Australia's AI Bill Has Landed: Local Firms Pay the Price for Silicon Valley's Spend

Australian businesses are now bearing the full cost of Silicon Valley's AI infrastructure arms race. The Weel Australian AI Spending Index shows AI adoption among local SMEs hit 30.8 per cent in June, up sharply from 22.1 per cent in January, with average monthly Anthropic spend reaching $1,082 — roughly 3.6 times the average OpenAI customer bill. Sydney software company Dovetail now spends about $US30,000 per month on coding tools Claude Code and Cursor,...