Melbourne has the largest cluster of AI companies in Australia, according to the Victorian Government. Three firms in our directory are based here, and several firms headquartered elsewhere keep Melbourne offices. This guide covers what the local scene looks like, how the Melbourne firms differ and what support the state offers.
Melbourne's AI scene
In January 2026, Invest Victoria said Melbourne is home to 188 AI companies and around 22% of Australia's clustered AI firms, the largest concentration in the country. The same release says AI is expected to add up to $30 billion to Victoria's gross state product over the next decade. Both figures are the government's own estimates.
The state's plan for AI is its AI Mission Statement, which sets six pillars: investment attraction and adoption, data centres and digital infrastructure, local innovation, talent and workforce, ethical AI use and public sector adoption. Two funded initiatives sit under it: a $5.5 million Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan and an $8.2 million Digital Jobs – AI Career Conversion Program, which aims to upskill tech professionals into AI roles and embed AI capability in small and medium businesses.
Startup and investment support was reorganised in 2026. Innovation Victoria went live on 30 June 2026, bringing LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria into one organisation. If you are a Victorian startup building an AI product, check there for programmes and capital before you commit your own budget.
Which industries drive demand
The same Invest Victoria release names digital technologies, advanced manufacturing and innovation-led services as the state's focus sectors. The Melbourne firms on our list cover a matching spread: product engineering for companies building AI into apps and devices, perception systems for operations teams that inspect assets or sites, and enterprise AI and data work for large organisations across Australia and New Zealand.
In advanced manufacturing, AI work often means vision and sensor systems: spotting defects, checking assembly and watching equipment for early signs of failure. In digital and services businesses it more often means AI inside a customer-facing product or an internal workflow. Those two kinds of project call for different partners, so be clear which one you have before you start calling firms.
The Melbourne firms on our list
Mantel Group
Mantel Group was founded in Melbourne in 2017 and now lists offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart. It covers agentic AI, data services, legacy modernisation, AI governance frameworks, cloud and cyber security. The websites of the former AI and data brands Eliiza and Aginic now redirect to Mantel's. It suits enterprises that want one partner across data, cloud, security and AI.
DiUS
DiUS has been operating since 2004 and also has a Sydney office. It mixes design, engineering, data, AI and IoT, which means it can work on the device side of a product as well as the cloud side. A published example: for insurer bolttech, DiUS built a phone-screen check called Click-to-Protect that uses an on-phone model under 1MB, shrunk with quantisation-aware training, to guide customers through taking photos, with a model in the cloud checking the screen (DiUS case study).
Silverpond
Silverpond is best known for Highlighter, which it calls an "Enterprise Perception System". It also offers consulting and builds bespoke AI products. Because it leads with its own platform, ask early whether your project would run on Highlighter under a licence or be built from scratch. Both can be the right answer, but the cost structure and your exit options differ.
National firms with Melbourne offices
Thoughtworks has a Melbourne office, as do Sydney-based Quantium and V2 AI. Deloitte has offices in every capital. A head office elsewhere rarely matters for software work, but ask who on the delivery team is actually based in Melbourne if you want people in the room.
How to pick a Melbourne partner
- Decide if you are buying a product, a project or a team. A platform like Highlighter can get you running sooner but ties you to a vendor. A bespoke build costs more up front but you own more of it. An approach built around your own delivery capability, such as Thoughtworks' AI Factory model, aims to leave skills behind in your organisation.
- Check the device side. If the AI must run in an app, a sensor or a camera, ask for a shipped example like the DiUS case above. Teams that only work in the cloud may never have dealt with model compression, battery limits or flaky connections.
- Put skills transfer in scope. The state is funding AI career conversion, and you can ask the same of your vendor: pair your staff with theirs, and make training and documentation deliverables with a price, not extras.
- Match the firm's size to yours. An enterprise consultancy can be more than a 20-person business needs, and a small studio may struggle with a bank's procurement and security reviews.
For budgeting, our AI development cost guide sets out published price ranges and running costs.
Questions worth asking Melbourne firms
Because the Melbourne firms on our list are so different from one another, the most useful questions depend on the type of firm in front of you.
- A platform-led firm: What happens to our data, labels and trained models if we stop paying for the platform? Can we export them in a standard format?
- A product engineering firm: Who maintains the model after launch, and how will updates reach apps or devices already in customers' hands?
- An enterprise consultancy: Which parts of the work will your own engineers do, and which will be subcontracted? Who from the Melbourne office will be on the team?
- Any firm: Can we see the evaluation results from a past project, with that client's permission, including what didn't work?
Remote or local?
Six of the firms in our directory have offices in both Melbourne and Sydney, so working across the two cities is routine. For software, a strong interstate team can be a better choice than a weaker local one.
For anything physical, such as a vision system on a manufacturing line, local presence counts for more. Engineers need to see the lighting, the line speed and the conditions the model will face, and every test that needs a flight adds cost and delay.
If your Melbourne project needs custom hardware, such as a new circuit board around an AI accelerator or a robot, you may need to look interstate. One option is to pair a local software partner with a specialist such as Sydney's Vedametric, which designs edge hardware and distils models to run on it.
Common questions
How many AI companies are there in Melbourne?
Invest Victoria said in January 2026 that Melbourne is home to 188 AI companies and around 22% of Australia's clustered AI firms. That is a government figure. Our directory lists the Melbourne firms that build AI for clients.
What AI support does the Victorian Government offer?
Its AI Mission Statement funds an $8.2 million Digital Jobs – AI Career Conversion Program and a $5.5 million Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan. Startups can also look to Innovation Victoria, which brought LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria together in June 2026.
Which Melbourne AI firms work with cameras and sensors?
Silverpond focuses on perception through its Highlighter platform, and DiUS works across IoT, streaming sensor data and edge machine learning.
Should I buy an AI platform or commission a custom build?
A platform is often faster to start and cheaper in the first year, but you pay ongoing licence fees and depend on the vendor's roadmap. A custom build costs more up front and gives you more control. Ask for both options priced over three years.