The guide — Artificial Intelligence: A Starter Guide to the Future of Business — was released on Thursday, with a number of Australian AI companies present and showing off their wares.

These included the chief executives and founders of Sortal, Gameface and Hyper Anna.

“Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionise the way we do business, optimising business processes and creating entirely new revenue streams,” said ACS president Yohan Ramasundara.

"If Australia is to remain a competitive leader in technology, we must both inspire the current and future entrepreneurs, and encourage adoption and experimentation with existing AI solutions.

"Our message today to Australian business is to get in now, or risk missing out on the largest business opportunity since the Internet.”

Sortal chief executive Majella Edwards said: "When we speak with enterprises about artificial intelligence, too often we find that business leaders focus on what the technology will achieve in the future.

"While there is an enormous amount of potential as the field develops, we can already do incredible things with AI in the here and now – and by investing in AI now, businesses can set themselves up to thrive rather than play catch up later on.

"We welcome this initiative from ACS to help educate Australian businesses about what can be done, and the opportunity to showcase Australian innovation in this space."

Ramasundara added that more must be done to keep Australian AI talent from going overseas.

“The government has committed to invest $29.9 million over four years to pump up Australia’s AI and machine-learning capabilities in fields such as cyber security, health and energy," he said.

"This is a very small step in the right direction and if we are genuinely committed to harnessing the power of AI a more demonstrably significant investment will be required.

“AI experts in the US and China, for example, can demand salaries as high as US$300,000 (A$400,000). We also know there is a gap when it comes to the adoption of AI solutions in the Australian enterprise. Our report today aims to bring knowledge of what is possible to business decision makers.”

The guide is available here.