Harrison.ai, an Australian health technology company, has laid off staff in Australia while opening a new business in the United States. The move comes about a year after the company received $32 million from the federal government's National Reconstruction Fund.
That funding was meant to keep the company's operations based in Australia. Officials said the investment would support jobs and growth inside the country.
Harrison.ai makes AI software that helps doctors read chest and brain scans. The company says its tools are used by 3,500 clinicians across more than 1,000 sites worldwide.
A New US Business Model
In April, the company told Australian employees it was making some roles redundant. At least two staff members confirmed on LinkedIn in May that their positions had been cut.
Around the same time, Harrison.ai began hiring for a new venture called Frontier Radiology. This US-based service employs doctors who use Harrison.ai's software to interpret scans.
Frontier is registered in Delaware, a US state known for its private corporate structures. The state's regulator does not publicly disclose who owns companies registered there.
Frontier's website includes a pay calculator for radiologists. It assumes doctors using the AI tool will be 30 percent more productive and offers a 25 percent bonus tied to that assumed gain.
Harrison.ai also restructured its internal teams. Staff were told the company would shift toward a model where each employee manages a group of AI agents rather than working in traditional roles.
Expert Concerns Over Doctor Independence
Michelle Lazarus, a researcher at Monash University, said the pay structure raises questions about whether radiologists can stay objective. She compared it to trusting a GPS even when a driver suspects the directions are wrong.
She said that kind of trust can be risky in healthcare if doctors stop questioning AI suggestions. Missing a critical result could put patient safety at risk.
Wendy Rogers, a clinical ethics professor at Macquarie University, said doctors tied to a single AI system may find it harder to challenge its results. She said radiologists would need to take on more professional responsibility if they disagreed with the tool's output.
Harrison.ai has said its system supports radiologists rather than replacing them. The company also said Frontier's doctors use independent clinical judgment.
The ABC contacted Harrison.ai for comment over several weeks. Co-founder Aengus Tran said he does not answer unsolicited phone calls. Co-founder Dimitry Tran did not respond.
Harrison.ai has faced scrutiny before. It previously trained its AI using tens of millions of patient scans supplied by an investor, without directly notifying patients or asking for their consent.
A privacy investigation into that practice was later closed after regulators found the data had been sufficiently de-identified.
The company now appears to be preparing for a stock market listing. A June job posting for a finance role mentioned working toward "IPO readiness" for a future listing on the ASX.
