, the retail and tech giant's dog in the AI fight, has seen significant revenue growth, raking in over $185 billion in revenue globally in the 2025 US financial year. However, the company has also laid off nearly 30,000 workers across all its divisions since late 2025 amid major restructuring partly related to its adoption of AI.

Meanwhile, a strategy think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has labelled AI 'the most consequential technology humanity has ever invented and likely will ever invent' in a submission to the committee. The think tank has expressed concerns about the potential for malicious cyber actors to conduct cyber-attacks and has warned about the next development to worry about: biological weaponry.