Five Takeaways from the DCM Leaders Summit 2026

Uncertainty, ageing infrastructure and a sector in transition, here’s what stood out, and why asset management planning has never mattered more.

The AssetFuture team was proud to sponsor the DCM Leaders Summit 2026 in Sydney, where senior leaders from across aged care and retirement living came together to address the pressures reshaping the sector. The line-up included CBA Chief Economist Luke Yeaman, aged care entrepreneur Jennene Buckley, Aveo’s Tony Randello, Catholic Healthcare CEO Josh McFarlane and Retirement Living Council ED Daniel Gannon, among others.

The conversations were candid, forward-looking and, at times, confronting. Here are the five themes that stuck with us most, and what they mean for the way organisations plan, invest in and manage their infrastructure.

Macro-economic headwinds are creating real uncertainty

Luke Yeaman set the scene early. Geopolitical tension, demographic shifts, the energy transition and the rapid adoption of AI are all converging to create a new economic era, one marked by volatility rather than stability. For operators in aged care and retirement living, this translates directly into rising construction costs, competition for labour and materials, and tighter fiscal conditions.

The message was clear: macro-economic conditions will drive uncertainty in the short-to-medium term, and operators who aren’t planning strategically will feel it hardest. In this environment, capital decisions can’t afford to be reactive. Organisations need the ability to model long-term scenarios, forecast funding requirements with precision and make confident investment decisions, even when external conditions are shifting. That’s the kind of structured, evidence-based planning that the AssetFuture Platform is built to support, through CAPEX and OPEX forecasting, risk analysis and scenario modelling that gives leadership teams a defensible basis for capital allocation.

AI is no longer optional, it’s a productivity lever

A theme running across multiple presentations, AI emerged as both an opportunity and an imperative. Will Egan from Ausmed made the point that Australia is already the fourth-highest adopter of AI globally, yet less than 0.2% of the aged care workforce lists AI as a skill. The gap between potential and readiness is significant.

From AI-accelerated recruitment (Workday’s Esther Monks) to virtual nursing in residential care (Robert Read, Amplar Health), the use cases are already live. Jennene Buckley reinforced the breadth of opportunity, spanning AI care planning, predictive analytics, compliance dashboards and workforce rostering. For a sector under pressure to do more with less, AI is fast becoming the most practical path to improved productivity. At AssetFuture, we see the same trajectory in asset management: structured, accurate data is what makes intelligent decision-making possible, whether it’s a human or AI doing the analysis. Getting the data foundation right is the first step.

The aged care operating model is being challenged

Jennene Buckley’s presentation on the Support at Home rollout was sobering. Provider satisfaction scores are critically low, government communication has stalled, and clients are declining services due to contribution costs. The system’s complexity is creating operational strain that threatens financial viability.

Tony Randello offered a counter-narrative through Aveo’s turnaround, demonstrating that a customer-first approach, strategic capital investment and in-house service delivery can reshape outcomes entirely. The broader question being asked across the Summit was this: what is the most sustainable operating model for aged care over the next five years?

Whatever the model looks like, one thing was consistent: operators need to move from reactive to reliable. That means replacing fragmented processes, paper-based work orders and siloed systems with streamlined operational workflows. It’s why we built AssetOperate, to give facility teams clear accountability, real-time visibility and the operational control to manage maintenance with confidence, not firefighting.

Retirement village operators are taking a longer-term view on assets

With limited funding and residents living in villages for extended periods, operators are increasingly thinking strategically about the amenity, reliability and fit-for-purpose nature of their villages and independent living units. Tony Randello highlighted Aveo’s $200M+ capital upgrade program and the commercial logic behind investing in village quality, linking asset condition directly to occupancy, NPS and long-term financial performance.

Duncan McKimm reinforced the urgency from a regional perspective, while the CBA’s data showed that construction costs and competition for materials will only intensify. For village operators, the window to plan capital investment strategically is now, not after the next budget cycle.

This is where structured asset data becomes essential. Operators need a clear line of sight across the condition, lifecycle and financial profile of their assets to prioritise investment and build defensible retirement village asset management plans. The AssetFuture Platform provides that foundation, from structured asset registers and lifecycle forecasting through to capital maintenance planning and transparent reporting for residents and regulators.

Care is the infrastructure. Independence is the outcome.

Daniel Gannon from the Retirement Living Council delivered one of the most thought-provoking sessions of the Summit, challenging the sector to rethink the relationship between care and independence.

His central argument pushed back hard on a binary the industry has quietly inherited: that more care automatically means less independence. Gannon's reframe flips that on its head. Care, done well, doesn't end independence, it makes it possible. The risk isn't care itself, it's what the system starts to call residents, and how it regulates them, once care enters the picture.

For retirement living operators, the reframe has real strategic consequences across three shifts Gannon put forward:

·       Identity: design services to extend resident capability, not define residents by their needs

·       Design: treat support as something residents use, not something done to them

·       Measurement: reward independence outcomes, not just care delivered

It's a frame that sits alongside the convergence theme we heard from Josh McFarlane and Voni Leighton, that retirement villages are becoming the new low-care environments, with wrap-around services delivered where residents already live. If care is going to become core to the village offering, then the physical environment needs to enable independence, not narrow it.

That's where accurate, structured asset data becomes the quiet enabler. Buildings, units, amenities and service environments all need to be fit for purpose for both lifestyle and care delivery. The AssetFuture Platform helps retirement living operators get clear line of sight across the condition, lifecycle and readiness of their assets, so capital decisions connect directly to the outcomes residents care about most.

Plan with clarity. Build confidence.

Every theme at the Summit pointed back to infrastructure. Whether it’s upgrading villages to meet modern expectations, ensuring facilities can support clinical care delivery, or planning capital investment against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, the quality of asset planning underpins it all.

At AssetFuture, we work with aged care and retirement living providers to connect strategy and maintenance for better asset performance. From asset investment planning through to streamlined maintenance management and accurate asset data, our platform gives organisations the visibility and control to plan with confidence and deliver with accountability.

If the Summit reinforced one thing, it’s that the organisations planning deliberately today will be the ones best positioned for whatever comes next.

Start where you need to. Talk to the AssetFuture team