Australia’s latest 40-year economic outlook has formally identified artificial intelligence as one of five structural transitions expected to fundamentally reshape the national economy over the coming decades, though the comprehensive blueprint notably omits any mention of cryptocurrency or digital assets.
The comprehensive assessment, known as the Intergenerational Report, was published on Monday by the Australian Treasury. Within its pages, federal economic forecasters described agentic artificial intelligence systems as having become significantly more capable, highly autonomous, and widely integrated across various sectors. The report highlighted that these advanced systems are now capable of matching or even surpassing human-level performance across a growing number of technical benchmarks.
Alongside the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, the Treasury’s blueprint outlines four other critical transitions that will define Australia’s economic trajectory over the next four decades. These include escalating geopolitical conflicts, a rapidly aging domestic population, a sweeping national and global shift toward clean energy, and Australia’s ongoing industrial transformation toward a services-led economy. Together, these five forces will dictate the country’s productivity, labor market dynamics, and fiscal health for generations to come.
However, the complete absence of digital assets, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrency from the massive long-term planning document has drawn immediate criticism and concern from industry stakeholders.
John O’Loghlen, the country director for Coinbase Australia, offered pointed commentary on the government’s oversight through emailed remarks following the report’s release. He emphasized that while the government is right to focus on technological evolution, it is failing to account for the necessary financial plumbing that advanced systems will inherently require.
The Intergenerational Report makes it clear that Australia’s prosperity over the next 40 years will depend heavily on our ability to adopt new technology and lift productivity, O’Loghlen said. And while the report focuses heavily on artificial intelligence, it completely misses the financial infrastructure those agents will need.
Historically, previous iterations of the Intergenerational Report have also steered clear of addressing digital assets and decentralized finance, treating traditional fiat systems as the permanent baseline for the nation’s financial future. This latest omission comes despite mounting momentum elsewhere within the Australian financial regulatory ecosystem. Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of Australia notably increased its institutional focus on tokenized finance, conducting research and pilot programs regarding financial infrastructure upgrades.
Furthermore, independent estimates from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre have previously projected that ongoing innovations in digital finance could generate as much as 24 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to approximately $17.1 billion USD, in annual economic gains for the country. The disconnect between these forward-looking financial research estimates and the Treasury’s multi-decade structural overview highlights a persistent blind spot in macro-level fiscal planning.
Despite the omission of crypto from the Intergenerational Report itself, the Australian Treasury has separately addressed the intersection of emerging technologies and monetary systems. Just days prior to the multi-decade outlook, the Treasury released a specialized policy document titled the Financial Innovation Strategy on September 3, which explicitly examines the direct link between artificial intelligence and future financial infrastructure.
According to the findings within the Financial Innovation Strategy, the proliferation of agentic AI systems is expected to drastically increase the volume of automated and machine-to-machine transactions. As autonomous software agents begin conducting commerce, executing contracts, and moving funds on behalf of individuals and corporations, the demand will surge for real-time, fully interoperable, and programmable payment systems that can operate seamlessly without traditional banking hours or human friction.
O’Loghlen acknowledged that regulatory authorities have made measurable strides in certain areas of financial modernization over recent years. He pointed to the development of the Digital Asset Platform framework as a positive step that has provided necessary regulatory clarity for certain institutional blockchain applications.
The opportunity now is to bring the same focus to the tokenized stored-value facility framework for stablecoins, and clear rules for tokenized markets, O’Loghlen added, outlining the path forward for lawmakers and regulators. Those are the rails digital finance — agentic finance included — will run on, and getting them right is how Australia turns this opportunity into reality.
