Burleigh Heads Founder Turns AI Anxiety Into a Growth Engine

Taryn Sokolowski launched her firm, Coastal Intelligence Co., from a co-working desk on James Street, Burleigh Heads, eighteen months ago with $40,000 in savings and a single client — a café on the Gold Coast Highway. Today she employs eleven people, counts more than 130 small-to-medium Gold Coast businesses on her books, and is on track to turn over $2.1 million by the end of the 2025-26 financial year.

The timing matters. Across the country, concern is mounting about what artificial intelligence actually does to local economies. Experts have warned that the race to build data centres is already competing with freight, logistics and residential land for space in major cities. Social media platforms are fighting waves of AI-generated fake accounts impersonating real creators. For many small business owners in Robina, Southport and Palm Beach, 'AI' has become a word that triggers dread rather than opportunity. Sokolowski is betting she can change that.

'Most of my clients came to me because they'd tried to use one of the big platforms and felt burned,' she told staff at a team briefing held last month at the Gold Coast City Council's Entrepreneur Development Program hub at Southport Central. 'They didn't understand what they'd signed up for. They just knew it hadn't worked.'

Filling the Gap Between Hype and Practicality

Coastal Intelligence Co. runs three core service lines: an AI audit — a structured review of a business's digital footprint and data practices priced at $1,800 — a monthly retainer package starting at $990, and a group workshop series delivered in partnership with the Gold Coast Business Hub on Scarborough Street, Southport. The next workshop cohort opens on August 12 and has already filled 28 of its 30 places.

The business sits at an intersection the Gold Coast has been quietly cultivating for several years. The city's tech sector employed roughly 14,200 people as of the most recent National Institute of Economic and Industry Research figures for 2025, a number that has grown by around 19 per cent since 2022. That growth has been anchored by larger players — data infrastructure firms and fintech companies clustered around the Varsity Lakes precinct — but the ecosystem around them has been slower to develop. Sokolowski's firm is among a handful trying to serve the middle tier: established local businesses with real revenue but no dedicated digital staff.

The Gold Coast City Council's Advance Queensland Industry Attraction Fund, which awarded four Gold Coast technology startups a combined $1.3 million in the 2024-25 round, did not include Coastal Intelligence Co. Sokolowski applied but did not make the cut. She funded her second year of growth through a $150,000 unsecured business loan and reinvested profit — a path she says forced a discipline on the company that grant money might have diluted.

What Local Business Owners Should Watch

The broader property and investment climate is creating a specific kind of opportunity for businesses like hers. With investor sentiment cooling sharply in southern capitals and capital increasingly cautious, regional cities including the Gold Coast are drawing more attention from entrepreneurs who want lower overheads without sacrificing market size. The Gold Coast's permanent population crossed 650,000 in early 2026 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the tourism economy — which pumped $5.6 billion into the local economy in 2024-25 — generates a continuous stream of hospitality, retail and experience businesses that need digital help.

Sokolowski's next move is a partnership she expects to formalise before September: a referral arrangement with a mid-tier accounting firm on Bundall Road that will give Coastal Intelligence Co. warm introductions to clients already flagging technology costs as a line item they do not understand. The firm has asked not to be named until the agreement is signed.

For Gold Coast business owners considering their own AI strategy, her practical threshold is blunt: if you cannot describe in one sentence what problem you are trying to solve, you are not ready to spend money on a platform. Start with the audit. Know your data before you automate anything that touches your customers.