The South Australian government will set up a royal commission into AI to shape its policy response to the technology. Premier Peter Malinauskas said that the commission will start its work by October 1 and hand down a final report by mid-2027. Malinauskas said he had just returned from a trip to the United States, where he met AI companies and experts. “It is clear the current public policy response worldwide does not match the scale of the technological changes that are coming,” he said in a statement posted to X. “I want South Australia to be a leader in the policy response to this technology in a way that puts people’s interests first.” Malinauskas said that setting up the royal commission is about “ensuring South Australians maximise the benefits and minimise the unwanted risks” of the AI boom. “We need a serious policy response regarding artificial intelligence across all aspects of society, whether it be in schools, in industry, in public health or arts and culture,” he said. A panel of commissioners will be appointed by the government in the coming months. While in the US, Malinauskas met with the likes of Anthropic, OpenAI, Apple and Stanford, as well as government officials.