Airtasker built its name on a simple promise: post a job, get it done. More than a decade after two Sydney entrepreneurs launched the online marketplace for odd jobs and skilled trades, the company now faces a harder question than how to assemble flat-pack furniture. It needs to prove it can grow again, and management is increasingly pointing to artificial intelligence as the lever that might do it.
A recent analysis from Kalkine Media, headlined “AI Agents to the Rescue? Can Airtasker (ASX:ART) Reset Its Growth Story?”, puts the question plainly. The company (ASX:ART) has spent the past two years trying to convince the market that a business built on human-to-human connection can be sharpened by software that increasingly acts on its own. It is a pitch that lands at an awkward moment, with investors wary of companies that bolt the letters “AI” onto earnings calls without much to show for it.
From odd jobs to a maturing market
Airtasker launched in 2012 and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2021 near the top of the pandemic-era technology boom. Its model is straightforward. People who need something done, whether that is a leaking tap fixed, a wardrobe moved or a logo designed, post the task and receive offers from workers willing to do it. Airtasker takes a cut of the payment and sells extra visibility to the taskers competing for work.
The domestic marketplace has matured, which is both a sign of success and a problem. In its core Australian cities, Airtasker already enjoys strong brand recognition and a dense pool of buyers and sellers. The easy years of signing up new users in untapped suburbs are largely behind it. Growth from here has to come from getting existing users to post more often, converting more of those posts into completed and paid jobs, and expanding into overseas markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States, where the brand is far less established and competition is fierce.
That is the backdrop against which the AI story is being told. For a marketplace, the quality of the match between a buyer and a seller is everything. Get it right and the task gets done, the money changes hands and both sides come back. Get it wrong and users drift away. This is precisely the kind of problem that machine learning has long been good at, and where newer AI agents, software that can carry out multi-step tasks with limited human prompting, could in theory add real value.
The bullish case
Supporters of the strategy argue that AI is a natural fit for Airtasker’s economics. Agents could help a user turn a vague request into a clear, well-priced brief, nudge them toward the right category, and surface the taskers most likely to accept and complete the job. Automated assistance could also lower the friction that causes people to abandon a half-written post, lifting the conversion rate that is central to revenue.
There is a cost angle too. Customer support, trust and safety checks, dispute handling and content moderation all scale with activity, and all are candidates for automation. If AI can shoulder more of that load, Airtasker can grow transaction volumes without growing headcount at the same pace, which is exactly the operating leverage the market wants to see from a company of its size. In overseas markets, where Airtasker cannot afford the heavy marketing budgets of incumbents, smarter software that does more with fewer people is arguably the only realistic path to scale.
The sceptics
Against that sits a more cautious reading. Investors have grown tired of “AI” as a slide in an investor deck, and the burden of proof now falls on hard numbers: higher conversion, better retention, stronger margins. A marketplace also depends on human trust in ways that automation can erode. Part of Airtasker’s appeal has always been that a real person turns up to do the job, and if AI-driven matching starts to feel impersonal or pushes users toward paid placements, the goodwill that keeps the two-sided market humming could suffer.
There is also the risk that the technology cuts the other way. The same AI tools that could help Airtasker can help competitors, and large platforms such as search engines and general-purpose assistants are increasingly capable of connecting people to local services directly, potentially bypassing dedicated marketplaces altogether. Reaching for AI agents is as much a defensive move as an offensive one.
What it means for Australia
Airtasker matters to the local scene beyond its share price. It is one of a relatively small group of homegrown consumer technology companies that listed on the ASX and stayed Australian, rather than being acquired or decamping to the United States. Its fortunes are a useful test case for whether local platforms can use AI to defend and extend their positions rather than simply watching offshore giants eat the market.
The company also sits at the intersection of two debates playing out across the country: the future of gig and flexible work, and the push for Australian businesses to adopt AI in ways that genuinely lift productivity rather than chase headlines. Tens of thousands of Australians earn income through the platform, so how Airtasker deploys automation, and whether it does so in a way that supports rather than sidelines the workers on it, carries weight for the broader conversation about technology and jobs. For retail investors in particular, Airtasker is a familiar name, and its ability to turn an AI narrative into results will shape how much patience the market extends to the next local company telling a similar story.
What’s next
The proof points will come in Airtasker’s trading updates and full-year results, where the market will look past the language and hunt for evidence that AI is moving the metrics that matter: gross marketplace volume, revenue per user, conversion and the trajectory of its overseas operations. Management has set the expectation that technology can reset the growth curve. Delivering it is the harder part, and the window to show measurable gains is narrowing as investor scepticism about AI promises hardens.
For now, Airtasker remains a modestly sized company with a genuine asset in its established Australian marketplace and a strategy that reads well on paper. Whether AI agents prove to be the rescue the headline asks about, or simply the latest chapter in a growth story still searching for a second act, will be decided by numbers rather than narrative.
Sources: Kalkine Media via GNews.
