That’s the contradiction at the heart of new Gartner research, which predicts AI inference costs per agentic workflow will increase more than fivefold by 2028 as organisations move from simple chatbots to more sophisticated AI agents capable of reasoning, planning and executing multistep tasks. The analyst company calls it the ‘inference paradox’ with improving model economics being overwhelmed by increasingly complex AI workloads.

While model prices might be falling, that’s luring users to build ever more complex workflows – and the greater token consumption of those workflows can outweigh savings from reducing model prices and escalating inference costs.

“The harsh economics of the Inference Paradox are exemplified by the differences between a simple chatbot and an AI agent,” Gartner senior director analyst Will Sommer says. “Where a simple chatbot must read and interpret a query and quickly respond with a probabilistically reasonable answer, an AI agent must constantly reason, negotiate and question itself.”

All of that processing comes at a cost.

Gartner says routing a task to an agentic reasoning model increases inference costs by at least five times compared with a basic chatbot interaction, and often much more as complexity grows. At the same time, organisations are discovering that increasingly capable AI systems consume vastly more tokens than traditional conversational AI.

Gartner argues many organisations are making matters worse by allowing inefficient agent behaviour to creep into systems as they scale.

“There is an enormous pool of waste in any agentic system,” Gartner says in a research note. “Most of the bill in agentic systems is redundancy.”

Among the issues identified in 50% of Token Costs Can Be Cut for AI Agents With Zero Quality Loss are repeated queries, redundant processing, oversized context windows and agent loops that repeatedly consume tokens without adding value. Gartner estimates roughly 31 percent of production queries repeat work organisations have already paid for. Agents consume around 100 input tokens for every output token generated, while 40 percent to 60 percent of agent tool output tokens can often be removed without any loss of quality.

This is where Gartner believes the next AI battleground is emerging as companies move beyond the first phase of experimentation and the second of governance, trust and responsible deployment and into AI engineering efficiency, or building systems that deliver the same outcomes using fewer resources.

That starts with model selection.

“Most tasks do not require frontier intelligence,” the report notes, warning that defaulting every workload to the largest and most capable models is ‘immensely wasteful’. Instead, Gartner recommends routing requests to the cheapest model capable of completing a particular task and escalating only when more sophisticated reasoning is genuinely required.

The report report estimates organisations can reduce costs by up to 60 percent through routing and workload optimisation alone.

Gartner argues that visibility becomes increasingly important as organisations scale AI into production. It recommends tracking metrics including cost per completed task, token consumption by model, spend by customer segment and the relationship between AI expenditure and customer outcomes. Without detailed measurement, organisations often fail to identify expensive models performing basic work or AI features generating little business value.

At the centre of Gartner’s recommendations is a concept that will sound familiar to cloud veterans: AI FinOps.

The company recommends introducing AI gateways, workload routing, caching, attribution and budget controls to actively manage AI consumption rather than simply paying whatever bill arrives at the end of the month. It describes routing, caching and orchestration as critical to preventing costs from spiralling as agent complexity increases.

“Hold agents to high-value tasks and delegate the rest down a tier,” the report says.

“Product leaders cannot rely on more efficient token economics to rationalise AI costs,” Sommer says. “Each successive generation of AI capability will necessitate more, and often more expensive, tokens.” He says there is ‘no reliable, economical one-size-fits-all model on the horizon’ and that organisations will increasingly need to manage complex multimodel environments.

The move by some AI providers to usage-based billing – as previously reported by iStart – has exacerbated issues.

Gartner’s report also identifies opportunities inside the architecture of agentic systems themselves.

Rather than feeding large volumes of information into models, the report recommends retrieval-based approaches that selectively surface only relevant content. Using retrieval-augmented generation (Rag), for example, can reduce token consumption by up to 75 percent while maintaining accuracy. Context compression approaches can reduce token volumes by 60 percent to 95 percent, while redesigning agent loops can remove 40 percent to 60 percent of redundant processing.

The broader message is that AI economics are changing.

For the past two years, the primary question has been whether AI could perform useful work. Gartner suggests the more important question now may be whether organisations can afford to run increasingly sophisticated AI systems at scale – and how to control what that intelligence costs.

The post AI’s new paradox: Cheaper models, bigger bills appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

AppWrap August 2026

27.08 Australia’s financial regulators APRA and ASIC are urging organisations to move from mere awareness to taking decisive action around frontier AI risks. They says boards and executives must move beyond awareness and ensure their organisations have well-tested response plans and understand where they are vulnerable so they can respond effectively under pressure. The regulators flagged a growing interest in defensive AI, including for threat intelligence, vulnerability detection, code review and incident response along with the importance of getting cyber fundamentals right.

27.08 Woolworths has revealed an AI employee support tool is handling around 7,000 staff enquires a week and resolving nine out of 10 of them without human intervention. ITnews reports the retailer has also used AI to cut weekly catalogue production from a week to a few hours.

27.08 Xero investors have voted against adopting the board’s decision to give CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy a 22 percent pay rise – lifting her target remuneration to US$18 million, the majority through long-term equity awards split between performance and service, Forbes Australia reports.  The move comes amid ongoing struggles for Xero’s stock prices, which have been halved in the past year. Under NZ law the board does not require shareholder approval, but put it forward to an advisory vote as ‘a matter of good governance’.

27.08 Meta has agreed to a landmark US$18 billion settlement in a US federal case accusing it of endangering children, with a slew of new safety features now required to its platforms including Instagram and Facebook. Al Jazeera reports those changes range from night curfews to two-hour usage limits for US users under the age of 18. Other countries are also taking regulatory action against Meta and other social media platforms.

25.08 The Australian Energy Market Operator and Oxford Economics Australia are forecasting a seven-fold increase in data centre electricity demand in Australia over the next decade as AI and cloud infrastructure investment accelerates. They say under the central scenario data centre electricity consumption across the NEM is forecast to increase from 5.1TWh in FY26 to 15.5 TWh by FY30 and 33.7 TWh by FY36.

19.08 The ACCC has raided the offices of logistics software company WiseTech Global for documents and electronic data related to the supply of global logistics services and software. The search is part of an investigation into alleged contraventions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, WiseTech says, adding that it intends to fully cooperate with the investigation.

19.08 Quest Apartment Hotels says it is investigating a security breach which has compromised customers’ personal data relating to records before June 2025 and including full names, email addresses and contact details. Some data entries also include customers’ date of birth. Quest says unauthorised access to a database system arose from a vulnerability through a third-party service provider, ABCnews reports. The OAIC and Australian Cyber Security Centre have been notified.

18.09 The Origin Energy cyber hack which exposed the personal data of nearly a million Australians has been traced to a former Accenture employee in a Manila call centre, ABCnews reports. Information of around 900,000 current and former customers was accessed in the breach, which was confirmed last month.

11.08 Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has received an $8m fine after admitting numerous cybersecurity failures in relation to a 2023 cyber attack on its former Alliance Bank business. The attack saw a hacker access 257 customer accounts and extract funds. APRA says there were ‘significant weaknesses’ in customer authentication controls for online banking, including password settings that allowed very weak passwords, and system design features that enabled the treat actor to identify valid customer IDs. A number of the weaknesses had been identified in 2020 but not addressed, BusinessNews Australia reports.

12.08 Social media platform X (has won a lawsuit it brought against Australia’s eSafety Commissioner after the Federal Court found the company does not need to follow a new safety standard for harmful online content. InformationAge reports X successfully argued it could not be designated under Australia’s Online Safety Act as both a ‘social media service’ and a ‘relevant electronic service’ (RES). The RES standard therefore ‘does not apply’.

07.08 Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus has raised US$2 billion in equity in its latest funding round as it looks to speed up build-out of AI factories in Australia and Asia Pacific. Reuters reports the raise brings the company’s post-money valuation to more than $10.5b.

AppWrap July 2026

30.07 Total capital raise by Australian cyber startups has bounced back to $171 million in the 2026 financial year following a 2025 lull. Major rounds like a $105 million raise at risk monitoring company Upguard and $30 million at Kasada headlined the rally, AFR says.

30.07 Elon Musk’s X has accused Australia of trying to give eSafety unfair information-gathering powers and undermining US law with its plans for tougher enforcement of the under-16s social media ban, Reuters reports.

30.07 Despite a 115 percent year-on-year surge in local AI spending, only 23 percent of Australian companies have auditing processes to verify AI outputs according to research by ServiceNow. Just 17 percent have a system to manage and track governance and compliance, the vendor says.

29.07 Queensland and the Northern Territory have rejected federal government plans to mandate that AI data centres use renewable power, The Guardian reports. Their refusal comes as S&P Global warns power use from data centres could risk five-fold by 2035 to 10 percent of Australia’s total consumption and lead to energy bills skyrocketing.

20.07 The Australian Computer Society has called for a national framework to address Australia’s cyber skills shortage, following new research showing unclear pathways, inconsistent job definitions and high barriers to entry are holding back the cyber security workforce, CyberDaily reports.

15.07 Environmental and community groups are calling for a pause on data centre developments until new regulations are in place requiring data centres to underwrite new power supply, pay their full share of grid connection and add as much energy to the grid as they take out of it, The Guardian reports.

15.07 The Australian government is creating an Office of AI and introducing standards requiring large AI data centres to underwrite new power generation and limit water use. Reuters reports legislation will be introduced in Parliament early next year. The new office will sit within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

13.07 Digital customs declaration form will be phased in at all Australian international airports and seaports over the next 18 months following a successful trial with Qantas. The federal government says it will spend $56.1m over four years to modernise airport systems and introduce the digital travel declaration, the Guardian reports.

11.07 Meta has abruptly pulled a controversial AI tool which enabled people to create fake images from user content on Instagram. The feature, part of the Muse Image rollout, quickly sparked blowback due to privacy concerns as anyone with a public account could have their likeness used without their permission or knowledge, the BBC reports.

10.07 The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is planning to cut a further 176 tech and engineering jobs, according to the Financial Sector Union. InformationAge reports the FSU is accusing CBA of ‘fake redundancies’, by advertising similar roles under its Indian arm. CBA has denied the claims.

07.07 A hacker is selling what they claim is live Teletrac Navman telemetry data from almost 3,000 Australian and New Zealand organisations. CyberDaily reports the hacker claims to have exfiltrated continuous real-time GPS tracking data for 2,988 customer companies across A/NZ, over a 48 hour period, with the data including emails and mobile phone details for drivers, driver’s licenses and vehicle registration details.

07.07 Australia’s newly established AI Safety Institute is already examining some of the world’s most powerful AI models, according to assistant technology minister Andrew Charlton. The work forms part of efforts to improve understanding of emerging AI risks and capabilities.

07.07 Most Australian’s don’t want to live near an AI data centre according to a survey from Primara research. CyberDaily reports 83 percent of the 1000 surveyed would oppose having an AI data centre in their local area, with only 16 percent believing nearby communities would receive meaningful benefits from such developments.

07.07 The Queensland Government has announced a new digital investment and assurance process which will review and monitor all new digital and ICT investments over $5m, including projects supported by the $1b Queensland Government Digital Fund. The Minister for Customer Services and Open Data, Steve Minnikin, says more than $300m is being invested in ‘high-impact digital initiatives’ to modernise critical government systems and improve service delivery.

07.07 ANZ Banking Group has outlined a new technology roadmap under CIO Gerard Florian, signalling a strategic shift in how the bank approaches technology modernisation and digital delivery. ITnews reports the move comes six months into Florian’s tenure.

03.07 Microsoft has signed a deal to pay to use news content from Nine in its Copilot AI search results in a first-of-its-kind deal in Australia. The deal, enabling Copilot to reference text of Nine’s content, beyond paywalled previews during AI searches to ‘contextualise and ground’ outputs, covers content from mastheads including The AFR, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times, Microsoft says.

02.07 Australia has regained access to Anthropic’s Fable AI, but not to Mythos as the US Department of Commerce reverses its export ban on the models. InformationAge reports Fable has been redeployed for public use, but Mythos has only been restored for a specific set of US organisations.

02.07 University of Sydney academic Olivia Shen has warned Australia shouldn’t try to build its own frontier AI. Writing in The Conversation, Shen, from the US Studies Centre, says the eye-watering cost some countries have invested in training model, hasn’t yet produced AI models with comparable performance to leading US or Chinese offerings, and says Australia needs to make pragmatic investments where we have greater maturity and agency.

AppWrap June 2026

30.06 Bendigo Bank is building what it believes is Australia’s first agentic SOC. The Bank’s CSO says security operations are set to be increasingly supported and underpinned by agentic AI capabilities, with internal security teams focused on more advanced high-value work, ITnews reports.

23.06 The Australian Signals Directorate has joined other Five Eyes partners in warning government and corporate leaders that swift action is required to remain ahead of the increased risk from AI. The agencies are warning leaders to understand and assess risk, readiness and accountability, prioritise foundational cyber security practices and controls, empower cyber leaders with authority and resources and stay actively engaged. Their warning includes practical actions which while not new are now deemed ‘urgent’ by the agencies including reducing attack surfaces, accelerating patching and limiting who can access critical systems.

23.06 More than 4,000 Tasmanians have signed petitions opposing AI data centres, including 3,500 opposing Firmus Technologies planned Bell Bay facility, which will use up to 288 megawatts of power. PulseTasmania reports the facility will be the state’s second largest power user behind the aluminium smelter which draws 335 megawatts and employs more than 550 people. Firmus is also building a $2b data centre near Launceston, with a third flagged for Wesley Vale.

19.06 KPMG has been grilled by a parliamentary committee investigating whistleblower claims around the misuse of confidential client information to bid for new business. ABCnews reports senior KPMG execs fronted for the inquiry which heard about the alleged misuse of confidential information belonging to client Lendlease, its treatment of the whistleblower and a third KPMG confidentially breach involving client Optus.

18.06 The NSW government’s procurement board has issued a sweeping moratorium for all government agencies and departments on any new procurements involving KPMG. The ban comes amid ‘serious concerns’ about KPMG’s work practices. The company is embroiled in a series of allegations about misuse of confidential client information to bid for new business. An approval and reporting process for KPMG engagements has also been established in NSW.

18.06 The federal Department of Parliamentary Services has failed key cybersecurity benchmarks with protections still only ‘partly effective’ seven years after the network was breached and seven out of eight key cybersecurity controls falling short, InformationAge reports.

18.06 PsiQuantum has broken ground and started construction of its billion-dollar supercomputer facility in Melbourne. The company says it will build and deploy the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer at the Moreton Bay Central facility. It has received nearly $1b in federal and Queensland funding for the supercomputer.

17.06 The NSW Government has denied claims by ransomware group Nova that it has been breached, saying sample files provided are publicly available and historical information. CyberDaily reports Nova listed the state government as a victim on its darknet leak site, claiming to have exfiltrated sensitive data from the network.

17.06 A new Microsoft Teams feature enabling Teams to detect activity on a user’s device even when they are not actively using Teams has raised privacy concerns. Auckland University lecturer Alex Baird warns companies that the Privacy Act is clear on being thoughtful about why data is collected and using it only for that purpose. If used for checking teammates know where you are, that’s great he told RNZ. Collecting data for performance tracking however would be ‘a very different thing’.

16.06 Anthropic has disabled its new Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after a US Export Control order. Forbes reports the US Commerce Department mandated the suspension of access for all foreign nationals citing security and export control powers. The move followed reports of a jailbreak bypassing safety guardrails.

12.06 SpaceX has made the biggest stock market debut in history, making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Early trading saw share prices jump from the opening $150 a share by a double digit percentage, sending the company’s valuation above US$2tn, the Guardian reports.

11.07 Woolworths is moving IT jobs offshore to ‘remove complexity and drive efficiency’. Hundreds of jobs across the people, IT and finance teams are expected to be affected, ABCnews reports.

10.07 Tasmania’s Aurora Energy has kicked off an ERP modernisation program, replacing legacy systems with Microsoft Dynamics 365 finance, supply chain management and project operations, ITnews reports.

09.07 Anthropic has released a new version of its Claude Mythos AI model to the general public, but is restricting its use in sensitive areas. The Guardian reports Fable 5 is the first model to be made widely available from the company’s new Mythos class, unveiled in April but restricted to a small set of users over cybersecurity concerns. Anthropic says Fable 5 will be useful for writing and debugging software code, answering complex research questions and analysing images.

09.07 Perth Airport is deploying more than 70 IT and OT systems for its new terminal development. DXC, which has been selected as the master systems integrator for the program, says it includes a broad range of tech solutions including AI, cloud and cybersecurity across the new terminal for passenger processing systems, baggage tracking and reconciliation, advanced security screening integration, building management and automation, digital signage and wayfinding, public wifi and operational control systems.

04.06 Meta has accused Australia of violating a free trade agreement with the US by proposing a new 2.25% tax on tech giants who don’t have licensing deals with local media. The company claims the tax is broader than existing digital services taxes which have prompted US trade actions. Reuters reports a spokesperson for the Assistant Treasurer says the government remains committed to the change.

04.06 Australia ranks equal lowest out of 23 countries when it comes to AI sentiment according to an EY survey, which found while 51 percent of Australians like the idea of using AI to simplify life and support choices, 68 percent are worried about losing control over decisions made by AI on their behalf. ABCnews reports just one percent of Australians say they have complete trust that AI will be used responsibly.

03.06 The Department of Defence is using the Maven smart system from controversial company Palantir but says it is in a sandboxed environment and without AI functionality, ITnews reports. Defence has two active contracts with Palantir, including a $10.4m deal signed in February. It says it is using Maven to aggregate data ‘to inform targeting solutions’.

02.06 Florida has become the first US state to sue OpenAI, over the design and safety of its ChatGPT chatbot. The state is suing both OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging they know ChatGPT is not safe, especially for minors, CNN reports.

AppWrap May 2026

27.05 Today’s students may have grown up with tech, but they’ve just recorded their worst-ever results in national digital literacy tests, ABCnews reports. Just 37 percent of year 10 students and 50 percent of year 6 students were accessed as proficient – the lowest level for year 10s since testing began in 2005.

27.05 The Federal Court of Australia has called in CyberCX to test data and security controls of the platform used by VIQ Solutions court transcription service. The work follows February’s revelation that some transcription work had been subcontracted to an Indian company, in breach of contracts, and confirmation that there had been data privacy incidents in the performance of the services, ITnews reports.

22.05 Australian quantum computing startup Diraq has signed a $53m grant agreement with the US government to establish a supply chain in the US. Forbes Australia reports much or all of the grant funding will turn into equity making the US government an investor. Diraq is also eyeing up a US Defence deal worth up to $420m.

15.05 The Federal Budget 2026 is a mixed bag for tech companies with the end of capital gains tax discounts expected to have a major impact on founders of tech companies, while an R&D tax incentive and loss refundability changes could be a powerful funding strategy for startups, accounting and advisory services company WilliamBuck says. It also applauded the expansion of VC tax incentives.

13.05 New tax breaks for innovative companies, tax deductions for workers, more funding for CSIRO, an overhaul of the migration points test and changes to capital gains taxes all feature in this year’s Federal Budget. Up to $70m in AI Accelerator grants, tens of millions of dollars to expand AI use in government departments, $654m+ over four years, and $166m/year after that, to expand the Digital ID system and $357m for the ATO’s myID mobile app were among the funding allocated InformationAge reports. The CDR will also see expansion with an additional $62m allocated over two years, while cybersecurity, defence and space also saw boosts.

13.05 The parent company of the Canvas educational tool involved in a major global hack last week has struck a deal with the hackers to secure stolen student and school data, Reuters reports. All data was returned to the company, it says, and digital confirmation of data destruction along with a promise no Instructure customers will be extorted were received Instructure says.

12.05 Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has apologised to customers after the accounting platform was hit with five days of outages. Xero says it has contacted the ATO about deadlines which will be affected by the outages with the ATO ‘understanding’ of the situation, SmartCompany reports.

07.05 Legal practice management platform Smokeball has taken top spot as the best medium to large tech workplace in Australia’s Best Workplaces in Technology, followed by consulting and engineering company Mantel Group and cybersecurity company Crowdstrike. In the small category Macquarie Cloud Services took top for the second consecutive year followed by data and AI consultancy V2 AI and software company Corto, while in the micro category AI Technologies was followed by Adora and Causeis, Great Place to Work says.

07.05 Australia’s largest tech startup community, Fishburners, is in voluntary liquidation, with KPMG appointed administrator. InformationAge reports KPMG is facilitating a strategic restructuring of the organisation, and will be seeking expressions of interest from parties in the innovation and tech sectors. Fishburners will continue to trade as usual while the assessment is underway.

06.05 Australian education institutions are among those caught in a worldwide cyber security attack after they Canvas learning management system, developed by US company Instructure, was subjected to a hack. ABC News reports state schools in Queensland and Tasmania, universities in NSW and South Australia and TAFE in Tasmania are affected. Instructure says it doesn’t believe birthdates, passwords, government identifiers or financial information have been impacted. Names, locations of study, email addresses and messages between users are however believed to have been compromised.

04.05 NAB has changed its capitalised software policy, reducing the value and useful life of capitalised software assets thanks in part to AI enabling software to be built or replicated quickly and cheaply. ITnews reports the bank took a $1.3b hit to its underlying profit and $949m to its cash earnings for H1 FY2026 owing to the change.

AppWrap April 2026

28.04 Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth says her department is currently undertaking gap analysis to identify how current frameworks and institutions are interacting with the adoption of AI. Speaking at the AFR Workforce Summit, Rishworth noted the tripartite AI Employment and Workplaces Forum, which meets for the first time this week, bringing together government, employers and unions to ‘build a common understanding’ and translate themes of trust, capability, transparency, safety and productivity into actions and outcomes in workplaces.

27.04 NAB is building an AI science team to guide how AI tools are deployed across the business and the workforce’s transition. TheAussieCorporate says the team will shape which tasks are automated and which new roles are created to support them. The work includes designing systems to safely handle customer data, helping make staff decisions and streamlining back office processes.

23.04 The Australian government has signed a MoU with Microsoft which is promising to continue investment in local AI capability and cloud computing and align with the governments Expectations for Data Centres and AI Infrastructure Developers. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources says the MoU – the second under the National AI Plan – also outlines Microsoft’s intention to collaborate with government on AI safety and workforce capability, support delivery of the APS AI plan and help the government understand future infrastructure needs.

22.04 The OAIC has found that InspectRealEstate’s rent-tech platform, 2Apply, collected excessive information and did so by unfair means. The OAIC says the platform has agreed to adapt its personal information collection practices on a without-admissions basis. The decision requires IRE to cease collecting personal information just as prospective renters’ gender, student status, citizen status and visa expiry and details of previous living history.

21.04 Identity verification company Persona has announced an integration with ConnectID, the Australian digital identity exchange created by Australian Payments Plus. BiometricUpdate says the integration keeps data private, providing age verification that relies on data a financial institution has already collected from a user.

22.04 The eSafety commissioner has given legally enforceable transparency notices to Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite and Stream amid concerns online games are being used to spread violent propaganda and radicalise young people and by sexual predators to groom children. eSafety says the notices require the providers to explain how they are identifying, preventing and responding to these harms, along with bullying and online hate.

21.04 A NSW Treasury staff member has been charged after allegedly downloading more than 5,600 government documents containing ‘confidential commercial and financial information’. NSW Government says the information covers multiple departments and projects. Police believe all the data has been located and is now secure, with no external compromise to the Treasury’s system.

16.04 Apple has granted Australian law enforcement access to user notification data for the first time. InformationAge reports a transparency report shows four push token identifiers were sought across two of the requests, with one push token request granted.

16.04 South32 Aluminium is suing Siemens alleging missing code in a programmable logic controller led to a steam turbine generator overheating and being ‘effectively destroyed’, ITnews reports.

15.04 Travel giant Booking.com has notified an unknown number of customers about a data breach which has seen hackers steal customer data. BBC reports some customers have contacted it saying they have already started receiving suspicious messages. Booking.com has declined to say how many people are affected or in what regions.

09.04 Canva has acquired Australian AI tool Simtheory and Australian marketing automation company Ortto for undisclosed sums. Canva says the deals will take it from a design tool to an ‘end-to-end’ work system and strengthen its AI capabilities, 9news reports.

09.04 Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will cut its tech and business operations teams after signing two major tech deals with Infosys and Genpact outsourcing some tech and business management capability. The cuts will save the business at least $65 million yoy, by the 2028 financial year AFR reports. It adds hundreds of roles are likely to be affected.

03.04 Artemis II astronauts experienced Microsoft Outlook failures shortly after launch, with Mission Control called in to remotely troubleshoot the issue. Commander Reid Wiseman reported that two instances of Outlook were running simultaneously on his Surface Pro, leaving both unresponsive, Mashable reports.

02.04 The ATO has launched an in-app security feature enabling users to confirm, in real-time, that they are speaking with the real ATO not a fraudster. Almost 7,500 ATO impersonation scams were reported in July 2025 alone, with impersonation scams peaking during tax time, the ATO says.

01.04 SpaceX has filed confidentially for an IPO according to reports, which say the company is committed to debuting in June, with Elon Musk aiming to raise US$50b-$75b. The NYTimes reports SpaceX values itself at more than $1 trillion and would be one of the most valuable companies to reach the stock market.

01.04 Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs from its 162,000-strong workforce, with 10,000 believed to have lost their job so far. Senior engineers, architects, operations leaders, program managers and technical specialists are among those affected, the BBC reports. Around 10,000 people are believed to have lost their jobs so far. It is unknown if the cuts are related to Oracle’s heavy AI spend.

01.04 The Federal government has signed a new MoU with Anthropic to build on the national AI plan launched in late 2025.

AppWrap March 2026

31.03 eSafety has flagged Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube for compliance issues with the Australian Social Media Minimum Age obligation and is gathering evidence to inform potential enforcement action, it says.

26.03 Meta and Google have lost a landmark US case, with a Los Angeles jury finding the two companies negligent for designing social media platforms that are harmful to young people. Reuters reports the jury found Meta liable for damages of US$4.2 million, with Google liable for $1.8m in the case of a US woman who sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media.

25.03 Delaying public disclosure of serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure operators ‘to prevent disclosure from compromising national security’ is one of five changes proposed in a Department of Home Affairs consultation paper for amended Security of Critical Infrastructure (Soci) rules. Other reforms in the paper include changes to make it easier for the government to restrict multiple entities from using high-risk vendors or technology and clarity around the threshold for issuing a direction.

25.03 Canva has acquired Melbourne-based digital out of home advertising company Doohly in a $30m deal which adds outdoor advertising to its offering. The deal is the design company’s third acquisition this year and comes just a month after it bought US startup Mango.AI and the UK’s Cavalry notes StartupDaily.

24.03 Silicon Quantum Computing has secured $20m from the National Reconstruction Fund to support scaling of its quantum processing units and Watermelon machine learning system, SmartCompany reports.

19.03 The X Money payments service, Elon Musk’s attempt to build a ‘everything app’ will enter early public access in April. Musk’s ambitions for the embedding payments into X are broader than most Western tech companies, notes PaymentsIndustryIntelligence, with Musk talking about a system that could eventually encompass savings, payments, securities and other financial activity, reducing reliance on traditional banking channels. At launch X Money is expected to offer core wallet and payment functions, including the ability to move funds within the platform.

18.03 An attempt by the CEO of US videogame publisher Unknown Worlds to wriggle out of paying a US$250m performance has suffered a setback after the court documents showed Changhan Kim asked ChatGPT how to avoid paying the bonus. InformationAge reports Kim engaged the chatbot to draft a corporate takeover strategy, which involved stymieing the release of the highly anticipated Subnautica 2. Following ‘guidance’ from ChatGPT he also posted public ‘critical messages’ on the company website.

17.03 Google has reportedly paused plans for a $20b AI and data centre hub, warning the federal government that high taxes could cause the country to miss out on investment. DatacentreDynamics reports the company has told government it is concerned that if it set up such a hub in Australia, the ATO would consider it a ‘permanent establishment’ exposing it to a 30 percent corporate tax rate. Google is currently exploring where to establish the major APAC hub.

16.03 AI disruption is causing Australian software companies to make big job cuts, with private tech companies expected to follow in the footsteps of Atlassian and WiseTech with redundancy rounds, valuation cuts and a bottleneck for public listings, AFR reports.

12.03 Atlassian is cutting around 1,600 jobs – or 10 percent of its workforce. The company says the move is to ‘self-fund further investment in AI and enterprise sales’, while strengthening its financial profile, Forbes reports. The retrenchment will cost between $225m-$236m.

11.03 Professional body CA ANZ says it will investigate the failure of an external exam delivery platform after more than 1,300 students were locked out of one exam and another 60 experienced delays of up to 40 minutes on a second exam. CA ANZ blamed a failure in an external exam platform operated by a third-party provider.

11.03 US medtech giant Stryker has been hit by a major cyberattack, with an Iran-linked hacking group claiming responsibility, saying it is in retaliation for the killing of more than 170 people – mainly schoolgirls – in a strike on a school, and warning it marks the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare, Al Jazeera reports. The group says it has seized 50TB of Stryker data in the attack which it says has erased data from 200,000 devices.

10.03 Anthropic is opening a Sydney office and hiring a local team. The company says Australia ranks fourth globally in Claude.ai usage, relative to population, with strong demand from local business. It says it plans to deepen engagement with Australian institutions and collaborate on projects that advance the country’s national interests and priority sectors. It is also exploring opportunities to expand compute capacity in Australia ‘given our longstanding belief that democracies should lead in AI development’. The company is currently suing the US government over its claims that Anthropic is a ‘supply chain risk’. The row erupted after Anthropic refused to all US military to have unfettered use to its AI tools.

05.03 Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind is warning Australian organisations that a recent ruling allowing Bunnings to use facial recognition is not a green light for the technology. Kind, who says she has not filed an appeal of the Administrative Review Tribunal finding, which overturned her ruling against the technology, says the decision shows the law allows for the balancing of competing interests – privacy vs public safety – but entities will need to conduct a detailed risk assessment specific to their circumstances before deploying the technology. “Retailers should view the decision as a useful case study, rather than a green light for deployment of biometric technologies,” she says.

AppWrap February 2026

27.02 Commonwealth Bank has called in the police and corporate regulator over concerns $1b in home loans were obtained fraudulently, including with AI-created documents. AFR reports the bank reported itself to police and the regulator after a review of the compliance practices and customer lending documents, which stepped up following revelations about the Penthouse Syndicate, which allegedly defrauded NAB of around $150m. Increasingly sophisticated AI has made it easier to create authentic looking false documents and to steal identities.

26.02 Nvidia has posted blockbuster quarterly results of US$68.1 billion – up 73 percent year on year and well above analysts’ forecasts. Revenue from the data centre division, which sells the chips used to train and run AI models was up 75 percent yoy to $62.3 billion, the company says.

25.02 Australian logistics software company WiseTech is cutting around 2,000 jobs – nearly a third of its global workforce in a restructure focused on using genAI to increase efficiency in software engineering and support, Reuters reports.

25.02 Australian Peter Williams has been jailed for seven years for selling critical software and information related to cybersecurity to a broker with ties to the Russian government. Williams was working in the US. 9News reports the tools were cyber-exploit components which can be used to identify weaknesses in tech systems or infect them with viruses.

24.02 The federal government has scrapped a permanent AI advisory board appointed to develop AI guardrails. ABCnews reports the body, funded in the 2024 Budget, was scrapped only months after spending $188,000 and more than a year whittling down a list of experts to a shortlist of 12 nominees. The government says it will instead establish an AI safety institute early this year.

25.02 Commonwealth Bank is spending $90 million to get staff ‘AI-ready’. The bank says the program will help employees ‘build skills, find new opportunities and get ahead of the changing nature of work’. AI learning has already been delivered to 30,000+ staff.

24.02 The ASD has publicly released its Azul open-source malware analysis tool to help safely handle and analyse malware. Azul is designed for large-scale malware analysis and is designed to be highly scalable and store tens of millions of samples, ASD says, adding it can turn common analysis steps into analysis plugins which can be used as part of an automated workflow and assist in identifying variants of a malware family more efficiently.

18.02 Xero is restructuring with 250 jobs on the line – including in Australia. The company is creating around 280 roles in Canada as part of the restructure, BusinessDesk reports [paywalled].

18.02 YouTube suffered an outage from around 11.50am AEDT, with a spokesperson for Google saying an issue with the recommendations system prevented videos appearing.

18.02 The federal opposition has unveiled a new-look shadow ministry under Angus Taylor, with Victorian senator Sarah Henderson appointed shadow communications and digital safety minister. ABCnews reports Casey MP Aaron Violi has been promoted to the outer shadow ministry with a broad portfolio including science, technology, cyber security and the digital economy. Deputy Liberal Leader Jane Hume will be shadow minister for employment and industrial relations as well as productivity and deregulation.

18.02 Australian company Terram Astra has set its sights on a US$10m seed capital raise for a new sovereign ground-based infrastructure platform designed to strengthen communications resilience, defence readiness and space safety across the region. Manufacturers’ Monthly reports Terram Astra’s first hub is located near Alice Springs.

17.02 Highly sensitive Australian court files have been accessed by a foreign entity based in India, an ABCnews investigation has revealed, with Greens senator David Shoebridge saying access to the cases by foreign entities is ‘a national security risk’. The investigation showed Canada’s VIQ Solutions, which employs transcribers in Australia, has also subcontracted work to an Indian company specialising in automated voice-to-text technology, in breach of the VIQ contract. Thousands of court files were accessed by e24 staff with Indian email addresses.

16.02 Federal government entities are failing to report cyber incidents to the Australian Signals Directorate. InformationAge reports just 35 percent of the 200 government entities said they reported at least half of all cybersecurity incidents observed on their networks.

11.02 Service NSW has started testing a new system enabling residents to verify who they are in a single step when interacting with state government services online. ITnews reports initially the digital ID system will be used with a limited number of services, starting with a state toll rebate scheme.

06.02 Australian-founded AI data centre startup Firmus Technologies has secured another $100m to expand its local data centres. The funding, from ASX-listed Maas Group means the company, which is Singapore-based, has raised more than $900m in less than five months, StartupDaily reports.

06.02 CommBank says it has become the first bank to disclose how it is ideating, developing, deploying and managing AI at an organisational level, including ‘practical examples’ of AI in action across the business. Those examples include AI to protect against fraud and scams, strengthen cyber security, enhance customer experience and detect abuse in transaction descriptions.

05.02 Atlassian’s revenue for the quarter to December 31 was up 23 percent to US$1.58 billion, with cloud revenue growing 26 percent providing the company with its first $1b cloud revenue quarter. However, net loss also grew from $38.2m to $42.6m. Operating loss was down from $57.5m to $47.7m the company says. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes dubbed the quarter ‘fantastic’, adding: “We’re building a bloody great business.”

03.02 The federal government has rejected a bipartisan proposal which would have allowed a parliamentary committee to cancel large consultancy contracts, saying its own reforms are doing the job. A centralised register for conflicts of interest breaches has also been ruled out.

03.02 Australia’s STEM capability is facing a ‘severe crisis’ as a result of flatlining Commonwealth funded research, Science and Technology Australia says. In a pre-budget submission it says Stem research must stop being viewed as a cost and instead be seen as an investment. It says 47 percent of Stem professionals are considering leaving their current roles, with 33 percent planning to leave the sector altogether.

03.02 Xero says more than two million subscribers are using its full AI features, with more than 300,000 using its newer GenAI features. In a market update today the company claimed customers are saving around 22 hours a month using bank feeds and automated actions, with more than 12 percent using AI Insights.

03.02 Kiwi AI startup Teacher’s Buddy has raised $2.3m in trans-Tasman seed funding. The offering aims to reduce teacher workloads, helping with marking and student report writing and producing customised, differentiated curriculum-aligned teaching and assessment materials  The company says the funding was led by Auckland’s Soul Capital and Australia’s Giant Leap.

02.02 Victoria has set its sights on being Australia’s AI capital with the launch of an AI Mission Statement setting out the Allan government’s plans across six key pillars of investment attraction and adoption, data centres and digital infrastructure, local innovation, products and services, talent and workforce, ethical AI use and public sector adoption. The plan includes a $8.1 million Digital Jobs – AI Career Conversion program to safeguard jobs in industries at risk from AI, upskilling workers to transition into AI roles and become specialists in the technology.

AppWrap January 2026

27.01 Airwallex boss Jack Zhang says the fintech is at least two years away from a public listing, despite regular references to an IPO in 2026. Zhang’s comments, reported in StartupDaily, follow news last week that Austrac has ordered an audit of the company over AML/CTF concerns.

26.01 The APS plans a whole-of-government learning technology ecosystem following a co-design involving teams from 37 Commonwealth agencies. ITnews reports a core goal of the new system is to enable interoperability and integration across learning and development environments.

23.01 TikTok has finalised agreements with backers including Oracle, Silver Lake and Emirati company MGX to establish a US joint venture. Each of the three backers will hold a 15 percent stake in the company. ByteDance keeps a 19.9 percent share. The BBC reports the content recommendation algorithm has been licensed to Oracle – headed by Trump ally Larry Ellison – which already oversees US user data under a previous arrangement set up over security concerns. The deal will enable TikTok to continue operating in the US, but is likely to continue to be scrutinised, with some Democrats voicing concerns about the ties between Trump and TikTok’s new investor group could limit what gets shared on the platform.

22.01 Australia’s financial intelligence unit, Austrac has ordered an external auditor be appointed to assess whether fintech – and unicorn – Airwallex is complying with anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing. Austrac says it has ‘concerns’ about potential non-compliance including that Airwallex’s transaction monitoring program has not been ‘attuned to the full range of risks it faces’ and the company hasn’t demonstrated an acceptable understanding of who its customers are and what reporting may be required. The auditor must report findings within 180 days of appointment.

20.91 AI projects to improve construction safety, enhance space safety and detect speech delays, are among the 174 projects winning funding in the latest round of Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) Ignite program. More than $72.5m in funding was allocated. The funding is for projects that build capability I nationally important sectors aligned with the National Reconstruction Fund’s priority areas, AEA says.

20.01 Gilmour Space has become Australia’s first space tech unicorn after raising $217m in a Series E funding round – its largest funding round to date. SpaceNews reports the round was led by the federal government’s National Reconstruction Fund and retirement savings fund Hostplus along with several other investors.

20.01 A bill cracking down on hate speech has passed the House of Representatives and Senate at a special sitting late on Tuesday, a month after 15 were killed at Bondi Beach. It includes provision to ban groups deemed to spread hate, the BBC reports. The hate speech reforms were originally part of an omnibus bill along with gun reforms, but the two were split last week. The gun reform bill, which includes a buyback scheme, was also passed.

16.01 Social media companies removed access to around 4.7 million accounts for those under 16 in the first half of December, eSafety says.

16.01 Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxi business has held discussions with Chinese car maker Geely, and other electric car makers, as it looks to enter the Sydney market. AFR reports. Waymo is stepping up its efforts in Australia, with the appointment of a lobbyist and a search for an office now underway. It has yet to lodge an application to begin testing in the city.

13.01 Advertising is hitting the AI chatbots with ads starting to show up in Google’s ‘AI Mode’ in what the Washington Post says is likely to be just the beginning of more trial-and-error attempts this year. Google has been pushing a new type of ad in AI Mode to advertisers, OpenAI has also been looking at introducing advertising in ChatGPT and Perplexity attempted ads but pulled back last year – but has left the doors open to try again.

08.01 The DTA has warned against outright bans of IT suppliers and services companies for unethical behaviour warning such bans could introduce significant operational risks and unintended consequences. ITnews reports parliament is considering an exclusion regime preventing those engaging in unethical conduct from bidding for government work, in the wake of the PwC scandal. The DTA, however, says blanket bans could block access to tech advances or skilled resources.

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Every document uploaded, process automated and workflow handed to AI is helping build systems that could eventually outperform the very businesses feeding them. Productivity gains are real, he told iStart, but so are the unintended consequences, particularly for companies deploying AI without fully understanding where their data, knowledge and intellectual property end up.

“Everyone disregards the unintended consequences until it bites.”

A recent report found 40 percent of Australian office professionals have entered customer data or information into public AI tools, with 28 percent admitting inputting financial information or disclosing confidential company documents or strategies. Shadow AI Survey also noted that 70 percent of those surveyed have used AI tools or services at work despite not being allowed under company policies – and over half (53 percent) have faced formal consequences, such as a warning or disciplinary action, due to unauthorised AI use.

But Robb argues the issue isn’t simply whether staff are using AI. It’s how organisations are using it, what information is being shared with AI systems and whether anyone has thought through the consequences.

“Everyone disregards the unintended consequences until it bites,” he says.

Robb believes most employees are acting with good intentions. They’re looking for faster ways to complete tasks, improve reports and eliminate repetitive work. In many cases, they’re right: AI can dramatically improve productivity.

The problem is that productivity gains can obscure risk.

One of Robb’s biggest concerns is the amount of organisational knowledge being fed into public AI platforms. As staff upload documents, workflows and business information to improve outputs, organisations may be unintentionally giving away IP and expertise.

“[The foundation model providers] own the IP and you are training them to be better than you are,” he says.

Last month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned about the unintended consequences of AI, including the ‘reverse information paradox’ where enterprises unknowingly give away their proprietary institutional knowledge and competitive advantage simply by utilising third-party AI systems to boost productivity.

That’s just one unintended consequence Robb says companies need to consider as AI adoption accelerates. Another is the ease with which well-intentioned employees can create data exposure risks while trying to be more productive.

That, however, isn’t a new phenomenon. He recalls regularly dealing with incidents at a major bank where staff moved documents outside secure environments in order to work faster – sending a PDF to their home PC to convert it and send back to the work PC, for example. The intention was never malicious. Employees were simply trying to get the job done. But once sensitive information left the bank’s systems, a security breach had occurred and it was a summarily dismissible offence.

Robb sees similar behaviour emerging around AI tools today.

“Now, if I’ve loaded company data in to get that, that company’s got a genuine exposure,” he says.

For tech leaders, that means the challenge is no longer just identifying unauthorised AI use. It is understanding what information employees are putting into AI systems and whether appropriate guardrails exist around that behaviour.

Robb says regulated organisations, particularly financial institutions, have already invested heavily in governance and controls. “Banks have already stopped their people sending data to their iPads. It’s really hard to get data out of a bank or an insurance company.

“But when you’re a smaller business, the data’s everywhere.”

At the same time, companies are moving beyond AI experimentation.

Many of the early AI projects focused on incremental improvements – better reports, improved customer service or small efficiency gains. Robb says the next phase is different as businesses start to redesign entire processes around AI.

“It’s moved from incrementalism to step changes in processes.”

That shift creates new opportunities but also new risks. He cites the example of a plumbing business that has automated significant amounts of administrative work using AI. Compliance documentation and other repetitive tasks that once required multiple staff are now largely automated. The business gains efficiency, reduces effort and lowers its cost to serve customers.

The broader question, however, is what happens when competitors follow.

“If you have a lower cost to serve, you will kill your competition. Ai is a lower cost to serve.”

For business leaders, that’s a reminder that AI governance isn’t just about risk management. It is also becoming a competitive issue. Organisations that fail to adopt AI may find themselves at a disadvantage. Organisations that adopt it recklessly may create security, compliance or intellectual-property problems they don’t yet understand.

So what should companies be doing now?

Robb’s answer, unsurprisingly given he runs an AI governance consultancy, is governance. Not governance as a brake on innovation, but governance as a way of avoiding the ‘we’ll deal with that later’ approach that has accompanied many AI deployments. The question, he says, isn’t whether organisations should use AI. It’s whether they’ve thought through what happens when productivity gains collide with compliance obligations, security risks or unexpected business outcomes.

He says every organisation deploying AI into production should have a governance plan appropriate to its size and risk profile. For larger organisations, that means asking practical questions:

Does the AI initiative have board approval and a defined business outcome?

Is a human accountable for customer-impacting decisions?

If you lost control of your AI model, could you regenerate using using paper and pen, the data and the answers to get to the same position within 24 hours?

Does the business understand what data is being shared with AI tools?

An AI governance pack Robb’s company developed for banks and listed companies warns that AI governance is no longer optional and ‘we have a policy’ is no longer an answer – and ‘we are not doing anything yet’ is not a defence.

The pack outlines six guardrails:

• Strategic alignment – is AI use tied to risk appetite and corporate strategy),
• Accountability – who owns each AI system end-to-end?
• Explainability – can you explain a decision to a regulator or customer?
• Human oversight
• Monitoring and adaption – are models monitored for drift, bias and performance, and
• Organisational ethics

“If your board cannot score itself against these six, you do not yet have AI governance,” the pack says.

Smaller businesses? They’re exempt to some degree, he says. “If you’re say a five person plumbing business and you’re using AI to do training or something, honestly, congratulations, you’re curious, you’re using the tools. You don’t need a governance plan because you’re aware of the boundaries of what you’re doing.”

Putting in the wrong parts won’t be the end of the world – and it’s probably something you sometimes did pre-AI anyway.

Robb isn’t advocating caution at the expense of innovation. In fact, he believes many organisations across Australia and New Zealand have been too slow to realise AI’s potential.

Instead, his message is to stay curious, move quickly and prepare for the downsides, rather than ignoring them.

“AI is more valuable than it is detrimental,” he says. But organisations also need a plan for what happens when something goes wrong.

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The initiative marks the global financial messaging network’s first production use of a blockchain-based ledger and is being positioned as a way to enable funds to move overnight and on weekends while remaining within the regulated banking system – and compete with the emerging stablecoin market.

“We see strong potential to help customers move funds in real-time and manage liquidity more flexibly.”

Banks from six continents are taking part, including ANZ, Citi, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, UBS, Wells Fargo and Standard Chartered. Swift (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) says participating banks will use the shared ledger as an orchestration layer for bank-issued tokenised deposits on their own infrastructure, allowing institutions to move value before final settlement is completed through existing banking systems.

For ANZ, the trial expands a digital assets strategy the bank has been pursuing for several years, including work with tokenised assets and blockchain-based settlement technologies.

Lisa Vasic, ANZ managing director transaction banking, says the bank is working with Swift and global partners to ‘securely scale next-generation payments infrastructure’ and deliver ‘more efficient, always-on payment capabilities’.

“By combining Swift’s trusted network with this new infrastructure, we see strong potential to help customers move funds in real-time and manage liquidity more flexibly,” Vasic says.

Beyond crypto and speculation

Blockchain has struggled to find a use case within business. For much of the past decade, the technology, initially hyped as the foundational technology for Bitcoin and decentralised digital currency, has been associated more with cryptocurrencies, speculative trading and fraud than practical enterprise applications. Despite billions of dollars invested globally, and plenty of attempts, relatively few large-scale business deployments have emerged outside digital asset markets.

The distributed ledgers have been trialled for everything from smart contracts that automatically execute when predetermined conditions are met, to supply chain tracking systems designed to create tamper-resistant records of product governance and movement. But while some have delivered niche benefits, few have achieved widespread adoption at scale – and there have been several high profile failures. Maersk and IBM shuttered the TradeLens blockchain-enabled global trade platform in 2022 after five years work, blaming an apparent lack of interest and trust from the industry. The ASX’s blockchain-powered Chess settlement and clearing system project meanwhile went down in a ball of flames – labelled a ‘profound failure’ by the chair of a parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services, and leading to an AU$250 million writedown.

The payments difference

The Swift initiative sees some of the world’s largest banks using the technology to tackle an issue that has frustrated businesses for decades: The limitations of cross-border payments.

International transfers remain constrained by time zones, banking hours and fragmented settlement processes. While businesses have become increasingly digital and globally connected, moving money internationally often remains slower than moving information.

Swift believes tokenised deposits operating over a blockchain-based ledger could help bridge that gap. The organisations says the new capability would allow banks to support 24/7 cross-border payments while maintaining the compliance, risk management and control frameworks already embedded into the global financial system.

“It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects, while maintaining the same high levels of resiliency, security and compliance global finance requires,” says Thierry Chilosi, Swift chief business officer.

The approach differs significantly from public cryptocurrency networks.

Rather than creating an alternative financial system, Swift’s ledger is designed to sit alongside existing banking infrastructure. Participating banks continue issuing and managing deposits, while the ledger provides a common mechanism for coordinating transactions between institutions. Final settlement still occurs through established banking channels.

That distinction may prove critical.

Many organisations have shown little appetite for holding cryptocurrencies or exposing core treasury processes to public blockchain networks. The involvement of the 17 banks suggests growing interest from major financial institutions in tokenised deposits as a way to improve payment availability and liquidity while remaining within established regulatory and banking frameworks.

Swift says banks will be able to move tokenised funds around the clock, including outside normal business hours, helping businesses access capital more quickly and manage liquidity more efficiently.

Testing blockchain’s real value

The launch also appears to reflect a broader shift taking place within the banking sector, with many major financial institutions increasingly focused on determining where exactly blockchain can deliver measurable value. Cross-border payments have emerged as one of the strongest candidates because they involve multiple organisations, multiple jurisdictions and significant coordination requirements – all characteristics that align naturally with distributed ledger designs.

In effect, the trial represents blockchain being used for what it was arguably always designed to do: Maintain a trusted and shared record between parties that do not directly control the same systems.

Swift says the shared ledger, first announced last year, was designed and built with feedback from international financial institutions.

“The strong support from banks shows the practical value of this approach,” Chilosi says, adding that it will help scale benefits globally while creating a foundation for future innovation in areas like programmable money and agentic commerce, where automated systems execute transactions and payments on behalf of users.

The scale of the network involved also gives the initiative significance. Belgium-based Swift underpins the vast majority of international bank messaging and says its infrastructure connects more than 200 markets worldwide.

While enterprise blockchain initiatives have often generated considerable hype before falling short of expectations, Swift’s initiative targets a clearly defined operational problem and is backed by institutions already responsible for moving trillions of dollars through the global financial system.

For ANZ and its banking peers, that may ultimately prove blockchain’s most natural home: Not replacing banks, but helping them move money faster.

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The prediction reflects one of the less discussed consequences of the generative AI boom. While early conversations focused on productivity gains, code generation speeds and developer efficiency, software engineering leaders (and indeed, all IT leaders) are now facing a new challenge: Controlling the cost of AI itself.

“Token discipline will not emerge through developer choice alone.”

At the same time, vendors are increasingly moving away from traditional seat-based licensing models towards consumption-based pricing, where organisations pay for the tokens consumed by AI models. As AI deployments scale, token consumption is emerging as a growing cost consideration across the industry. The combination of higher usage and metered billing is creating a cost trajectory that Gartner believes many organisations are underestimating.

On the coding front, Gartner says 40 percent of software engineering leaders are reporting that more than half of their teams are using AI tools to augment software development processes. As adoption grows, token consumption – the units increasingly used to measure and bill AI model usage – is rising rapidly.

Early signs of the cost impact are already emerging with Gartner Peer Insights data showing 23 percent of software engineering leaders are reporting costs of US$200 to US$500 per developer per month in token costs for AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and OpenAI Codex. For five percent of organisations, that figure has already soared to more than US$2,000 per developer per month.

“Organisations are rapidly moving from experimentation to scaled deployment of AI coding agents, but many are underestimating the financial impact of rising token consumption,” Nitish Tyagi, Gartner senior principal advisor, says.

““AI coding costs will continue to rise as infrastructure investment and profitability challenges push model pricing higher,” Tyagi says. “At the same time, as more developers adopt AI tools, light users are expected to rapidly become mainstream users as familiarity and reliance increase, driving further growth in token consumption and overall spend.”

The concern isn’t simply the price of large language models. Gartner argues that three common behaviours are driving much of the overspending: Giving AI agents too much autonomy, providing excessive amounts of context, and failing to establish feedback mechanisms to identify and prevent wasteful usage patterns.

“Token discipline will not emerge through developer choice alone,” Tyagi says, noting that developers will naturally optimise for speed and convenience, rather than token efficiency. Instead, organisations should treat token consumption as a governed part of their engineering operating model, the analyst company says in its How to Optimise Token Consumption for AI Coding Agents report.

That recommendation may be particularly relevant as organisations race to adopt increasingly capable AI coding agents. Unlike traditional coding assistants that suggest code snippets or provide developer support, agentic platforms can take on broader development tasks autonomously. Gartner points to increases of 100x over coding assistants experienced by software engineering leaders.  

Gartner says organisations need to establish clear rules around when AI agents should be used and how much autonomy they should be granted.

The report recommends categorising software development activities into three tiers: Developer-only work for sensitive, operationally risky work or work not worth the token cost; AI-assisted development where humans remain in control, and fully autonomous agent-led development. AI-assisted development should be the default zone for most day-to-day engineering because it improves throughput while maintaining human oversight and avoiding some of the introducing costly agentic loops which can occur when autonomous systems repeatedly call models and tools without adequate controls, Gartner says. Those with lower software engineering maturity and limited governance frameworks are also advised to prioritise assistive AI over autonomous development.

Governance is another area Gartner says requires urgent attention.

Less than one in three engineering organisations currently has formal AI governance policies in place. Gartner says engineering leaders should assess both the maturity of their software development practices and existing AI controls before expanding the use of autonomous coding agents.

“Organisations should introduce mechanisms such as token thresholds, escalation policies and automated monitoring to manage growth. Embedding these controls into engineering workflows ensures consistency and prevents uncontrolled costs.”

The report also highlights what Gartner calls context engineering as a critical discipline for controlling costs.

Every file, document, code repository extract or tool output included in an AI prompt increases token consumption. Gartner advises development teams to treat context as both a quality input and a cost driver, requiring developers to evaluate what information is essential, what can be summarised and what can be removed altogether.

“A mature context engineering practice should teach developers how to structure context so that it is not merely comprehensive, but optimised.”

Another recommendation is to avoid defaulting to premium AI models for every task. Instead, Gartner advocates model-routing approaches where smaller, lower-cost models handle routine work, with tasks escalated to more powerful and expensive models only when complexity or risk justifies the additional spending.

“AI coding agents are most cost‑effective when work is broken into smaller tasks that can be handled by smaller models, with escalation only when complexity demands it. Model choice should be driven by task complexity, context size, application criticality, and developer maturity.”

Also recommended is better visibility into how AI coding tools are being consumed, with regular reviews of high-token-consuming workflows as part of sprint retrospectives to identify inefficiencies, refine practices and promote knowledge sharing across engineering teams.

“Most organisations still lack the maturity and frameworks to effectively measure cost versus business impact,” says Tyagi.

The report stresses that higher costs aren’t necessarily bad if they bring measurable business benefits, such as profit, reduced risk, improved growth or support strategic goals.

“The goal is to use AI coding agents efficiently but not to restrict the use of them.”

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One Gartner client began with more than 600 potential AI use cases competing for investment. Unsurprisingly, Gartner’s Luke Ellery recommends companies don’t pursue everything. Instead, he recommends creating a ‘AI funding funnel’ that ranks initiatives based on business value and technical feasibility before significant budgets are committed.

“It’s a great way of helping CFOs understand AI investments.”

For CIOs facing pressure to ‘do more with AI’ the message at Gartner’s recent Data and Analytics conference in Sydney, the message was surprisingly simple: Stop launching pilots and start managing AI investments like a portfolio.

Ellery, Sydney-based Gartner VP analyst, says while organisations have been spending billions on AI, ‘you could say there is no R in ROI, only investment’. A Gartner survey showed 80-95 percent of Gartner clients saw limited financial returns from their AI investments and only 11 percent of CFOs were able to concretely measure financial returns from big AI investments.

Ellery’s assessment? Based on other Gartner surveys, he says the number one thing is picking the wrong use cases. Deploying Microsoft Copilot might help employees save time and feel happier and more productive, but that’s not financial value.

Value vs feasibility

Gartner’s funding funnel requires ideas to be vetted and prioritised across two dimensions – business value and feasibility.

Business value focuses on the outcomes executives care about – higher revenue, lower costs, reduced risk or improved service delivery. It’s an area that will vary for each organisation, Ellery notes. Time horizon is also an important factor here, he says. While last year CFOs were very focused on getting AI returns within the year, that stance has softened somewhat with the realisation achieving AI goals, and returns, will be harder than anticipated and returns will come on a longer time frame.

Feasibility, meanwhile, looks at the practical realities of implementation, including data readiness, technology requirements, skills availability, security controls and governance obligations.

The sweet spot, of course, is funding initiatives that score highly on both measures and will provide easy wins.

But Ellery notes: “Often organisations won’t have many.” All, however, is not lost. Ellery says leaders need to think about how projects work together, evaluating AI initiatives as a portfolio, rather than in isolation.

“In some scenarios it is very hard to get any of the individual projects off the ground by themselves, but if we collect a number of projects together, we can combine the cost and value and risks.

“It’s a great way of helping CFOs understand investments so we can actually create those larger returns.”

Why boring projects matter

He used customer personalisation as an example of an initiative with potentially high business value. The ability to tailor products, offers and interactions to individual customers has long been viewed as an AI holy grail, with obvious implications for revenue growth and customer retention.

The challenge, however, is that many organisations lack the foundations required to make personalisation work. Customer data may be fragmented across multiple systems. Governance controls may be immature. Data quality may be poor. Technology platforms may not be integrated.

As a result, what appears to be a high-value opportunity often scores poorly on feasibility.

By contrast, a much less glamorous project – such as automated client call summarisation – may deliver only modest business value on its own. It is unlikely to transform an organisation’s growth prospects or dramatically improve profitability, yet it may be significantly easier to implement.

More importantly, the project may capture and structure customer information essential for more advanced personalisation initiatives later.

Seen that way, the lower-value project becomes a stepping stone to something much bigger.

“We need to look at all these initiatives as a group in a broader view,” Ellery says. “The problem is that a lack of consistency prohibits us from actually achieving differentiation,” he says, arguing that organisations often need to fix underlying operational and data problems before they can use AI to create competitive advantage.

Building foundations before differentiation

Many AI projects fail not because the models are inadequate, but because organisations do not have accessible, well-governed data available for those models to use.

Technical debt presents a similar challenge. Legacy systems often store valuable information in formats that are difficult to access, integrate or analyse. Organisations may also need to invest in security, governance and compliance frameworks before deploying AI more broadly.

These investments can be difficult to sell with boards and executive teams naturally attracted to customer-facing use cases and ambitious transformation projects. Few get excited about data architecture, governance frameworks or system modernisation. Yet those investments can determine whether more ambitious AI initiatives succeed or stall.

Ellery pointed to the banking sector to illustrate that, noting years of core banking modernisation efforts as an example of organisations improving consistency across technology environments.

“That’s probably why some of the banks are more ahead in the AI race than others, in terms of realising the value of AI.”

In some cases capability-building projects lacking immediate business impact may be the highest-value investments an organisation can make.

Making the financial case

After vetting and prioritising – providing the litmus test for funding – Gartner’s funding funnel focuses on the crux of the issue – the funding. He noted there are different types of value for organisations. ‘Green money’ provides direct, measurable financial outcomes that appear in profit and loss statements, such as increased revenue or reduced budgeted costs. These are the benefits CFOs tend to care most about because the cause-and-effect relationship is clear.

‘Blue money’ by contrast, includes measures such as customer satisfaction, employee experience and Net Promoter Score. While these metrics may contribute to future financial performance, they don’t guarantee a return and can be difficult to directly link to revenue or profit with less direct correlation.

Ellery also warned against relying heavily on ‘cost avoidance’ arguments, such as delaying a system upgrade, noting that financial leaders often place less weight on savings that have never formally appeared in a budget.

“What we’re doing is putting all this information together on a slide so we can make a determination with the CFO.”

When cumulative costs are higher than the benefit – as with the earlier customer personalisation example – there’s a chance to flip the conversation and argue it as a cost leader to enable you to do other projects – or to bring it into a wider program.

Ellery noted the success of a multinational DIY and home improvement goods company. “They used a system dynamics model and did scenario simulations over three and five years to actually figure out how to order, how to do promotions with feedback loops.”

Targeting 10 percent revenue growth, they nearly got it, coming in at nine percent.

“But they also stabilised their supply chain, which unleashed about $120 million in working capital, and they also deferred the expansion of their processing facilities, which saved them about $25 million in capital costs.”

A courier company increased on-time deliveries by 25 percent, cut idle time by 20 percent and reduced fleet expansion to three percent through use of ‘a very interesting agent-based model, where they had agents represented for vehicles, drivers, customers as autonomous agents’ and micro-hubs.

And a hospital, aiming to reduce emergency department wait times by 15 percent in three, months used AI in its demand forecasting and rostering. Their wait times dropped 77 percent and – as a side benefit – they also saved $100,000 in overtime through data-driven staffing.

“If we can target the value that we’re trying to optimise, it makes it so much easier for us to build these AI systems to actually realise those outcomes and to optimise them.”

The post The AI prioritisation problem appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

The deployment, built on Amazon Connect, has shaved more than two-and-a-half minutes off average calls for the 150+ year old company, one of New Zealand’s largest publicly listed general insurance companies, removing more than 796,000 minutes of customer time across sales, service and claims interactions.

“By bringing interactions into a single platform and integrating customer data, we’ve enabled real-time meaningful AI support for our frontline teams.”

But the more telling detail sits behind those numbers.

Paul Johnston, Tower CEO, told iStart the project centred on consolidating customer interactions into a single platform and combining that with integrating customer data to deliver AI support as conversations unfold.

“By bringing interactions into a single platform and integrated customer data, we’ve enabled real-time meaningful AI support for our frontline teams,” Johnston says.

That support is delivered during live calls, with real-time transcription across every call and AI-assisted guidance removing the need for agents to pause interactions to take notes or search for information, and there’s less chance of missing important details.

Rather than building bespoke AI capability, Tower leaned on what was already available within its platform, with Johnston saying most of the capabilities were delivered out-of-the box, with effort focused not on customisation, but integrating those tools into day-to-day operations.

The core of that work sat in data and knowledge.

“Our focus has been on strengthening our core knowledge base and integrating this seamlessly with the platform, ensuring agents receive accurate, up-to-date guidance,” Johnston says.

That meant ensuring information feeding AI responses was well-governed and current, so it could be surfaced in real-time to support customer conversations.

The deployment was designed to sit inside existing workflows rather than alongside them. Johnston says embedding AI into how work was already done reduced friction during rollout and allowed the system to evolve based on frontline use.

Real-time feedback loops

“We’ve been able to continually refine the platform based on what actually works best for our teams,” he says. Real-time feedback loops ensure continual improvements in responses. Involving frontline ‘change champions’ throughout also aided the process, he says.

As a result, Johnston says teams quickly saw benefits, with AI supporting conversations, reducing complexity and improving consistency in responses.

“Our ability to adapt and adopt has been a real strength, supported by a strong culture of innovation and a focus on bringing our people on the journey from day one.”

Alongside the reduction in handling times, he says employee and customer net promoter scores (NPS) have improved, while quality assurance coverage has increased.

The system is also generating a richer data set to inform future product and service decisions.

Monitoring is built into the deployment. Johnston says quality is assessed – and improved – using automated evaluation alongside agent feedback, providing real-time visibility and enabling issues to be identified and addressed as they emerge.

Across the project, Johnston points to a combination of strong data, well-governed knowledge and workforce engagement and empowerment as underpinning the outcome.

“A big part of our success has come from getting those foundations right, while continuing to build and improve over time.”

Johnston describes the work as part of a broader digital transformation, with further opportunities to expand how AI supports both customers and frontline teams.

“We see this as part of our ongoing digital transformation, with continued opportunities to scale and evolve how AI supports both out people and our customers,” he says.

“Looking ahead, we’re poised to invest further in technology and AI-enablement throughout FY26. This is a critical part of our strategy that will drive greater efficiencies and continue to enhance our customer experience over the medium- and long-term.”

The post Tower’s AI playbook: Embed, don’t bolt on appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

Within two weeks of launching the feature in the realestate.co.nz app, more than 60,000 searches had been clocked up. It’s still a tiny percentage of the company’s searches, but  Simon Hargraves, realestate.co.nz chief information officer, is optimistic.

“We had just finished a project to get our data into a good state. Without that, it would have been extremely difficult to do this work.”

He told iStart users are increasingly comfortable working with AI and expectations for search are changing. “They want to be able to express their search intent more naturally, rather than just using predefined filters or having to use exact keywords.”

The AI-image search gives users the ability to search ‘at a completely different level’ – searching what’s actually in photos.

What users are searching for, however, hasn’t changed in early searches. “We have a list of traditional keywords people were searching for and generally it’s following the same trend,” Hargraves says.

What has changed is how effectively results are being surfaced. Traditional keyword search relies on exact inputs from both sides, with agents required to include the right terms in listings and users having to guess and input the same wording. AI image search removes that dependency, Hargraves notes, with the AI system examining the photos and pulling out key features.

The system also changes how results are presented, with the platform able to surface the image where the feature has been detected, rather than returning a listing with no obvious visual confirmation.

The accuracy challenge

Hargraves says the feature itself was built and released quickly – one month to build and another month spent testing, tuning and getting feedback from the business. “The really challenging part was more the focus on accuracy and making sure the results aren’t frustrating for users because the way the semantic search works is it expands what the user is searching for to understand intent and then expands the search out from there.”

As an example, early on a search for wine cellars associated them with luxury properties – returning a broad range of luxury properties rather than those with wine cellars. Worse, searching for a property with an accessible ramp expanded out to include staircases.

“Those kind of cases are obviously going to be super frustrating to users when you’re getting the opposite of what you’ve actually search for. So we spent probably half the project time actually testing it internally, across the whole company and getting feedback from users of examples where it was wrong. Then we spent quite a bit of time tuning the system.

“Making sure the experience wasn’t frustrating was the most important part.”

Data does the heavy lifting

Behind the feature sits a significant data effort.

Realestate.co.nz had just completed an 18-month re-platforming and centralisation of all of its data into a single Snowflake platform, standardising definitions and consolidating multiple data sources across the business.

“That was a huge foundational piece that allowed us to build it very quickly.”

The work enabled the rapid development of AI features, but also highlighted a clear dependency.

“You have to have that data foundation in place… if you have bad data, then you’ll get bad results out from the AI.”

In image-based search, that extends beyond structured data to the quality of photos themselves – something the company doesn’t control.

“The AI performs much better when the features [are] clearly visible,” Hargraves says.

But he notes the higher the quality the images and the larger they are, the more cost to process via AI. “There are quite a few variables that we had to take into account and tune to try and get the right kind of cost versus quality.”

He deliberately frames the AI image search as an experiment. “The technology has evolved really rapidly and these kind of features are becoming easier and easier to implement so it makes sense to build the feature and release it to users and see if it’s used and useful.”

The company is less focused on initial uptake than on whether users will return. As Hargraves notes, if users don’t find it useful, they won’t come back to it again – a key test for the future of the system.

To manage expectations, it has been clearly labelled as a beta. “Because… with AI, it’s never going to be perfect.”

Beyond search

The company’s broader approach reflects a pragmatic view of AI. Internally it is being used across the engineering process, and teams are encouraged to experiment through hackathons and rapid prototyping.

“These tools are making it super easy and super quick to build out things and test them internally and build proof of concepts,” Hargraves says.

At the same time, decisions to productise those ideas need to be made carefully, he says, noting the challenge of ensuring projects show ROI and aren’t constantly ‘experiments’.

“You have to make sure projects make sense… and as with anything its prioritising what you have in your roadmap case by case with cost versus value.”

In that context, AI image search is seen as a logical extension of existing capabilities, rather than a standalone transformation.

Hargraves says the company is already working to merge AI image search with traditional keyword search into a single, unified experience.

Longer term, there is potential to expand search into other areas, including accessibility requirements and proximity to amenities, though that will depend on the availability and quality of additional data sources.

“Finding a good data source and being able to ingest it and surface it via AI search is going to be the challenge. But I think you’ll see a lot of those features coming over time. It’s just about getting data into a good place first because without that solid foundation you can’t build high quality AI experiences on top of it.”

Beyond real estate

So what’s Hargraves advice for any other companies considering similar tools?

“Getting the data into a good place is probably the most complex thing. We’re lucky because we had just finished a project to get our data into a good state. Without that, it would probably have been extremely difficult to do this work.”

The data needs to be high quality, well-structured and accessible and good governance around it is also required as well.

“Without that, it’s going to take a lot longer and there’s going to be much higher levels of complexity.”

And be prepared to spend time tuning. “The tuning and accuracy piece is going to be the most difficult part to get right from a product perspective,” Hargraves warns.

“With AI image search you don’t have so many of the concerns you’d have with AI in other areas, especially where you have chatbots and people interacting directly with the AI. AI search is an easier place to start but as we get more into potential AI features in future – chatbots and that kind of thing – it becomes more and more concerning from a risk perspective.”

On the cost front, he says there wasn’t ‘massive’ cost. The time spent tuning was the bigger cost, with the company now spending around US$1000 a month for processing all of its listing images.

“Costs are increasing in AI across the board though, so it’ll be interesting to see how it changes over time and it’s something we’re going to have to keep an eye on.”

Hargraves also acknowledges that for some companies, AI image search could surface unexpected content.

“With our platform, the photos have all been taken and verified by vendors and agents, so personally identifying information or anything sensitive is usually scrubbed from the photos anyway. On different platforms, you would definitely have concerns though,” he says.

Despite that, Hargraves says it’s important for all local companies to be experimenting with AI.

There are huge changes coming across every industry. There’s a massive shift in the way people are working in businesses and how they are interacting with AI and that’s changing their expectations of how they use other products too.”

The post Realestate.co.nz’s lessons in AI-powered image search appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

The new tech hub is the second State-side for CBA – it opened one in Seattle last March – and places ‘squads in residence’ – aka CommBank engineers and technologists – in what the bank describes as ‘one of the world’s most concentrated AI ecosystems’, working directly with partners such as OpenAI, AWS, Anthropic and Microsoft.

“The goal is to have them take away all the learning… and bring [it] back to Australia, to become force multipliers, and scale and compound that capability across our 10,000-plus technologists.”

Matt Comyn, CommBank CEO, says the hub will give the bank’s engineers and technologists access to world-class tools, expertise and partners.

The hub reflects a broader strategy for the bank: Proximity to where AI models are being built and structured pathways to transfer knowledge back to Australia’s engineering workforce.

“This is part of our commitment to working at the frontier of technology, alongside leading global partners,” Comyn says. “We’re investing significantly in our people and capability, because attracting and supporting the best talent means giving them access to the best tools, expertise and opportunities globally.”

Bringing San Francisco skills back

The San Francisco hub is designed as a rotation model. Engineers, product owners and data scientists travel in small squads for short residencies working alongside AI partners and observing how leading organisations are applying new tools and techniques.

For CommBank, the goal is not simply exposure, but replication. Martha McKeen, CommBank lead for AI powered engineering and international tech hubs, says the goal is for the cohorts to take away all the learning they can from the strategic partners, taking that back to Australia to become ‘force multipliers’ and scale and compound that capability across the bank’s technology workforce of more than 10,000 staff.

“Our tech hubs are all about creating incredible surfaces for learning,” McKeen says.

The model builds on earlier success in Seattle, where more than 100 engineers have already participated in similar rotations.

In Seattle, the first cohort back in early 2025 were focused on learning to fast-track adoption of agentic AI and genAI powered solutions to help small business banking customers manage their finances and run their businesses. A second cohort looked at modernising testing to respond to customer feedback faster.

Rodrigo Castillo, CommBank co-CIO central technology, says the new hub will help the bank continue to scale AI solutions, connecting internal teams with where new models are being created. “What we are looking for is connectivity between our teams and places where AI models are being created here in the heart of San Francisco.”

Learnings beyond the tools

For engineers taking part, the value is not limited to access to tools. CBA says it extends to exposure to how leading organisations structure work, iterate on products and integrate AI across the software development lifecycle.

George Beniac, CommBank crew lead, core foundations, says working with OpenAI in San Francisco has changed the way his learning squad is thinking about how it can use AI from planning to product design, to code development and deployment.

Product owner for AI powered engineering, Henry Chan, says the environment itself plays a role in shaping thinking.

“Very quickly, from the moment you land in San Francisco, you notice all the billboards are AI-related. You realise this environment is, by default, AI-powered. Your brain automatically switches.”

For Chan one of the things his team went to San Francisco to learn was how other leading companies were able to move so quickly and how they’ve altered or augmented their product delivery lifecycles over the last couple of years. (His insight: The importance of giving team members the freedom to experiment using AI to prototype, translating thoughts into real life use cases.)

Squads at the hub have also been looking at how AI is reshaping the way software is designed, built and maintained, with a focus on AI-powered engineering. “That is, giving our engineers the emerging best-of-breed, AI-powered engineering tools,” McKeen says. “These tools help them in their everyday workflows, and relieve the toil and burden of manual tasks and allows them to focus on what matters most.

The bank says more than 70 percent of its engineering teams are already using AI tools, with the new hub aimed at accelerating that adoption and embedding more consistent ways of working across teams.

Other Australian organisations are taking similar steps. Telstra partnered with professional services company Accenture last year to launch an AI ‘innovation and research hub’ in Silicon Valley, where Telstra works with partners including AWS, Databricks and Microsoft to build and test AI-based services. However, rather than flying in teams, the Telstra-Accenture joint venture appears to be more of a virtual offering, connecting with teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Bangalore and creating a ‘virtual door’ where teams can ideate, collaborate, build and test in a secure environment.

Australian-founded design platform Canva also expanded its presence in San Francisco last year, positioning the city as a key hub in its global operations and placing teams closer to talent, capital and early adopters.

CommBank’s hub model is built around turning short-term exposure into scaled capability. Engineers are expected to return and apply what they’ve learned across the organisation, embedding new approaches to prototyping, collaboration and AI-assisted development. For organisations across Australia and New Zealand, the key question is not access to new technology, but how effectively those practices can be distributed and embedded across teams.

The post CBA’s ‘squads in residence’ play for AI capability appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

New research from Teletrac Navman (those of a certain vintage may recall that Navman was a Kiwi company founded by Sir Peter Maire back in the 1980s) shows the issue is not a lack of technology investment. In fact, 84 percent of fleets have invested in tracking, telematics and integrated equipment platforms to some degree. The problem, Teletrac Navman construction solution specialist James French told iStart, is what happens next – or more accurately, what doesn’t, with many deployments remaining incomplete, creating pockets of insight, rather than organisation-wide intelligence.

“Without all the data… you can be profitable overall, but you’re leaving money in the dirt.”

The report, which is based on a quantitative online survey of 600 companies operating commercial vehicle fleets, including 200 across Australia and New Zealand, 75 percent are still relying on manual logs either as a primary tracking method or alongside digital systems. Fewer than one-third have fully implemented utilisation technology.

French says while most operators recognise utilisation is important – and believe equipment may be underutilised – the actual picture many businesses are working from is incomplete.

“The utilisation information is often incomplete,” he says, describing fleets where some equipment is tracked, while others aren’t, or where telematics is applied only to specific projects, rather than the entire fleet. The result is what he calls a partial utilisation picture – and decisions made on partial data rarely end well.

French says utilisation initiatives commonly stall because projects are left half finished. GPS might be rolled out to part of the fleet, but not all. Maintenance systems live somewhere else. Third-party equipment has its own tracking platform. Acquisitions add yet another layer of complexity, with multiple systems running side by side because no one wants to disrupt what the newly acquired business is comfortable using.

“You’ve got disparate systems,” he says. “GPS sits here, maintenance sits somewhere else, fuel lives somewhere else again.”

Without pulling those datasets together, organisations miss the opportunity to build a full picture of how assets are actually performing – and what they really cost to run.

French says once utilisation data is integrated with maintenance, fuel and financial systems, businesses can calculate their true total cost of ownership per machine, per hour. That’s where the money starts to surface – and sometimes, where uncomfortable truths appear.

“If it costs $250 an hour to run a machine and you’re charging $220 an hour, you’re losing money,” he says. “Without all the data, you don’t know it. You can be profitable overall, but you’re leaving money in the dirt.”

Idling away

One of the headline findings from the research is that equipment is sitting idle up to 50 percent of the time.

French admits calculating idle is fraught with technical challenges.

Basic GPS can tell operators where machines are and when engines are on or off. More accurate utilisation comes when systems are connected into engine data via CAN (controller area network) bus – the vehicle standard designed to allow microcontrollers and electronic control units such as the engine, brakes and lights, to communicate with each other – pulling details such as RPM to distinguish between productive work and an engine running without doing anything useful.

Machine-level integration also matters. A crane truck may be stationary with the engine running, but if the crane is operating, that’s productive use, not idle time. Without that visibility, utilisation data risks being misleading.

Manual logs are also fraught with issues. French points to a real-world productivity study he worked on in a previous role, comparing manually recorded data with machine-generated data.

“We found about a 15 percent difference,” he says.

Human error, transposed numbers, lost paperwork and best-guess reporting cause further issues in manual reporting. With digital systems, French says, the data becomes a single source of truth that can be audited, retrieved and compared across years.

The double-pay issue

Nowhere is the financial impact more visible than in equipment hoarding.

The report found that two-thirds of organisations admit assets are sometimes held onsite but unused, largely due to uncertainty around maintenance and scheduling. French says the behaviour is understandable, but costly.

“If I ring another site asking if they’ve got a 24‑tonne excavator, they’ll often say they’re flat out,” he says. “Sometimes that’s fear they won’t get it back. Sometimes it’s that they don’t actually know whether it’s being used or not.”

Without utilisation data, businesses turn to renting an additional machine – and double-paying.

“If I think it’s being used and I go and rent another machine, now I’m paying for one excavator sitting idle and another one working,” French says. “One is internal money. The rental is external money. That costs more.”

The fix does not require sophisticated analytics from day one. French says even fleet‑wide GPS coverage can immediately change behaviour.

“If I can ring a site and say, ‘I can see that machine hasn’t worked in a week – we’re sending a truck to move it,’ that saves money immediately.”

He cites the example of one client who reported saving roughly $30,000 in just 40 days by identifying idle plant and redeploying assets based on evidence rather than assumption.

For Australian companies, there’s another big win waiting: Fuel tax credits. He says many companies are leaving cash unclaimed simply because they can’t prove how, where and when equipment is used.

GPS and utilisation data can provide an accurate picture of when vehicles and equipment are operating on ‘non-gazetted’ roads where full fuel tax rebates can be claimed.

“GPS gives a very accurate picture of what percentage you’re off road,” he says, pointing to the ability to use geofencing and location data to distinguish between on‑road travel and off‑road work.

The distinction matters across a wide range of real-world scenarios, from trucks and light vehicles operating on job sites as opposed to driving to those sites, to concrete agitators running engines while unloading, washing and equipment once they enter a site. Forestry operations are another area French highlights, with vehicles transitioning from public roads onto private land and becoming eligible for different treatment.

“In Australia there are billions of dollars sitting in unclaimed fuel tax credits and this is one of the areas you make a quick gain.”

Where utilisation delivers fastest value

French says the first integration point for utilisation data should be maintenance. With live hour data, service intervals become predictable, automated and defensible – an operational and compliance win.

From there, fuel data becomes critical, particularly as costs rise and supply remains uncertain. Understanding where and how fuel is being consumed allows operators to narrow down why similar machines are costing more on one site than another – whether that’s environment, operator behaviour or simply the wrong machine for the job.

Critically, this feeds decision-makers beyond the fleet team.

“When it all feeds into a BI platform,” French says, “the CFO can see what machines cost, what they generate, and what happens if you remove assets that aren’t being used.”

At that point, utilisation stops being a reporting metric and starts behaving like what it actually is: One of the most powerful – and under‑leveraged – drivers of financial performance in asset‑heavy businesses.

The post Idle data, idle machines: The utilisation tech blind spot appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

AT A GLANCE

• Annexa

INDUSTRY

• Retail and eCommerce

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Support rapid international growth across multiple markets.
• Remove manual finance and inventory reconciliation.
• Ensure systems enable scaling rather than constraining it.

SOLUTION

• NetSuite was implemented as a single ERP platform bringing financials, inventory, costing and sales data into one system across every channel and subsidiary.
• Multi-entity, multi-currency capability and live feeds from eCommerce and point-of-sale enabling real-time consolidation across eight operating countries.
• Scalable platform design to support ongoing growth.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Real-time visibility across eight operating countries.
• Reduced manual processes and reconciliation effort.
• Scalable platform supporting continued growth without increasing headcount.
• Stronger foundations for future AI-driven capabilities within core systems.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Annexa

W: annexa.com.au / annexa.co.nz

How MAAP Cycling is keeping systems hard on the incline…

For fast-growing retail brands, the ravine between commercial ambition and operational capability tends to open quietly.

As transaction volumes increase the systems that supported early growth start to create drag rather than remove it. By the time the problem is visible, it is usually diagnosed as being rather extensive to resolve.

Matthew Nott has managed finance teams through these exact growth phases. He worked on the expansion of tea retailer T2 and the global scaling of skin, hair and body care brand Aesop, to the point at which it was acquired by L’Oreal in 2023 in a deal valued at US$2.53 billion.

Now, as chief financial officer at premium cycling brand MAAP, he oversees the financial operations of a company expanding across eight countries on the same platform.

There’s nothing quite like growth to expose operational gaps…

MAAP was founded in Melbourne in 2014 and now operates via eCommerce, wholesale, and a growing physical retail network. When Nott joined, the technology stack was divided. A financial platform operated in isolation from the inventory tool, and reconciling sales across channels was a manual, convoluted process.

Speaking during a panel session at SuiteConnect 2026, Oracle NetSuite’s annual customer conference, Nott described the moment high-growth businesses outrun their systems. For leaders navigating that transition, his view on what the technology needs to do was clear.

“[For any other businesses in a similar high-growth] stage, where you’re scaling up, you really want to think about ensuring that your technology is going to enable your growth and not hold it back,” he says.

“Often the times where a business has been growing for a period of time, and there’s a moment where the scale and the high growth starts to arise, you’ll quickly outgrow systems. You really need to be thinking about a tool. In our case [that involves] multi-entity, multi-currency, real-time data and reporting, consolidation, intercompany.”

MAAP’s Netsuite implementation, delivered in partnership with Annexa, brought all the company’s transactional data into a single system; financials, inventory, costing, and sales across every channel and subsidiary. Live feeds from e-commerce and point-of-sale now consolidate in real time across all eight operating countries.

“Those things from a Netsuite context are just a given, built in from the ground up, so that doesn’t become part of your decision making when you’re scaling, it’s an enabler for scaling,” Nott says.

The AI mandate

At the same event, NetSuite outlined its next-generation product direction, NetSuite Next. AI capabilities are being introduced continuously across the platform, with NetSuite Next bringing these advancements into a more unified, embedded experience within the ERP core. The solution is expected to be available within the next 12 months.

The release will introduce Ask Oracle, a contextual natural language assistant, alongside autonomous close capabilities designed to reduce month-end friction. AI agents will monitor financials throughout the period, flag anomalies, and handle reconciliations automatically. The goal is a zero-day close managed through AI operating in the background.

Nott expects to consume AI capabilities directly through core vendors rather than building separate models. He favours this integrated approach.

“We’re very much at the start of experimenting with AI … we’re really expecting to rely on our vendors and NetSuite as our core system to deliver a lot of these tools for us to then better use, as opposed to the potential for trying to stitch together your own agentic AI models and having a gigantic technology team to support that,” he says.

“We want to really keep the relationship with our customers pretty human. But even in that space, we think product visualisation and those things are incredibly useful in terms of speed to market.”

The announcement is welcome news for Australian-based ERP and NetSuite systems integrator Annexa, which had worked closely with MAAP on its integration.

“Customers have been coming to us for advice on how they can apply AI capabilities, particularly as they’re emerging across NetSuite and the wider technology ecosystem,” Annexa director Matthew Owens said during a separate webinar.

“There’s a huge amount of opportunity there, and a big part of our work now is helping teams identify where AI can genuinely improve business processes and how to introduce it safely into operational systems.”

Doing more with the same resources

Finance leaders are asking a consistent question across the industry. The focus has shifted from managing immediate scale to driving long-term efficiency without proportionally expanding headcount.

MAAP is continuing to grow, and Nott’s confidence in the current technology stack to support that expansion is high, and his attention has shifted to the question that sits behind it, how to extract more output from the same team as the business scales.

“We’re continuing to focus on growth, and we’re still in a high-growth phase. We’re wanting to open more stores in more countries and regions,” he says.

“The pleasing thing to me is that to do that within our current tech stack environment, the technology is in no way holding us back.

“The theme that I hear from a lot of other CFOs is, how are we going to do more with less? We’re not necessarily wanting to reduce our resources overall, but we just want them to be able to do more and allow them to grow and achieve more.

“These tools that are coming to market are constantly blowing me away with what they can do, so there’s a real preparation to take advantage of them.”

Getting the foundations right

The efficiency gains Nott described on the panel at SuiteConnect depend heavily on what happens before and after go-live. During a separate webinar discussing international growth strategy for retail brands, he was candid about where the complexity concentrates.

“The integration is the devil in the detail. The integration is the hardest part of the entire thing. That’s the area, one hundred percent, to be aware of and focus on,” Nott says.

Nott had worked with Matthew Owens, director of Annexa, in a previous role and brought him in when it came time to scope a solution for MAAP.

Managing multiple third-party logistics providers across different markets has been one of the more demanding elements of the build, with MAAP changing 3PL providers more than once since go-live, each move requiring new technical connections.

Annexa’s Owens understands what retailers need from a systems integrator at this stage of growth, noting that the conversation should start with commercial understanding rather than software features.

“It’s not so much about buying a bit of software and understanding the features of a module. It’s about, can the partner or the system integrators that I’m speaking with understand holistically how to run an online retail business? And how are you going to enable us to actually facilitate growth, expansion, integrations and do it in a way that’s going to be quick to market and sustainable to support?” he says.

“Getting the core system live is the big project, the big change. But equally important is how you sustain it. Do you have the right partnerships and people available when you need them? This is important not just for keeping the lights on but also for the bigger ticket innovation initiatives that retailers can take on” he says.

Annexa has supported a number of Australian retail and consumer brands through similar transitions.

For example, Aussie skincare brand Ultra Violette re-platformed its operations across five global markets in six months, moving from fragmented systems to a single integrated ERP built for scale.

Meanwhile, Davie Group, best known for The Oodie, overhauled its global fulfilment model, shifting from a 4PL structure to direct 3PL integrations embedded in NetSuite, unlocking real-time visibility and reducing fulfilment delays to under 24 hours.

Furthermore, Global biotech company Life Cykel’s move to NetSuite gave the business the operational visibility and control needed to enter the competitive US retail market, a step that fragmented legacy systems would have made significantly harder to execute with confidence.

For growing retail brands, the technology decisions made during periods of high growth tend to compound, in both directions. The right foundations enable speed, visibility, and efficiency at scale. The wrong ones cause operational drag that is expensive to diagnose and harder to unwind.

As embedded AI shifts from emerging capability to standard infrastructure, the businesses best placed to take advantage will be those that already have their data, systems, and integrations in order.

Annexa’s Owens says this positioning will really drive how effective AI can be from an embedded operation perspective.

“A big part of what’s changing right now in AI is how it’s starting to show up inside the systems that finance teams rely on every day,” he says. “That’s where it becomes more relevant, because it’s no longer sitting outside the business as a separate tool, it’s starting to influence the workflows and decisions happening inside core systems.”

The post Cyclical success underpins global growth appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

“We started using machine learning and predictive analytics about seven years ago, so this isn’t new for us” Bain tells iStart. “What people think of as AI now is really just the latest evolution of things we’ve been doing for a long time.”

“These projects aren’t really AI projects – they’re data projects.”

From the outset, Spark discovered that deploying AI – particularly where customer data is involved – raised complex questions that couldn’t be solved by technology alone.

“When you’re building models, it can be hard to explain how they choose. So the starting point for all of this was really strong ethical guidelines around how we use the technology.”

Rather than reacting case by case, Spark invested early in defining what it considered acceptable – and unacceptable – uses of AI. “What that looks like: What do we want to use this for, what data is acceptable, how is the data stored securely, and making sure that if a model does something we can explain why it did it.”

The principles were designed to be enduring, rather than technology-specific.

“The technology changes really quickly,” Bain notes. “But if we start from a foundation of what we believe is right and wrong as a business, and what we would never do – even if it was commercially attractive – then those principles still apply as the technology evolves.”

Over time, those principles were embedded operationally, supported by internal tools Spark developed to help teams assess proposed AI use cases before they’re deployed. “We’ve now got tools that allow our people to see the use case, understand what it’s being used for and the system will flag whether this is permissible.” The tool translates Spark’s ethical principles into practical decision-making, helping teams evaluate how data will be used, whether a human needs to remain in the loop and whether the use case aligns with published governance standards. Embedding these checks early reduces ambiguity and gives teams the confidence to move quickly once a project is cleared, Bain says.

He says this foundational work gave Spark a level of maturity before generative AI entered the mainstream.

“We already had a baseline. Our teams understood the effects, the principles and how they turn into actions.”

A Skinny test

That groundwork was tested with an ambitious project to clone a customer for an advertising campaign for Skinny – Spark’s low cost mobile and broadband brand – in what Bain says was a world-first.

“We’d never cloned a human before,” he says. “That’s a whole new level. Someone’s identity. Their voice. Their mannerisms and physical likeness.”

The technology made it possible to produce creative content faster and at a lower cost – and it feed into the Skinny brand – ‘cheeky and innovative’, using AI based on a real person, rather than a completely synthetic human to keep marketing costs low.

“We could put her in space. We could put her on the moon. We could test creative ideas really quickly and get to a finished product much faster than traditional filming.”

The visible outcome however, understated the work required behind the scenes.

“Above the waterlines is what you see,” Bain says. “Below the waterline was a huge amount of new thinking – particularly around security – because this is actually more sensitive than the personal information we usually hold.”

Skinny treated the AI likeness as requiring a higher standard of protection than typical customer data.

“Before we even captured the data, we had to decide who could access it, how many people, whether it could be downloaded, and where it could live. It could only exist in a very secure environment and could never leave it.”

Legal and privacy teams were involved throughout, running alongside the technical work.

“Some of these things you don’t realise until you hit them, so the practical steps evolved as we went,” Bain says. “Our legal and privacy teams were actively involved, making sure they were always a few steps ahead.

Liz Wright, the customer who was cloned, has remained involved throughout the campaign.

“She was more involved each time. We didn’t just do things and put them out there without her knowing, even where we could have done that legally. We didn’t think that was the responsible way to handle it.”

There are clear limits too, on usage. “We have rights for a defined period, and then we destroy the data. We don’t want to hold it for longer than we need to.”

Guardrails unlock speed

While the governance work was intensive upfront, Spark says it was this effort that now allows teams to move quickly.

“What we found was that we spend more time upfront evaluating the risks and making sure we have those covered. But once the guardrails are in place, teams can move very fast inside them.”

Bain argues that the common perception – that AI governance slows innovation – misunderstands where the real friction lies.

“Building the models is really quick these days,” he says. “The hard part is the guidelines and the ethical approach.”

Once teams understand how AI works and what the boundaries are, Bain says fear drops away. “When people understand the technology and the risks, they’re emotionally comfortable with it, that’s when they can really move.

Bain notes that AI governance must accommodate technologies that change continuously. “These models are doubling in capability every six months. You can’t imagine now what will be possible in two years.”

Rather than constantly rewriting rules, Spark applies the same principles to each new use case as it emerges.

“You need to govern it like a piece of technology that will constantly change,” Bain says. “Have broad principles, then apply the same framework every time.”

That approach, he says, creates clarity internally and avoids paralysis. “It means people are never ambiguous about where the business stands. And it lets them move quickly within those guidelines.

Hard won lessons

When asked which AI capability Bain is most proud of at Spark, he points not to the latest offering, but to its customer intelligence platform that uses hundreds of machine-learning models to understand individual customer preferences and predict what will be most relevant to them. “We now have hundreds of models running against our customer base that say things like: Heather loves music, she’s not price-sensitive, she prefers iPhones, she’s an early adopter,” Bain says. That insight is used across channels – emails, texts, retail stores and call centres – to personalise interactions in real time. “What we found was that we massively improved engagement with those communications.”

Adding that same intelligence helps frontline staff make more relevant recommendations when customers get in touch. “That’s a pretty cool thing – and it’s still pretty unique in the market today.”

Another internal AI tool is a system allowing staff to query financial and performance data using plain language, rather than writing manual SQL queries. Traditionally, Bain says, answering questions about revenue, sales or margins meant a slow loop between analysts, spreadsheets and follow-up requests. “We built an AI that could understand text, turn it into an SQL query, query the database and then create a multimodal report with graphs, tables and written insights.”

What once took days now happens in seconds or minutes, dramatically speeding up decision-making and allowing finance teams to focus on higher-value analysis rather than producing reports.

So what are Bain’s three key tips for companies finding their way with AI and data?

Get your data in order first Bain says data quality is the single biggest constraint on successful AI use. “These projects aren’t really AI projects – they’re data projects,” he says, adding that ‘the underlying data is 90 percent of the work’. Where data definitions are inconsistent or ambiguous, models become confused and unreliable. By contrast, when data is clear, structured and robust, Bain says AI solutions can be deployed very quickly and deliver real value.

Start now — the learning curve is unavoidable

Bain warns that delaying adoption doesn’t reduce complexity, it just postpones learning. “If you don’t get started now, there’s a learning curve – and that learning curve will be the same no matter when you start,” Bain says. He recommends beginning with low‑risk use cases so organisations can build confidence, understanding and capability before scaling more complex applications.

The technology is no longer the barrier — mindset is What used to be expensive and exclusive is now widely accessible. “What used to only be possible for a Spark is now available to small businesses – we’re using the same technologies,” Bain says. The real work is educating teams, demystifying how AI works, and putting appropriate guardrails in place. “By understanding it, you can mitigate the risks,” Spark says, adding that responsibility and confidence – not fear – are what allow businesses to move forward productively.

The post Spark’s Matt Bain on the unsexy work enabling AI success appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

CPA Australia’s latest Small Business Survey of more than 4,100 businesses across APAC, shows both Australia and New Zealand are sitting near the bottom of the region for growth, innovation and technology adoption. It’s the second year New Zealand has ranked last for growth, something Rick Jones, CPA Australia regional head, dubs ‘a worrying trend’.

“Existing technology spend is not translating into profitability.”

In New Zealand just 38 percent of small businesses reported growth in 2025 – up on last year’s 36 percent but still well below the APAC average of 62 percent, and ranking New Zealand last out of the 11 markets surveyed. Just 26 percent said technology investment improved profitability, less than half the regional average and digital adoption remains weak. Australian results paint a similarly weak picture of low digital uptake and poor returns from tech investment.

Jones told iStart the problem is two-fold: Overall digital uptake in both markets remains well below Asia Pacific peers, and where businesses do spend, investment is heavily weighted toward basic IT such as computer equipment, rather than tools that change how the business operates. Online sales, digital payments and use of social media for customer insights, rather than visibility alone, remain underused, even as productivity pressures intensify.

With productivity firmly on the political agenda in both countries this election year, Jones says lifting small business technology should be a central priority.

“Our data consistently shows that businesses which invest effectively in technology grow faster, hire more people and are more likely to innovate. Countries like Singapore have demonstrated what targeted digital support programmes can achieve – there are proven approaches in our region that could work here,” he says.

Low adoption, low returns

The survey data shows that limited digital adoption remains a key issue across both markets, but the effect is most pronounced in New Zealand.

Only 32.4 percent of New Zealand’s small businesses generated more than 10 percent of their revenue from online sales in 2025, less than half the Asia Pacific average and the lowest results across all surveyed markets. Use of digital payment platforms is similarly low with just 35.4 percent receiving more than 10 percent of sales via services such as PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay, again ranking last in the region.

Technology use remains basic elsewhere too. Almost 31 percent of Kiwi small businesses don’t use social media for business purposes at all, compared with a regional average of 12 percent.

The pattern is mirrored in Australia, where 44 percent of businesses reported earning more than 10 percent of revenue online, still well below the Asia Pacific. The report notes however, that while New Zealand and Australian small businesses continue to be the least likely to generate online sales, Australia, at least, experienced an improvement year on year in 2025, while New Zealand’s decline continued. In Australia, 68 percent used social media for business, trailing the regional norm of 88 percent.

The gaps matter because the survey shows a strong relationship between digital adoption and performance. Businesses with higher use of online sales channels, digital payments and basic automation are most likely to report growth, hiring and innovation. “Technology continues to play a more critical role for high-growth small businesses than for other businesses,” the report notes.

Maintenance, not momentum

Where small businesses do invest in technology, the type of investment helps explain why returns remain weak locally.

In New Zealand, computer equipment was again the most heavily invested tech category last year – continuing a trend echoed repeatedly in the survey since 2020 – followed by website and accounting software. Australia was similar, favouring accounting software, followed by computer equipment and website.

In comparison, high-growth businesses across the region were most likely to invest in AI followed by cloud computing and CRM software.

CPA says this indicates A/NZ spending is often directed toward replacement or maintenance, rather than productivity-enhancing systems.

The profitability data reinforces that conclusion. Just 25.6 percent of Kiwi small businesses surveyed said tech investment improved their profitability in 2025, compared with a survey average of 56.3 percent. Australia recorded a similar outcome, with only 30 percent of businesses reporting profitability improvements from tech investments.

CPA links this to quality, rather than quantity of investment. Simply purchasing hardware – replacing devices, upgrading networks, maintaining on-premise systems – may keep the lights on, but it rarely changes cost structures, revenue flows or decision-making.

“What the survey shows is that existing technology spend is not translating into profitability,” Jones says. He says where business are investing it’s often without the sequencing or support needed to make the tools deliver operational change.

“The question is, how do we support these business owners in that capability piece, so they are not just investing in technology, but are investing in the right technology? That’s not just about using it right, it’s around making it work for the business so they are seeing returns,” he says.

Cashflow and time pressure points

Across both countries, the operational pressures facing small businesses underline why businesses are cautious – and why digital matters.

In New Zealand, 54 percent of businesses said increasing costs had a major negative impact in 2025, ranking highest among surveyed market. Hiring remains weak with only 7.4 percent increasing employee numbers, and just 14 percent expecting to hire in 2026. Innovation plans are similarly subdued with only 4.9 percent planning to introduce a new product, service or process in the coming year.

Australia’s results show similar stagnation, with CPA Australia business and investment lead Gavan Ord warning that prolonged underperformance among small businesses is feeding into a wider productivity slowdown. “When small businesses underperform year after year, it become a national economic problem, not just a sector issue,” he says.

Against that backdrop, the technologies most closely linked to measurable gains are not experimental. Jones points to practical improvements such as faster invoicing and payments, online ordering and booking systems and digital finance and reporting tools that reduce manual work across payroll, inventory and customer management.

He notes when businesses experience clear time savings and faster payments, confidence in technology investment tends to rise, easing hesitation around further adoption.

The older demographics of Australian and New Zealand businesses also has a role to play in tech adoption. New Zealand has the oldest small business ownership profile in the region, with 68 percent of owners aged 50 or over. Australia shows a similar generational divide, though less pronounced.

“It’s not an age thing in isolation, but what the survey showed is that business owners under 40 certainly reported growth,” Jones says. “They showed a lot more revenue through online sales and their digital and tech uptake is a lot higher. Younger business owners have a higher risk appetite and are more likely to invest in digital capability.”

In the wake of the survey results, Jones says business technology adoption needs to be made an essential priority for New Zealand (and Australia’s) growth and productivity agendas.

“We need to introduce some better sequence digital adoption support programmes,” he says, suggesting we look to Singapore for examples of programmes which have a proven track record in providing comprehensive support for small business.

“The government should consider designing business digital support programmes with more deliberate bundling and sequencing of measures, drawing on approaches used in Singapore,” CPA Australia says. “This would increase programme effectiveness, accelerate the diffusion of productivity enhancing technology and promote more effective use of existing digital capabilities. Over time this would support stronger productivity, greater business dynamism and a more competitive small business sector.”

In Australia the organisation is also calling for government to incentivise tech adoption and the development of stronger digital capability.

CPA is also calling for a coordinated package of measures to lift participation of younger people in small business. In New Zealand, that includes a ‘start-up apprenticeship’ or mentoring programme and improved access to finance and professional advice for younger owners, potentially through a ‘First Business Owners programme’ connecting participants with accredited advisers and possibly including a SME loan guarantee component.

Jones, who dubs the survey a ‘challenging read’ for New Zealand, says it’s not just about government investment, however. He’s calling for other organisations and consultants to step up and provide the mentoring relationships to help small businesses, and for the businesses themselves to more actively share with other small businesses their successes and learnings. CPA Australia itself is working on providing extensive professional development for its own members to help them on the journey – and ensure their small business customers can also move forward.

The post Why A/NZ SMBs are falling behind on tech appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

The report is based on ‘insights’ from more than 4,000 eCommerce founders which Australian company Ecommerce Equation has worked with, and draws a clear line between founders who are seeing commercial impact from AI and those who feel increasingly overwhelmed by it.

“Where that understanding is missing, AI simply creates more activity, complexity and noise.”

The report highlights that AI performs best when companies already understand their business constraints. Those seeing real gains are the ones who know exactly which problem they’re trying to solve.

Or as says Jay Wright, Ecommerce Equation founder, says:  “The founders getting real results aren’t the ones doing the most with AI. They’re the ones who knew their business well enough to know exactly where to point it.”

Founders who skip this step tend to deploy AI broadly, without a clear objective or identifying a bottleneck, resulting in more output but little impact on revenue, margin or time saved, a pattern described as  ‘activity without moving the dial’.

In contrast, those who are seeing results are described as starting with a precise diagnosis: A conversion issue on one product, uncertainty in reordering decisions, a slowdown in creative testing or excessive manual operational work. In these case, AI is applied narrowly to the bottleneck and measured against a defined outcome, such as conversion rate, marketing efficiency, time saved or cash conversion speed. In essence, AI doesn’t fix unclear fundamentals; it amplifies existing systems. Where founders already know what ‘good’ looks like in their business, AI accelerates progress. Where that understanding is missing, it simply creates more activity, complexity and noise.

“The short version is this. AI is delivering real value for a small number of founders who have done the diagnostic work first. For everyone else, it’s generating activity without moving the needle.”

Where AI delivers real value: Revenue and conversion

The strongest, most immediate wins documented in the report occur on the revenue side of eCommerce operations. These include conversion rate optimisation, creative production, advertising performance and customer experience.

Lead-side work of getting products in front of the right people and converting are where most brands find their first meaningful wins, the report says, with successful brands using AI to tighten the connection between product and customer with clearer landing pages, tailored ads and a stronger read on what is resonating and the speed to act on it. “The feedback is fast, the impact is visible and the tools are mature enough to act on.”

For those who are getting it right, the report claims the wins are visible and fast, with conversion rates jumping 24 percent in a week from a single tool built around one specific customer problem.

That 24 percent figure relates to Australian apparel brand The Lullaby Club. It identified that a best-selling product fit differently from the rest of the range, rendering the standard size guide ineffective. A custom AI fit-finder was built in Claude for that single product. When it was tested with the 40,000-strong customer community, it achieved a 97 percent sizing accuracy. Within a week, conversion increased by 24 percent and returns fell. With confidence in that project, Lullaby turned its focus to other initiatives including a velocity trends tracker to show how products were selling and trends, using the same data foundation.

“We’re seeing brands go from sub-three percent to 7-11 percent conversion every day by feeding AI the right context about the customer,” the report says of some of the quick wins achieved.

The report also points to growing, if less headline-grabbing, wins on the operational side. Inventory forecasting, purchase ordering and customer service workflows are emerging as areas where AI is beginning to reduce manual effort and uncertainty.

Companies using AI to draft purchase orders, track sell-through rates and flag shifts in momentum are tightening cash conversion cycles and reducing guesswork.

Australian independent apparel brand Dr Moose is one example. The company identified that growth was being constrained its website. Rather than outsourcing work to an agency, she used Claude tools to redesign site UX, introduce bundles and adjust commercial settings herself. Changes previously scoped as a $15,000 web development project were implemented internally, lifting daily revenue from around $600 to $3,000. To get the most from the tools she used ChatGPT to work out what to ask Claude, avoiding burning tokens on trial and error.

Where AI falls flat

The report is equally direct about common failure modes. The most frequent is confusing activity with impact. Those who deploy AI before identifying a real bottleneck often rebuild systems that already work, or chase issues they don’t have.

But the report also notes there are real risks companies need to understand before they go too far down the rabbit hole. “AI will produce data it doesn’t have, confidently and without

flagging it. It too easily gives everyone asking the same question the same answer. And it will sand off the rough edges that make your brand distinct if you let it.”

Those getting the most out of it are the ones who stay in the loop, sense check the output and never let it make the call they should be making themselves, the report notes.

The report leaves little ambiguity about what separates results from noise: AI delivers value where it is applied with intent, against clearly defined constraints with humans remaining closely involved in the outcomes.

Where it is treated as a general productivity layer or a substitute for decision‑making, it tends to add complexity rather than remove it. The implication for eCommerce founders is practical rather than philosophical: AI works best not as a strategy, but as an execution tool, applied deliberately, measured against specific outcomes, and expanded only once it proves its worth.

The post When eCommerce AI works – and when it doesn’t appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

The long-awaited strategy and accompanying Cyber Security Action Plan 2026-2030, released earlier this month, signal that cyber resilience must now be treated as a core governance, risk-management and strategic decision-making responsibility. It also flags that regulatory change is likely on its way.

“The Strategy clearly signals that regulatory reform is being considered.”

Alongside the Strategy and the Action Plan, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet also released a discussion document seeking industry feedback on a new approach to the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure.

In it together

The Strategy adopts a whole of society model, outlining shared responsibility on government, industry and individuals. Businesses sit at the centre, with the Strategy’s four national objectives – Understand, Prevent and Prepare, Respond, and Partner, defining practical expectations.

Understand is around improving cyber awareness and literacy across organisations and New Zealanders, providing improved reporting of cybersecurity and sharing of information between government and industry to better understand the threat environment. NCSC will establish a single cyber security reporting service, with processes established for other types of online harm and cyber-enabled crime and redirected to other agencies. Critical infrastructure providers garner special mention, with the strategy noting there will be tailored guidance, including assessments, strategies for risk management and guidance to implement technical controls to protect IT and OT networks, for them (more on that later).

Prevent and Prepare is about strengthening cyber risk management, resilience and preparedness across government and industry. That includes strengthening the existing mandate for the Government Chief Digital Officer to entrench a culture of security from procurement to systems operations, with the Government Chief Information Security Officer establishing and enforcing minimum cybersecurity standards and working with digital supply chain vendors to apply more consistent security controls across agencies. Industry and public consultation on core elements of the regulatory framework is also proposed, including additional non-regulatory actions the government can take to better partner and support critical infrastructure owners and operators to manage cyber risk.

The Respond section says resilience and preparedness must be strengthened across government and industry, ensuring effective, coordinated responses to cyber incidents. Victims of cybersecurity incidents will be ‘supported to remediate and recover’. Legislative frameworks will be modernised to account for the complexity and global nature of cyber threats, with work to address jurisdictional barriers to Kiwi enforcement agencies can access cyber evidence to investigate cybercrime.

Partner highlights the need for ‘strategic and targeted cooperation’, both locally and internationally, with industry and international partners.

The Action Plan, meanwhile, provides the actions required over the next two years to put the Strategy into action, detailing lead agencies for each action.

Notably, the Critical Infrastructure discussion document highlights that if accepted, critical infrastructure entities would be required to develop, implement and maintain a risk management programme aligned with an internationally recognised cybersecurity framework – either endorsed by the NCSC or recognised internationally, such as the US National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework.

The discussion document also outlines requirements to allow government to collect specific information, such as (initially) a description of their operations including critical components, information on the owners and controllers of the entity, and mapping of key dependencies and interdependencies.

The establishment of a voluntary information exchanges connecting organisations across the critical infrastructure system with each other and the government to coordinate cyber security efforts, a requirement for sharing of certain information with other critical infrastructure organisations – for example information on projected restoration times – and a requirement for cyber incidents to be reported are also proposed.

Regulatory change

The Strategy clearly signals that regulatory reform is being considered across several areas including strengthened requirements for the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, which encompasses everything from the electricity grid to telco networks, health and transport services and financial systems.

The Strategy document notes that around 120 countries have some form of critical infrastructure regulation. “As a first step, the government will consult industry and the public on the core elements of a regulatory framework, including additional non-regulatory actions the government can take to better partner and support critical infrastructure owners and operators to manage cyber risk.”

The critical infrastructure discussion document highlights that cyber risks are ‘not well understood or collectively managed to a consistent level’ across the system, and that effective protection requires understanding ‘critical components, ownership and control structures, and mapping of dependencies’.

The document suggests the reach of proposed obligations could extend beyond the core operator to include third-party service providers with operational control of critical components.

Another potential area for regulatory change is the potential introduction of a civil pecuniary penalty regime to the Privacy Act aimed at incentivising protection of personal information. The Ministry of Justice will provide advice on options to incentivise protection as part of the two-year action plan.

Thomas Anderson, MinterEllison solicitor says if implemented it would mark ‘a notable shift in New Zealand’s privacy landscape’ which currently has no civil penalties for breaches of the Privacy Act.

“At present, the Act relies on a complaints-based enforcement model administered by the Privacy Commissioner, which can result in recommendations or, in serious cases, referral to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. However, there is no power to impose civil fines for contraventions of the Act (such as a failure to comply with the data security requirements in information privacy principle 5), unlike comparable regimes in Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom,” he says.

Also on the table is the creation of a potential new offence for handling – including disseminating – illegally obtained personal information. That’s an area the Ministry of Justice has been charged with providing potential advice on the new offence.

The proposal would extend liability beyond the breached organisation to anyone knowingly handling unlawfully obtained personal information. While the intention is to deter malicious actors from circulating stolen data, Anderson notes the wording also captures organisations or third-party recipients who are aware that the information they are accessing or using was acquired through unauthorised means.

“Together, these two actions seem to signal a clear intent: The Government plans to use both stronger Privacy Act enforcement tools and new criminal offences to create meaningful financial and legal consequences for the mishandling or exploitation of personal information after a cyber incident.”

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The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which has been a long-time investor in the company, backing it in its Series A round in 2017. Existing investors Blackbird, Icehouse Ventures, DCVC, Bond, Bessemer, Ubiquity, NewView and Promus also participated.

“Halter is beginning its largest ever hiring effort, seeking more than 200 people across product, engineering and customer operations.”

The US$220 million raise is one of the largest-ever in agtech globally and smashes Halter’s own record for the largest VC raise by a Kiwi-founded company. It follows earlier reporting that the round was heavily oversubscribed with some of the biggest names in VC keen to get involved.

Halter’s GPS-enabled collars use audio cues and vibrations to contain and herd both dairy and beef cattle within virtual boundaries, enabling farmers and ranchers to move herds from a smartphone, redrawing fence lines from their smartphone. Animal health can also be monitored through the smartphone, along with pasture management, with live data on animal locations, health and feed availability providing a digital twin of farms and ranches, and providing users with access to complex data points in simple and easy to interpret ways. Versions are available for both dairy and beef cattle, with Halter saying beef farming needs its own technology, not a dairy product repurposed for beef cattle as everything about beef systems varies massively. The company has positioned the systems as full herd management, from a smartphone, at US$5 to US$8 per animal per month.

Since launching in the US in 2024, Halter says American ranchers using Halter have built 60,000 miles of virtual fencing. Globally it claims 645,000 kilometres of fencelines have been drawn since 2024.

Founder and CEO, Craig Piggot, who was recently named Innovator of the Year at the 2026 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards, says Halter was started because of the belief technology could fundamentally change what it means to run a farm, and enable farmers to use innovation to build long-term futures on their land.

“Our farmers need tools that work and the fact they’re using Halter tells us our technology has earned their trust. This raise lets us bring it to far more of them, and faster.”

Scaling up

As part of the Series E expansion stage, Halter says it is beginning a recruitment drive, seeking more than 200 people – its largest-ever hiring effort. Positions will cover product, engineering and customer operations with many based at its Auckland headquarters. Additional staff will also be hired in Australia and the United States in the coming weeks as well. The company employs more than 300 staff, including a team of more than 100 engineers and designers.

Founded in New Zealand and maintaining an Auckland headquarters, Halter also has Australian operations, based in Melbourne, and a US office, which it opened in Colorado in 2024 following its US$100m Series D funding round.

The company, which topped the 2024 Deloitte Fast 50 Index with 1,539 percent revenue growth and secured $165 million in 2025 to accelerate its global expansion, has rapidly scaled across New Zealand, Australia and the United States, with more than 2,000 farmers and ranchers as customers, and a million of the solar-powered smart collars sold.

The Series E funding round will support several initiatives for the company, which says it will enable it to accelerate its commercial expansion across the United States and fund the roll-out of a range of new products in the coming months.

“Investment will continue across product development, including animal health monitoring and pasture management, shaped by how customers are using the system in the field,” Halter says. “The focus remains on supporting farmers building their operations with Halter.”

The company says it will also enter the United Kingdom and Ireland later this year, along with key South American markets.

Piggot says farmers in the UK and Ireland have long expressed interest in Halter.

“The UK and Ireland are very similar to New Zealand in terms of landscape and climate – we know we can have impact there,” he says.

Halter’s growth sits within a wider movement toward virtual fencing and precision livestock management. Research and Markets has put the precision agriculture market at US$9.5 billion in 2025, with projections to reach US$17.3 billion by 2031.

Across New Zealand and Australia, Halter’s uptake aligns with increasing adoption of agricultural automation.

Founders partner Amin Mirzadegan says while agriculture is a “multi-trillion dollar industry that feeds the world”, it remains one of the least digitised sectors on earth.

“Halter is changing that by bringing software, sensors and AI directly into livetock operations in a way that farmers actually adopt.”

The post Halter ramps up hiring after Thiel-backed US$220m raise appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

“Once these foundations are established, the lessons learned – both technical and institutional – can be applied to other sectors.”

Koronios, founding CEO and managing director of the Australasian Space Innovation Institute (ASII), says the digital twin, launched last month and a flagship initiative for ASII, isn’t just another farm app or dashboard, it’s a chance to rewrite how a climate-exposed, globally competitive sector makes decisions, replacing delayed, fragmented information with AI-enabled ‘what if’ scenario modelling across climate resilience, biosecurity, water management and productivity, enabling decision-makers to test options, anticipate risks and optimise actions before implantation.

And the benefits won’t just be reaped by the agricultural sector with Koronios telling iStart the initiative will establish a national capability in digital twin infrastructure and space-enabled intelligence, which can progressively support multiple sectors of the economy.

“Agriculture provides an ideal first application because it allows us to develop the core architecture, governance frameworks and data integration methods that are necessary for large-scale digital twins. Once these foundations are established, the lessons learned – both technical and institutional – can be applied to other sectors.”

He says the same principles used to integrate satellite observations, environmental data and modelling tools for agriculture could also support digital twins for water systems, natural ecosystems, coastal environments or disaster management.

Real-time national picture

The elevator pitch is simple – but bold: Bring satellite earth observation data, sensors, climate records, soils, agronomic models and the wealth of other data already available into a single sovereign, AI-enabled system that mirrors conditions on the ground and updates continuously. The digital twin aims to end the fragmentation that has existed in agriculture and turn the abundance of data into decision-ready intelligence that can be used with confidence.

For Meat and Livestock Australia, who along with Elders and Charles Sturt University are backing the initiative, the prize is speed and certainty. Michael Lee, Meat and Livestock Australia’s group manager for science and innovation, told iStart the twin could ultimately reduce risk and potentially cut years from research cycles.

By putting hypotheses through a virtual R&D engine first, teams can refine and narrow failure modes, deploying only what looks likely to work. Producers, in turn, could see more accurate grazing plans, better timed interventions and lower operating risk, with the potential to also unlock provisions for stronger evidence for sustainability and traceability requirements – something brand owners could be rewarded for in a margin-tight industry, where proof that travels cleanly through the value chain is money.

“We are expecting that the digital twin will support evidence-based scenario testing by combining satellite imagery, climate data and agri models in one system. Industry can use this to then compare stocking plans, pasture strategies or herd timing against various climate outlooks and assess expected changes in productivity, groundcover and emissions intensity.”

This supports the kind of repeatable and transparent assessments needed by producers, researchers and other supply chain partners, which could even include banks and other policy advisors who are looking for analytical intel on how agriculture is performing and where it is heading, he says.

Lee has a long list of use cases that most excite him. Top of the list is forecasting pasture growth and testing grazing strategies under different seasons. Climate and drought scenario planning supporting early and confident decisions; landscape pest, weeds and biosecurity modelling for coordinated responses; testing water and infrastructure options for improved productivity and animal welfare and emissions and natural capital modelling using satellite data and agronomic models also feature.

Koronios has a similar list, with the addition of carbon and sustainability monitoring. “As global markets increasingly demand proof of sustainable farming practices, the digital twin could help measure land condition, vegetation cover and carbon outcomes across farms, giving Australian producers a credible way to demonstrate environmental stewardship,” he says.

“What excites me most is that these applications are not futuristic concepts. The underlying technologies already exist. The digital twin simply brings them together into a single intelligence platform that helps farmers make better decisions every day.”

Phased, with challenges…

The program will be delivered in a phased development approach, with Koronios stressing that practical benefits will be realised progressively, rather than only at the end of the program.

First up is the formal establishment of the program’s governance structure, including a steering committee and key delivery partnerships. Koronios says initial workstreams will focus on designing and building the core digital twin platform while working with industry and research partners to validate the first practical use cases.

“During this phase the emphasis will be on developing and testing the foundational capabilities: Integrating key data layers, building analytical tools, and demonstrating how the system can support real-world agricultural decision-making,” he says.

Importantly, early pilot deployments will allow farmers, agronomists, industry partners and government agencies to begin using and benefiting from the platform as it evolves, rather than waiting for a fully completed system. Koronois says these early deployments will provide immediate value while also helping refine the models through real-world feedback.

As the platform matures, the program will expand from pilot deployments to nationally scalable operational services, incorporating additional datasets, analytical models and regional applications. With each phase, new capabilities and insights will become available to users, expanding the value.

“Ultimately, the National Digital Twin for Australian Agriculture is conceived as a long-term national capability – a digital infrastructure designed to support Australia’s agricultural sector for decades to come. Much like national mapping systems or weather forecasting networks, it will act as a shared digital backbone for agricultural intelligence, supporting productivity, climate resilience, biosecurity and evidence-based policy.”

There are, of course, technical challenges, the biggest of which will be bringing together all the agricultural, environmental and satellite data sets into a single, consistent system that can operate across an entire continent.

Koronios notes currently data, models and insights remain fragmented across jurisdictions, research programs, Research and Development Corporations and proprietary platforms. “This fragmentation has resulted in duplication, inconsistent standards, slow translation of research into practice and rising costs for levy payers and taxpayers alike.”

Each of the datasets, which come from a wide range of sources including satellites, weather systems, soil databases, farm sensors and government programs – has different formats, resolutions and update cycles. Harmonising those datasets so they can be combined into a coherent, real-time model will be no mean feat.

One of the most important layers is the satellite earth observation data, which provides frequent updates on vegetation health, crop growth, pasture condition and land use across the entire country, every few days and in a few cases as frequently as daily. “This gives us a consistent, continent-wide view that simply isn’t possible from ground observations alone,” Koronios says.

Soil and moisture data will be another critical layer, helping farmers and advisors understand water availability and plant stress. When combined with weather and climate data it becomes possible to anticipate drought conditions, irrigation needs and crop development patterns.

Farm-level and environmental data, such as sensor measurements, land management information and water systems will also be integrated, providing the local detail needed to translate satellite observations into meaningful insights for individual farms.

Biosecurity and environmental monitoring datasets will also be included, helping detect changes in vegetation patterns that could signal pests, disease outbreaks or land degradation.

“The real value comes from combining these layers, because when they are analysed together they reveal patterns and trends that would not be visible in any single dataset,” Koronios says. “This is a current gap in the ecosystem.”

Scale is another challenge, Koronois is preparing for, with Australia’s agricultural regions spanning millions of square kilometres. “The system must process very large volumes of data continuously, while still delivering useful insights at the level of individual farms or paddocks.”

He says modern cloud computing, AI and advanced observations will address those issues to integrate and interpret data streams. “Rather than trying to centralise everything in one system, the digital twin works as an intelligent platform that connects existing systems and continuously updates the model as new data arrives.”

The final challenge is ensuring information is practical and usable for farmers and advisors, not just technically sophisticated, he says. That means designing tools and dashboards that translate complex data into clear insights that support real-world decisions.

“We are embarking on a journey where the priority is not the volume of data, but the acceleration of technology adoption. We want to ensure that the data we ingest translates into high-value insights and practical tools that the industry can trust and use with ease. The Digital Twin will work by integrating multiple layers of data that together describe what is happening across Australia’s agricultural landscape.”

Over time other information sources will be integrated, particularly as Australia’s sovereign earth observation capabilities advance and tech such as IoT networks with intelligent sensors are increasingly deployed across agriculture and related sectors.

“Ultimately, the Digital Twin is not a destination with a fixed finish line. It is a living R&D engine designed for continuous progress and evolution. There is no ideal amount of data, as the system is designed to learn and improve as we move forward.”

There’s a broader national dividend here, too. A sovereign digital capability for agriculture is a food‑security asset as much as it is a productivity play. It reduces reliance on offshore analytics to interpret Australia’s land and climate signals, while creating a platform for local companies and researchers to build exportable services on top. In Koronios’s framing, the twin strengthens food systems and regional economies today while laying tracks for tomorrow’s cross‑sector twins – water systems, disaster resilience, coastal environments – a reusing the architecture and governance patterns forged in agriculture.

Koronios says in practical terms the twin is designed as an open, modular platform that different users will interact with in ways that suit their needs. For agronomists and advisors, the most common interface will likely be intuitive dashboards and decision-support tools that translate complex datasets, such as satellite observations, soil moisture and weather data, into clear insights about crop health, risk conditions and management options. For agtech companies and software developers, the platform will provide APIs that allow them to integrate digital twin data directly into their own applications and farm management systems. “This means companies can build specialised tools, such as irrigation optimisation models, yield forecasting systems or sustainability monitoring platforms, using the digital twin as the underlying intelligence layer.”

Researchers and advanced users will also be able to access modelling environments and analytical tools to develop new algorithms, predictive models and agronomic insights.

“The platform is not intended to be a closed system controlled by a single organisation. Instead, it is conceived as a national innovation platform that allows multiple organisations – agtech companies, research groups, industry bodies and government agencies – to build services and applications on top of the core infrastructure.

“In that sense, the digital twin acts as a shared intelligence layer for agriculture, enabling an ecosystem of tools and innovations to emerge around it, while ensuring that the underlying data and analytical capabilities remain consistent, trusted and nationally coordinated,” Koronios says.

“If we get this right, the Ddigital twin will become something that future generations of farmers simply take for granted – much like weather forecasting or satellite navigation today – because it supports better decisions across the entire agricultural sector.”

The post Building Australia’s agri super twin appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

Currently in beta, the new suite of AI agents and features will progressively roll out across MYOB’s product portfolio including MYOB Business Lite, Pro and AccountRight, and aim to tackle one of the most persistent challenges facing SMEs: Time.

“Small improvements quickly add up to big results.”

Paul Robson, MYOB chief executive, says MYOB is targeting business pain points ‘ready for reinvention and transforming how customers and partners operate, unlocking a step-change in productivity through efficiency and insight’.

The new SME-focused AI features land against a wider backdrop of MYOB’s ongoing AI work across its wider platform ecosystem and a push to encourage local businesses towards becoming an ‘autonomous business’. Late last year Valantis Vais, MYOB general manager for product, product marketing and design told iStart that ‘practical’ was a key aspect of that push. While midsize businesses are curious about AI, they’re also wary of hype and sunk costs, wanting tools that provide practical benefits in the here and now, rather than promises of a sci-fi future.

He detailed to iStart a range of AI features going into Acumatica ERP solution, including accounts payable bill entry powered by OCR and semantic interpretation, expense management with AI-driven receipt capture, AI advisor anomaly detection and Auto Complete.

The new rollout extends the AI features to smaller businesses, including sole traders using Lite, as well as the more complex mid-market companies using AccountRight.

According to MYOB’s latest Business Monitor, 24 percent of employing SMEs say late payments exert significant pressure on their operations. The company believes embedding AI directly into existing workflows, with the likes of smart invoice reminders, automated reconciliation and AI-driven business insights, is key to unlocking productivity boosts without disruption.

Making sense of numbers and smart reconciliation

At the heart of the latest wave of promised updates is an AI Business Insights feature which will provide interactive charts and commentary to allow businesses to identify patterns and establish areas which need attention. MYOB says it will ‘plainly’ tell the story behind the numbers, providing easy-to-digest explanations for businesses, and a quicker avenue to surface trends and identify performance drivers in preparation for advisory-focused conversations for accountants and bookkeepers.

Another major addition will be Smart Reconciliation, which uses machine learning to categorise and auto-reconcile transactions based on user behaviour and pre-set schedules. Bank feeds are matched automatically, reducing hours typically spend on repetitive admin.

For small businesses, this means real-time visibility of expenditure and cashflow – an essential advantage in volatile trading conditions. For advisors MYOB says the feature means fewer errors and cleaner files when compliance deadlines loom, reducing the time spent tidying data before submission.

The focus on practical time savings echoes themes raised in MYOB’s earlier mid-market Acumatica rollout, where early adopters reported savings of upwards of 20 hours a month thanks to automation in accounts payable. While the new release doesn’t replicate those features, it shares the same underlying goal of removing manual volume so human effort can be redirected to higher-value decisions.

Behavioural cues to tackle late payments

The Business Monitor data shows late payments remain a stubborn issue for small businesses. MYOB’s Smart Invoice Reminders aims to address that, analysing late payer behaviour to recommend actions and tone, with customisable scheduling of automatic reminders.

For owners, MYOB says the offering will reduce administrative load, while providing clearer visibility of expected cashflow to reduce uncertainty in planning conversations for advisors.

Robson says the approach reflects the company’s belief that small improvements quickly add up to big results for local SMEs.

“AI can completely change the game for small businesses and their advisors, powering up productivity and accelerating innovation beyond anything we’ve seen before,” he says.

The company says it has guardrails and evaluation measures in place to ensure the accuracy and safety of its AI outputs, but does admit AI can still get things wrong. Users can view the context and data source of suggestions to review them.

The post MYOB unleashes new AI tools for SME cashflow appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

Last year saw a ‘robust’ 12 percent increase in IT spend, (IDC has suggested that growth rate is likely the highest since 1996) with S&P saying it believes enterprises increased their total IT budgets to accommodate new AI-related investments, rather than reallocate or take away from existing IT priorities.

“Enterprise IT budgets could tighten if monetisation of AI investments proves low or delayed.”

That AI spend, which includes infrastructure, software, services and AI-embedded devices, is now making up 26 percent of overall IT spend, according to Gartner figures.

In a report very much skewed towards the impacts on vendors – S&P Global is, afterall a financial intelligence company for whom credit ratings are key – S&P notes that enterprises expanded IT budgets in 2025 specifically to fund AI initiatives, rather than shifting money away from core operations, maintenance or long-standing digital transformation programs. Enterprise spending, which started the year cautiously, accelerated through the second half of 2025 to reach high single-digit growth.

However, in a now all-too-familiar tale, AI monetisation is lagging AI investment with S&P noting a ‘high degree of variability’ in its forecasts as concerns around the sustainability of AI-related investments continue to build. Despite accelerating cloud revenue growth among hyperscalers, S&P says enterprises themselves have yet to see broad, measurable returns from AI deployments and while cloud service provider capex spend is forecast for strong growth, enterprise budgets might not be so forgiving.

Despite its optimistic title, AI Tailwinds Bode Well for 2026 IT Spending, the report warns that tightening enterprise IT budgets are a risk in 2026 if AI investment payoffs remain limited or delayed.

“Negative feedback on the pace of AI monetisation could cause enterprises to re-evaluate their AI projects and cloud service providers to slow data centre expansion. Credit markets may no longer support unlimited infrastructure financing under such a scenario,” S&P says. “This has the potential to set up for a rocky 2027.”

2026 outlook

S&P is forecasting global IT spend to rise nine percent this year, far ahead of global GDP growth projections of three percent, but it notes the forecast carries a ‘high degree of variability’ due to uncertainty around the sustainability of AI investment.

Enterprise budgets for 2026 are expected to skew strongly toward cloud, cybersecurity, data and analytics and AI infrastructure, however discretionary projects remain constrained, with elongated sales cycles, particularly for large transformation deals, and continued funding uncertainty across the public sector, education and healthcare clients.

Software is forecast to grow on pace with last year, at around 10 percent, but S&P highlights that budget scrutiny has increased and deal cycles are lengthening – a potential early indicator of pressure that could intensify if AI returns fail to meet expectations.

SaaS is expected to be a key driver, along with digital transformation and cloud migration. The transition to SaaS, which now accounts for 60 percent of the total software market, was a driver for 2025 software figures, along with, and linked to, enterprise focus on cost efficiencies and digital transformation.

Despite the hype around agentic AI, S&P isn’t expecting it to be a meaningful ratings driver in 2026. “Many software companies report high client interest and growing adoption, yet the revenue impact remains low. However, we believe generative AI features may create incremental growth opportunities and value-based pricing uplift for software vendors over time and increased consumption of existing product suites.

It cites Salesforce revenue growth – the company’s Agentforce and Data Cloud 360 annual recurring revenue more than doubled year over year to hit US$1.4 billion in the most recent quarter – as an example.

While enterprises may be cautious, albeit still spending, it’s the largest data centre players whose investments are eye-wateringly high: In 2025 estimated capital expenditure for Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Oracle hit a combined US$437 billion, up 68 percent year on year (and, S&P admits, far surpassing its initial forecast of 20 percent a year ago). This year, S&P is expecting cloud service providers’ capital expenditure to close in on US$600 billion thanks to a 38 percent rise in spend. Total capex spend is forecast to hit $3-4 trillion from 2025 to 2030.

The investment is focused primarily on AI training capacity and data centre buildouts, and S&P points out that hyperscalers are now reaching a point where external funding is becoming necessary, with recent debt issuances in the bond market by major operators to support continued investment.

“Their commitment to investing hundreds of billions in AI data centres and high-powered AI chips remained steadfast even in the face of the Trump administration’s threat of substantial tariffs on global trading partners in April and the cautious pace at which enterprise customers are adopting AI in the workplace.”

The release of an IT focused report by S&P is itself something of a milestone, highlighting the importance of IT spend – and AI-driven IT spend – on broader economic and credit-market assessments.

“We maintain a positive long-term view of the technology industry. Sectors from health care to energy are increasing their investments in IT, and AI in particular, to increase sales, hasten research and development and improve operational efficiency.”

The post S&P casts doubt over AI monetisation appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

AppWrap December 2025

17.12 CSIRO says up to 350 planned job cuts will continue despite news it will receive $233m in federal funding in the mid-year budget. The government says the funding will enable CSIRO to continue expanding its work in areas including AI, agricultural productivity, critical minerals, climate change adaptation and biosecurity, ABCnews reports.

17.12 The federal government is investing $225m to support whole-of-government AI use. ITnews reports the bulk of funding – $166.4m – will be spent expanding the GovAI platform and on the design, build and pilot of a secure AI assistant, GovAI Chat.

16.12 The ACT Bar Association is partnering with a local tech firm to provide formal training for barristers in the use of AI, in what InformationAge says is believed to be an Australian first. The program, which will run for 18 months, will kick off in early 2026 and provide barristers with information on how AI can be used safety and responsibility. It follows high profile incidents where courts received fabricated or incorrectly-cited information generated by AI.

15.12 The ASX is ‘resetting’ its Accelerate transformation program and says it is committed to continuing tech investments to ensure future-ready market infrastructure, following a damning review by ASIC. It says it has committed to a strategic package of actions and a $150m capital charge.

13.12 Reddit has launched a High Court challenge against Australia’s under-16s social media ban, arguing that the policy has serious implications for privacy and political rights, the BBC reports. Reddit says the law forces intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolates teens engaging in age-appropriate community experiences and creates an illogical patchwork of which platforms are, and aren’t, included.

12.12 Time magazine has named ‘the architects of AI’ as it’s 2025 Person of the Year. It says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and other tech titans have ‘grabbed the wheel of history, developing technology and making decisions that are reshaping the information landscape, the climate and our livelihoods’.

10.12 Australia’s under-16s social media ban has come into force with companies including Instagram, Facebook, X, SnapChat, TikTok, Reddit and YouTube now required to take reasonable steps to prevent children opening social media accounts. The BBC reports many other countries are watching carefully.

10.12 Services Australia could be in line to receive new powers enabling it to compel third-parties to share information about a data breach or compromise event involving Centrelink or Medicare identifiers. ITnews reports the agency has told a federal auditor it has seen a sharp rise in notifiable data breaches primarily involving incidents where customers have provided information and myGov sign-in credentials to parties impersonating the agency. Third-parties holding caches of personal data present an attack vendor. The auditor has recommended new powers to compel breached third parties to inform Services Australia of incidents involving the government identifiers.

08.12 Australia’s National AI plan is big on ambitions, but light on details according to law firm White & Case which says while the objectives are ‘commendable and logical’ there are no meaningful details about how the objectives will be assessed and no measures or markers have been set against which progress can be judged.

03.12 The government is tempering expectations around the under-16s social media ban, warning that it will take ‘some time’ before most children’s accounts are removed from the major platform, and nor will tech giants be immediately fined, InformationAge reports. Newer apps currently gaining traction as potential workarounds, such as Lemon8 and Yope, may also be captured by the ban, which comes into effect on 10 December.

02.12 OpenAI has declared ‘code red’ in a push to improve the quality of ChatGPT amid pressure from competitors. Ars Technica says other OpenAI products will be delayed as a result, along with advertising plans. Google released Gemini 3 last month, with the model outperforming ChatGPT on some industry benchmark tests.

01.12 The ASX is facing fresh pressure after an outage on its announcement platform forced about 80 stocks to be placed in a trading halt. Reuters reports the ASX did not believe the outage was a cybersecurity event.

AppWrap November 2025

29.11 Airbus has issued a recall for thousands of A320 jets due to data corruption risks from solar flares. The company says a significant number of A320 family of aircraft needed immediate software updates amid concerns that ‘intense solar radiation’ could corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls, ABCnews reports. Jetstar was among those with planes grounded. Qantas and Virgin, which have A320s in their fleet said their services were not disrupted.

28.11 Japanese beer giant Asahi has revealed more than 1.5 million customers’ private details may have been leaked in a September cyberattack which crippled the company’s factory operations in Japan. The BBC reports that names, gender, addresses and contact information of more than 1.52 million customers is regarded as being at risk of possible leakage, along with data from current and former employees and family members and external contacts.

27.11 A bill adding ‘digital asset’ and ‘tokenised custody’ platforms as financial products, requiring operators to hold an Australian financial services license and met standards set by ASIC, has been introduced to parliament. InnovationAus reports smaller platforms holding less than $5,000 per customer and overseeing less than $10m in transactions would be exempt.

27.11 A parliamentary inquiry will be held into plans to cut hundreds more jobs at CSIRO. The inquiry into the cutting of up to 350 research roles, which was announced last week, will look at the rationale behind them, along with impacts of the funding cuts, the importance of public funding for science and CSIRO’s future funding and resourcing needs RegionCanberra reports.

27.11 The under-16s social media ban is facing a legal challenge in the High Court with two teenagers taking the federal government to court arguing the ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with free political communication. The teens are backed by the Digital Freedom Project, which has not disclosed where its funding come from, the Conversation says.

26.11 Wiise has unveiled what it says is Australia’s first ERP solution with direct integration to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, to streamline compliance and accelerate claims processing. Wiise says 45 NDIS providers have already adopted the platform, ITwire reports.

26.11 NSW will start rolling out digital birth certificates, initially to those aged 16-21, from March 2026. Access will be via the Service NSW app with the digital birth certificates initially only accepted at Service NSW centres to apply for select NSW government transactions. However, Biometric Update reports use cases are expected to expand.

26.11 Copper thieves have been blamed for an Optus outage which left more than 14,000 customers in Victoria’s south-east without mobile calls or data, the SMH says. The telco is currently in the midst of a Senate inquiry into a September triple-0 outage linked to the deaths of two people. Optus was fined $12m in 2024 for a one-day outage in 2023. In the latest case the thieves damaged a fibre line while stealing copper wiring from poles.

26.11 US President Trump has signed an executive order instructing the country’s 17 national laboratories, AI companies and universities to pool government data on a single platform and create AI models using the government’s scientific data. Genesis Mission aims to ‘double the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade’, Nature reports. The Department of Energy has been charged with creating the platform, with companies including Microsoft, IBM, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google as collaborators.

25.11 Anthropic has launched its Claude Opus 4.5 AI offering, with a 67 percent price cut signalling its intention to become a production-ready enterprise tool, InfoWorld reports. The new pricing brings Anthropic closer to OpenAI and Google while maintaining a premium position and comes hard on the heels of Google’s launch of Gemini 3 and OpenAI’s release of GPT-5.1.

20.11 A US Republican politician has called on Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant to testify in a committee hearing, alleging her actions ‘directly threatens American speech’ and accusing her of being a zealot, 9news reports. Jim Jordan claims Inman Grant has colluded with pro-censorship entities in the US, and noted attempts to get X to remove videos of a Sydney church stabbing.

23.11 The Bureau of Meteorology has revealed its controversial new website cost $96.5 million, not the $4.1m originally claimed. ABCnews reports the agency’s new boss has been asked to closely examine how the site redesign went so wrong. The site was widely panned when it launched a month ago and the federal government ordered BoM to fix the site, which has since reverted to the old version of the radar map, with other changes made to the site and more to be rolled out.

18.11 The government is moving ahead with a digital duty of care for big tech with public consultations opening after earlier delays to the proposed legislation. InformationAge says a survey has opened enabling Australians to have a say on how the digital duty of care, which would apply to companies including Google, Meta, TikTok and X and aims to legally force companies to actively shield users from harm, will work.

18.11 A Sydney resident has died after trying to call triple zero on an incompatible Samsung devices and having the call fail. TPG says early investigations suggest the Samsung devices’ software was incompatible with making triple-zero calls on the TPG network. The Guardian reports that TPG, Optus and Telstra sent out advisories in October about some older devices.

18.11 CSIRO plans to cut up to 350 research roles to ‘achieve [a] sharpened research focus’, which will see the organisation focus on a number of key areas and deprioritise other research areas. Among the areas identified as key are applying advanced tech including AI, quantum, sensing, robotics and manufacturing, increasing farm productivity through technological solutions, supporting a clean, affordable energy transition and climate change, CSIRO says.

13.11 Sydney MSP Increment has taken out the Data Security and Compliance category in Microsoft’s global Partner of the Year Awards, with Melbourne-based Engage Squared taking out the global award for Modern Workplace for Frontline Workers. At a regional level Data#3 claimed Partner of the Year for Australia, Microsoft says.

13.11 Queensland is spending $40m on critical system upgrades to harden cyber security while also planning to make it easier for state and local agencies to buy security technology, ITnews reports.

13.11 OpenAI is challenging a court order requiring it to turn over 20 million anonymised ChatGPT chat logs to the New York Times and other plaintiffs suing over alleged copyright infringement, arguing it would expose users’ private conversations. OpenAI says the logs are complete conversations and as such more likely to expose private information, ArsTechnica reports.

10.11 Brisbane’s Veronika Bilek, founder of online payment company EftLab has been named Payments Expert of the Year at the APAC Payments Awards. ShaBass Pay, a real-time payments platform for Australia’s small businesses was named Best Payments Startup Innovation, with Hnry taking out Best B2B Payment Experience.

08.10 AI stocks lost more than US$820 billion this week as the Nasdaq experienced its worst week since April’s ‘Liberation Day’ plunge, NBC News reports. Shares in Microsoft, Nvidia, AMD, Plantir, Oracle and Meta all tumbled. Experts have been warning of an ‘AI correction’.

07.11 Meta projected 10 percent of its revenue in 2024 – or US$16 billion – to come from ads for scams and banned goods, according to documents seen by Reuters, which says the social media company internally estimates its platforms show 15 billion scam ads a day.

07.10 Google plans to build an AI data centre on Australia’s Christmas Island after signing a cloud deal with the Department of Defence. Reuters reports Google is in ‘advanced talks’ to lease land near the island’s airport for the data centre. Alphabet says the project is part of work to deliver subsea cable infrastructure. It disputes that it is building a ‘large artificial intelligence data centre’ and says further details will be shared ‘soon’.

06.10 Microsoft is offering refunds to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family forced to upgrade to 365 with Copilot a year ago. Customers were not given an clear option for opting out. Those not wanting Copilot can now opt out by 31 December and receive a refund for the additional cost charged since their first renewal date after 30 November 2024, Microsoft says. The offer comes after Australia’s competition watchdog, the ACCC, began legal proceedings against Microsoft alleging the company mislead 2.7m Australian companies by telling them that they had to accept the integration of Copilot and pay higher prices or cancel their subscription.

05.10 Amazon has fired warning shots at AI agents being used on its site, taking legal action against AI startup Perplexity AI. Amazon has accused Perplexity of covertly accessing customer accounts through its Comet browser and associated AI agent, and disguising AI activity as human browsing. It’s alleging the action poses security threats and that the company hasn’t been transparent in identifying the agents’ activities, the Guardian reports. Perplexity has hit back accusing Amazon of bullying.

04.10 A third-party software developer working on a government website made private documents publicly available online and on search engines, resulting in two separate occasions of unauthorised disclosure. The case study is disclosed in the OAIC’s Jan-Jun data breach notifications statistics. The disclosure happened when a software developer ran a script on the website, without authorisation of the agency. The documents were deleted and removed from public view on search engines, with type files reset to private, and affected individuals were notified, OAIC says.

04.10 The OAIC received 532 data breach notifications in the first half of 2025, down 10 percent on the previous six months when notifications reached record levels. Malicious or criminal attacks remained the largest source of data breaches (59 percent or 308 notification). Cybersecurity incidents continued to be the largest source of such breaches. Incidents involving human error saw a significant increase, accounting for 37 percent of all data breaches, the OAIC says. The health sector had the most reported data breaches (18 percent) followed by the finance sector (14 percent) and government agencies (13 percent).

06.10 The password for the Louvre’s video surveillance system has been revealed as… Louvre. The security blunder was revealed in the wake of the US$102 million jewel heist, ABC says. There’s no indication the thieves accessed the system.

03.11 The Critical Technology Projects Board has been quietly shuttered by the Fair Work Ombudsman after less than four years operation. ITnews says the board has been formally retired as its functions are now performed by other governance bodies.

03.11 Optus held 11 ‘crisis’ meetings and waited almost a day before it told the government and public its triple-0 outage caused three deaths, ABCnews reports. The ACMA and Communications Minister Anika Wells were not told until Friday afternoon – after staff learned the previous evening that hundreds of calls had been affected and there had been deaths. Senior Optus execs knew on Friday morning after an email was sent advising them at midnight. CEO Stephen Rue, who is before a Senate inquiry, blamed staff below him for failing to alert him sooner and says steps have been taken to improve processes.

01.11 The APEC summit has wrapped up with a joint declaration including an agreement for a five-year AI initiative to advance secure, accessible and reliable AI across APEC economies and ensure AI benefits are spread across whole populations. InnovationAus reports this year’s summit stood out for its depth of focus on tech issues from AI to semiconductors, data centres and other cloud infrastructure.

03.11 Kiwi robotics company Syos Aerospace is expanding to Australia and will establish production in the country to capitalise on demand for sovereign produced uncrewed vehicles, particularly maritime and interceptor drones. The company has UK operations and will look to Asean and APAC markets for further growth, The Post reports.

AppWrap October 2025

31.10 The Bureau of Metorology has reverted to its previous rain radar after a torrent of complaints and backlash over its new $4.1m website, ABCnews reports. The BoM was ordered by the federal government to fix the website after many found it difficult to use.

29.10 An Australian man, working in the US for a US defence contractor, has pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets after stealing information, including on national security-focused software which was meant to be sold exclusively to the US government and allies. The information was sold to a Russian broker who claims their client includes the Russian government, the Guardian reports.

30.10 Australia appears to have been spared the worst of a Microsoft Azure outage, possibly due to the hour the outage hit. 9news reports effects appeared to be mostly limited to Microsoft services.

30.10 Google parent Alphabet has recorded its first US$100 billion revenue quarter, with Google Cloud – which includes AI services – Search and YouTube all seeing double-digit growth. Entrepreneur reports the $102.3 billion was well ahead of analysts estimates and double the $50 billion logged just five years ago.

29.10 Microsoft’s net income took a US$3.2 billion hit in Q1 2026 on the back of its OpenAI investment. The company’s latest financials show it has invested US$13 billion into OpenAI, with $11.6 billion of that since the end of September, CNBC reports. Net income still rose to US$27.7 billion, with cloud revenues up 26 percent yoy to more than $49b.

27.10 Recommendations for federal agencies to disclose AI use are going largely unheeded according to University of Sydney research. The researchers say they found just 45 percent compliance across 224 agencies, with many buried deep within agency sites. Among agencies for which publishing a statement was recommended, rather than required, few were found they report in The Conversation. The team also struggled to find statements for many of those for whom reporting is a requirement, rather than recommendation.

27.10 Cybersecurity experts say the popular tactic of seeking injunctions to prevent publication of data stolen in data breaches is putting people at greater risk of cybercrime. InformationAge reports experts saying the injunctions fail to offer protection to consumers and victims of data leaks and ‘disempower’ them from self-help. One cybersecurity company says the injunctions prevent it from alerting clients of information appearing on the dark web, because the only party that can provide guidance on the exposure is the one losing the data in the first place. Hackers also tend not to care about injunctions.

24.10 A bug in automation software has been blamed for the AWS outage which brought down thousands of sites and applications. The bug in DynamoDB’s automated DNS management system was an empty DNS record for an AWS region, which failed to automatically repair, The Guardian reports.

23.10 Origin Energy has warned more than 700 customers that their credit and debit card information may have been compromised after an employee stole records and attempted to email them to themselves in July. The ex-employee has signed a declaration saying the file has been deleted, but Origin says it can’t guarantee customers’ details are safe and has advised them to regularly check card statements for irregular activity. Customers will receive a year of free credit monitoring support AFR reports.

23.10 Four AI ‘companion’ chatbot companies have been ordered by eSafety to explain what measures they have in place to protect children from exposure to harmful material. The makers of character.ai, Nomi, Chai and Chub have all been served notice, eSafety says.

22.10 Tech Council of Australia chief executive Damian Kassabgi is exiting the role after just 16 months. He will remain in the role until a replacement is found. AFR reports his departure comes amid discontent by some members ‘underwhelmed’ by his notably lower public profile than former CEO Kate Pounder and a seeming lack of policy direction during his tenure.

21.10 A major AWS outage has knocked thousands of online services, including banking, and websites offline. AWS reported an issue on its Health Dashboard last night. By 5am this morning services were gradually coming back online, but AWS acknowledged there were still ‘significant errors’ affecting some services. The company says the root cause is an underlying internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of its network load balances, with the issue originating within the EC2 internal network. Users have reported issues with their Alexa speakers, Ring doorbells, and sites including Facebook, Snapcaht, Zoom, Reddit, Duolingo, TVNZ and Spark.

19.10 Jessica Hunter has been appointed Australia’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Critical Technology, taking over from Brendan Dowling. Hunter will steer international engagement under the 2023-2030 Cyber Security Strategy, Senator Penny Wong says.

19.10 Vocus has confirmed a hack on its network, affecting about 1600 Dodo and iPrimus home internet and mobile customers. The company says it detected ‘suspicious activity’ in its systems on Friday and progressively suspended email services temporarily for Dodo and iPrimus customers and retricted email services for Commander customers. Unauthorised access was identified in 1,600 accounts , leading to unauthorised SIM swaps on 34 Dodo mobile accounts. 7news reports customers regained access by Sunday morning but had to call service providers to change passwords. Support is being offered through IDCare.

17.10 Canva is promising AI agents which can carry out design, marketing and sales tasks in its first phase of agentic tools. InformationAge reports Canva says the agents will work a ‘proper teammates’ alongside human users, but did not confirm whether the agents would be available to users without a paid subscription.

16.10 Crypto ATMs could be banned in Australia with Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke seeing to hand Austrac new powers to restrict or prohibit certain high-risk products, services or delivery channels. Austrac says it is ‘ready to use’ the new powers and says crypto transactions are becoming integrated into money laundering with crypto ATMs presenting even more risks. Australia has 2000 crypto ATMs. The Crypto Taskforce estimates almost 150,000 transactions occur annually with about $275m moved through the machines annually.

14.10 Noosa Council has lost nearly $2 million after falling victim to a ‘sophisticated’ scam using AI to imitate personalities. The scam occurred in December 2004 but was kept quiet as it was investigated. ABCnews reports while $2.3 million was initially lost, around $400,000 has since been recovered. The council only became aware of the scam after it was contacted by authorities. No details are being provided about the scam.

13.10 Cybersecurity minister Tony Burke says Qantas will be held accountable after personal information of 5.7 million customers was released onto the dark web last week, 9News reports. The leak follows the July hack of a Saleforce system, with hackers calling the IT desks of 40 companies and posing as legitimate employees to access the information.

10.10 Billionaire tech investor and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel says the ‘antichrist is a luddite who wants to stop all science’ pointing to critics of AI, such as Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Greta Thunberg. Thiel has been garnering plenty of attention with his off-the-record lectures about Armageddon and the antichrist. The Guardian has substantial quoted passages of his ‘lectures’.

10.10 Three researchers who paved the way for quantum computing have won the Noble Prize in Physics. Quantum physicists John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis observed ‘distinct quantum behaviours of a macroscopic physical variable’ in 1985 and their groundbreaking work led to achievements in constructing prototype quantum computers, The Conversation says.

09.10 Australian Catholic University, which used an AI detector tool, accused around 6,000 students of academic misconduct last year, with 90 percent of cases related to AI use, ABCnews reports. The university says those figures were ‘substantially overstated’. ABCnews says many of the students had done nothing wrong.

08.10 The CEOs of Telstra, Optus and TPG fronted up in Canberra as the Minister Anika Wells and the government faced pressure over failure to legislate the Triple Zero Custodian to monitor the nation’s emergency call system. Wells introduced new legislation to formally create the custodian on Tuesday, InformationAge reports.

07.10 Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant have warned of a new large scale extortion campaign by the Cl0p ransomware group, this time alleging theft of sensitive data from Oracle E-business Suite environments. Oracle has issued emergency patches to address the vulnerability. GTIG says starting late September, the threat actor launched a high-volume email extortion campaign from ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of compromised third-party accounts, threatening to leak information stolen from companies’ databases unless a ransom is paid. The FBI’s cyber division assistant director has warned companies this is a ‘stop what you are doing’ and patch immediately’ vulnerability.

07.10 Deloitte will partially refund the federal government after acknowledging that genAI was used to help create a $440,000 report that contained several errors. The consultancy will repay the final instalment of its contract with the Department of Employment and Workplace relations. Details of the contract will be made public after the transaction is finalised, the Guardian reports. The report reviewing the targeted compliance framework and its IT system, first published in July, had multiple errors including nonexistent references and citations.

06.10 A ‘reset’ to the CDR, which could carve out smaller banks – and their valuable data – from the CDR, could weaken the system and make it harder for new fintech startups to take part, putting the handbrake on Australia’s fintech sector according to critics. SmartCompany reports size exemptions already exist in the non-bank lending and energy areas, but fintech experts are concerned carveouts will create a two-speed system forcing reliance on less secure data-sharing methods such as screen scaping.

06.10 A former contractor to the NSW Reconstruction Authority uploaded an Excel spreadsheet containing more than 12,000 rows of information to ChatGPT in March, exposing personal data of up to 3000 applicants to the Northern Rivers Resilient Homes Program. NSW Government says there is no evidence information has been made public and says it will be contacting people with updates and information on whether they have been impacted. Forensic analysts have been engaged and Cyber Security NSW is undertaking an investigation.

05.10 Melbourne’s Heidi Health has raised US$65 million in Series B funding, StartupDaily reports. The latest deal boosts the company’s valuation to US$465m. The Heidi ambient AI medical scribe is used by Monash Health and Queensland Health Children’s Hospital and Health Service.

03.10 Curtin University has signed two international agreements to help ‘unlock the secrets of life on Mars’ and advance next-generation robotics and autonomous systems. The University says a deal with LifeSpringsMars Working Group will advance mission design studies, demonstrate new technologies for mining, defence and remote operations and develop education, workforce pathways in space science. The second deal, with India-based tech company Uncharted AI, will support joint research, including pilot projects in WA and India.

02.10 Queensland’s SwarmFarm Robotics has raised $30m in Series B funding to ramp up production of its autonomous SwarmBots and expand into North America, SmartCompany reports. SwarmFarm’s open platform, SwarmConnect, provides an ‘app store for agriculture’ enabling developers to build software tailored to different crops and farming practices. Farmers then use the apps to customise the bots for specific jobs.

AppWrap September 2025

29.09 Pathology services provider Australian Clinical Labs has agreed to pay a $5.8m fine for the 2022 data breach the compromised the personal information of 223,000 customers of its Medlab Pathology business. It is the first penalty handed down for breaches of the Privacy Act. The breach saw 86 gigabytes of data stolen by the Quantum ransomware group, with data published on the dark web, CyberDaily reports. ACL has also proposed $400,0000 to cover the OAIC’s legal costs.

29.09 Optus has been hit by a second significant outage with a problem with a mobile phone tower at Dapto leading to failed emergency calls on Sunday. ABCnews reports the network outage, between 3am and 1220pm on Sunday, led to nine failed triple-O calls near Wollongong. Optus says it has confirmed with police that all callers are ok. Federal and state ministers have dubbed the outage, just 10 days after a major failure led to hundreds of failed triple-0 calls, ‘very concerning’.

26.09 A Gold Coast man has been fined $340,000 for posting deepfake images of several high-profile Australian women in the first case of its kind in the country. The man was found guilty of violating sections of the Online Safety Act after eSafety brought a case against him almost two years ago. eSafety says the fine sends a strong message about the consequences of deepfake image-based abuse.

26.09 A US judge has given preliminary approval for a US$1.5 billion class settlement in a class action lawsuit charging Anthropic with copyright infringement. Publishers Weekly says authors and publishers will receive about US$3,000 for each of the books covered by the agreement.  Authors alleged millions of books had been illegally pirated to train chatbots, but just 482,000 works qualify for the payment. The settlement does not apply to future works.

25.09 US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order approving a proposal for a new joint-venture company to oversee the platform’s US business, with ByteDance holding less than 20 percent of stock. CNBC says China has yet to approve the deal, which values the company at US$14 billion. Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment will be the main investors in the US business under the deal, with ByteDance and new holders owning 35 percent. ByteDance has not acknowledged that a transaction is taking place and there is no indication the Chinese government has made law changes required for the deal to take place, though Trump claims the Chinese president has giving the deal the go-ahead.

24.09 Optus failed to divert calls away from the relevant part of the core network as part of a firewall upgrade, leading to Thursday’s triple zero outage. Optus CEO Stephen Rue says a playbook for previous successful upgrades of a similar nature was not followed. “The issue occurred because this time, there was a deviation from established processes.” An independent review, headed by Kerry Schott, will investigate the incident.

24.09 WhatsApp, Reddit, Discord, Roblox, Lego Play, GitHub and Pinterest have been added to the list of platforms which may need to comply with the upcoming under-16s social media ban. ABCnews reports the eSafety commissioner has written to 16 companies advising them the ban might apply to their platform. The companies have been asked to use eSafety’s “self-assessment” tool to help determine if they will fall under the new laws, coming into effect in December.

23.09 Optus claimed providing real-time updates on emergency call outages to emergency services and the government would impose a ‘huge burden’. The company resisted new government requirements for more immediate sharing of information during outages, The Guardian reports. The report comes days after a firewall upgrade blocked emergency calls on the Optus network, with more than 600 calls unable to connect in the 13 hours it was offline. Three deaths have been linked to the outage. Optus was unaware of the outage for 13 hours and failed to notify the ACMA or communications minister for another 1.5 hours. The public were notified more than 24 hours later, on Friday evening.

22.09 Optus will suffer ‘significant consequences’, with major financial penalties likely following Thursday’s triple zero outage, the federal government says. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the company’s behaviour was ‘completely unacceptable’ The Guardian reports, while Communications minister Anika Wells condemned Optus for its handling of the situation, and has said there will be a comprehensive investigation and response, warning there will be consequences for not just Optus but the broader telco sector.

19.09 The NSW government has passed new laws criminalising the creation and sharing of sexually explicit deepfakes. Amendments to the Crimes Act 1900 make the production of sexually explicit deepfakes designed to be a genuine depiction of a real, identifiable person an offence punishable by up to three years’ jail, NSW Communities and Justice says. Sharing or threatening to share such images, even if the person hasn’t created them, is also now punishable by up to three years’ jail.

18.09 Atlassian has continued its acquisition spree with a US$1 billion cash-and-stock deal for developer productivity platform DX. Forbes reports the deal positions Atlassian to capitalise on the critical market need of measuring AI-driven development, with DX providing an analytics platform that helps organisations track engineering team performance and identify development bottlenecks.

18.09 The OAIC has found that Kmart breached privacy through its use of a facial recognition system designed to tackle refund fraud. The system was deployed between June 2020 and July 2022, capturing the faces of everyone entering 28 of its retail stores and all individuals presenting at a returns counter, but failed to notify shoppers or seek their consent to collect their biometric information, the OAIC says. It’s the second determination issued by the OAIC on the use of FRT in retail settings, with Bunnings also found ton contravene privacy through its use of FRT. That decision is currently under review by the Administrative Review Tribunal.

16.09 The University of NSW has signed Australia’s biggest ChatGPT Edu deal, providing 10,000 staff with access to the platform. The University says academics will benefit from using ChatGPT to complement and enhance their research and teaching activities while protecting their IP.

15.09 Insurer Zurich is using open banking technology provided under the Consumer Data Right regime in a new offering. The Home Loan Protection policy provides cover that automatically adjusts its premiums as the insured’s mortgage reduces, InsuranceNews says.

14.09 The owner of publications including Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety has sued Google, alleging the company’s AI summaries use its content without consent, and have significantly reduced search referral traffic to its sites. Penske Media Corporation’s suit says while the company allows Google to crawl its websites in exchange for traffic, Google has begun to require publishers to also supply the content for other uses that cannabalise or preempt search referrals, TechCrunch reports. The only way to opt out is to remove Penske entirely from Google search, the publisher says. Penske is the first to target Google and its parent company Alphabet.

14.09 Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler has been appointed as shadow minister for cyber security and science as part of a frontbench reshuffle in the wake of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s removal. InnovationAge notes that under Peter Dutton, pre this year’s election, Chandler was shadow minister for the digital economy.

12.09 The ACMA’s fourth report on platforms efforts to combat disinformation and misinformation says efforts to support third-party fact checking appears to be stalling in Australia. It says most signatories have made ‘modest’ improvements in their reporting of Australian-specific data, and have reported fewer pieces of content being actioned, including removals.

11.09 Tech workers jobs are on the line in the latest round of finance job cuts, with ANZ, NAB and Bendigo all announcing significant cuts. ANZ has said around 3,500 jobs will go across its global workforce, with the Finance Sector Union claiming 14 percent of workers from the bank’s tech and retail divisions will be affected, InformationAge reports. NAB meanwhile is axing 410 roles from its tech and enterprise operations division and the FSU says 145 jobs in Bendigo Bank’s technology division will also go in a restructure.

10.09 NSW Health is under fire after the confidential documents, including passports and medical credentials, of 600 medical staff were mistakenly made accessible on South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Shoalhaven local health districts’ websites. The information, which was supposed to be password-protected, was found to be publicly accessible via the website, the Guardian reports.

10.09 OpenAI has signed a $300 billion contract with Oracle purchase compute power in one of the largest cloud deals ever signed. The deal will reportedly require 4.5 gigawatts of power capacity. The NYTimes notes that OpenAI previously said it had reached a deal with Oracle to build AI data centres in the US as part of Project Stargate, but had not revealed particulars of that deal. The new deal spans around five years, with OpenAI starting to purchase compute from 2027.

05.09 Atlassian is purchasing The Browser Company in a $1 billion deal in a move designed to keep users in the Atlassian sphere. The company says The Browser Company’s Dia browser will be optimised for SaaS apps with tabs ‘enriched with context’ and ‘packed with AI skills and your personal work memory’ to connect the dots between apps, tabs and tasks. The move puts Atlassian in competition with Microsoft and Google who are also adding AI features to their browsers.

05.09 A Victorian lawyer who submitted fake AI generated cases to court has become the first Australian practitioner sanctioned but has been allowed to remain in the profession. The Victorian Legal Services Board placed restrictions on the solicitor who will be under supervision for the next two years, after he produced a list of cases which did not exist after relying on AI, LawGazette reports. The solicitor said he did not fully understand how the research tool worked.

04.09 The federal government will pay $475m in additional compensation to 450,000 robodebt victims, after agreeing to settle an appeal from the 2020 class action settlement. The compensation is in addition to $112m paid in 2020’s class action, and $1.76 billion in debts that were forgiven, cancelled or paid back by the government, The Guardian reports.

03.09 WA Health has completed the first stages of a $247m medial record system modernisation, with single sign on and digital medical systems (DMR) completed and more than 44 million documents digitised. Health Minister Meredith Hammat says 27,000 clinicians are using the SSO system, with access to around 90 clinical applications provided at the tap of a card.

AppWrap August 2025

28.08 The Digital Transformation Agency has developed a proof of concept using a LLM to assist with Digital Marketplace 2 application reviews. ITnews reports the agency plans to expand the PoC into a pilot with a goal of going live later this year using an AI-human pairing, rather than AI alone.

28.08 Australian cybersecurity professionals are feeling the stress, losing 4.8 hours a week to stress and burnout in 2025 as 78 percent of organisations report experiencing issues with burnout driven primarily by increased threat activity, lack of resources and complex compliance requirements. The figures are contained in a Sophos report, Australian Cybersecurity magazine reports.

26.08 The Tech Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have agreed to work on a ‘path forward on copyright that allows AI training to take place in Australia while also including appropriate protections for creators that make a living from their work’, InformationAge reports.

25.08 The Department of Defence has inked a new $18.7m deal with IBM related to its ERP overhaul, bringing the total engagement value to at least $575m since 2019, ITnews reports. The latest deal is for a year’s consultancy support for the SAP S/4Hana rollout.

23.08 US President Trump says the US government has secured a 10 percent stake in Intel through the conversion of US$11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. The deal makes the US Government one of Intel’s largest shareholders. AP notes the deal comes just a couple of weeks after Trump depicted Intel CEO  Lip-Bu Tan as a conflicted leader unfit for the job amid national security concerns about his previous investments in Chinese companies when he was a venture capitalist.

21.08 Commonwealth Bank has backtracked on plans announced last month to cut 45 jobs after introducing an AI voicebot saying its decision was an ‘error’ and it ‘did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations’. The Finance Sector Union, which has raised a dispute at the Fair Work Commission, says members found work actually increased after the bot was introduced, ABCnews reports.

21.08 Australia’s Momentum Software Solutions has taken out Wiise Partner of the Year in the ERP vendor’s annual Partner Awards. Solutions Plus, BusinessHub, Stratus Consulting Group and The Practical Enterprise Group were also among the winners.

20.08 The University of Melbourne has been found to have breached student’ privacy by using its wifi network to monitor students and staff at a pro-Palestine protest in May. The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner found the university used wifi location data, student card photos and CCTV footage to identify 22 students who failed to comply with orders to leave the university building. Staff email accounts were also used to identify staff involved in the protest, with three given formal written warnings. While the university didn’t contravene information privacy principles with its CCTV use, it breached Victoria’s Privacy and Data Protection Act by failing to adequately inform students and staff how their information had been used and through using wifi data to identify individuals in a misconduct investigation, The Guardian reports.

19.08 iiNet says it has been impacted by a cyber incident with the active email addresses of 280,000 customers stolen along with landline numbers of 20,000 customers and around 1,700 modem setup passwords. The incident was confirmed on Saturday and an incident response plan has been enacted with external IT and cybersecurity experts called in to assist. Around 10,000 iiNet usernames, street addresses and phone numbers have also been accessed, the company says.

18.08 The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has renewed a deal for Datacom to manage its contact centre for another five years, ITnews reports. The deal is worth $176 million.

14.08 Accenture is acquiring Australian cybersecurity company CyberCX for an undisclosed sum to expand its cybersecurity capabilities across APAC. AFR reports the transaction is valued at more than AU$1 billion. CyberCX has 1,400 staff across APAC. Since 2015, Accenture has completed 20 security acquisitions it says.

12.08 The Federal Court has ruled Apple and Google engaged in anti-competitive conduct with their smartphone app stores, misusing their market power. ABCnews reports the decision clears the way for two class actions covering millions of Australian consumers and developers over price and commissions paid for digital content. The court also ruled in Epic Games’ favour finding Google and Apple breached section 45 of the competition and consumer act in misusing market power to reduce competition, but rejected other allegations including that the companies had engaged in unconscionable conduct.

12.08 Startup Perplexity AI has made a headline grabbing US$34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Google’s Chrome browser. The browser hasn’t been offered for sale, but Google is facing regulatory pressure after a US court ruling found it held an unlawful monopoly in online search and sought a Chrome divestiture. The deal value is far above Perplexity’s own valuation, Reuters reports, and would provide it access to the billions of Chrome users it wants in the AI search race.

11.08 CommBank is reporting a 76 percent drop in scam losses since the peak period of H1 2023. The bank, which rolled out in-app authentication earlier this year to help stop unauthroised access to online account says it is investing AU$900m this year to further bolster cyber defences. It has just unveiled a digital protection app, Truyu, which provides instant analysis of suspicious SMSs, and CommBank app users will now be asked to verify some online card transactions in-app before the transaction is authorised, FinExtra reports.

11.08 Foreign espionage cost Australia at least $12.5 billion in 2023-24 according to a ASIO and Australian Institute of Criminology report. Mike Burgess, director-general of security, says the figure, which is ‘an underestimate’, and the report is a wake-up call for Australia.

10.08 Instagram’s new location sharing feature has sparked concerns, despite Meta saying it is an ‘opt-in’ service. The NY Times reports some users saw their prior posts plotted on the map without using the feature. Instagram’s Adam Mossseri says the map was populated not only with real-time locations, but also with earlier posts tagged with a location. Location tags existed previously, but were not collated on a prominent map as they now are.

09.08 OpenAI has unveiled GPT-5, claiming it can provide PhD-level expertise in areas such as coding and writing. OpenAI CE Sam Altman says the new model will suffer fewer hallucinations and be less deceptive, providing answers that show workings, logic and inference BBC reports. The company is pitching GPT-5 to coders as a proficient assistant, able to create software in its entirety. Some experts, however, say the launch may not be as significant as its marketing suggests, with companies needing keep up the hype, while others have highlighted a growing gap in governance.

08.08 The OAIC is suing Optus over the 2022 cyber attack alleging the company ‘seriously interfered’ with the privacy of around 9.5 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information. ABCnews reports Optus could face a fine in the trillions in theory, with the Federal Court able to impose a penalty of up to $2.2 million for each contravention. The OAIC is alleging one contravention for each of the 9.5 million individuals.

08.08 The NSW Department of Education has inked a deal $13.8 million deal with Infosys to migrate its legacy SAP ECC6 platform to S/4HANA by the end of 2027. ITnews reports theupgrade will also see the department onboard the BW/4HANA warehouse solution.

07.08 The Community and Public Sector Union says hundreds more CSIRO jobs could be axed this year, with the national science agency confirming it is ‘reshaping’ its research portfolio to do fewer things better, InformationAge reports.

01.08 Accenture has scooped up a further $51.7 million deal for support for My Health Record as the Digital Health Agency gears up to carve up the much larger infrastructure services contract. ITnews reports Accenture has served as the national infrastructure operator since 2012, garnering contracts totalling $788 million. The most recent three-year, $141m contract, expired in June.

AppWrap July 2025

31.07 Vocus has completed its $5.25 billion acquisition of TPG Telcom’s enterprise, government and wholesale fixed business and associated fibre assets. Vocus says the deal provides Vocus with the scale and reach to deliver a better, broader suite of products and services, increasing competition in the sector.

30.07 YouTube is to be included in the under-16s social media ban after the Albanese government backflipped on an earlier plan for the video sharing platform to be exempt from the ban. Platforms will face fines of up to $49.5 million for failing to take ‘responsible steps’ to prevent underage account holders accessing their services, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says. The rules take force in December.

29.07 CBA has axed 45 call centre jobs after rolling out an AI chatbot. ABCNews reports the bank is consulting with dozens of staff impacted by the cuts and says opportunities to redeploy or reskill staff would be prioritised.

28.07 A Sydney man has been charged after allegedly defrauding an NT government agency out of $3.6 million in a business email compromise scam. The man posed as a contractor from a company the agency was engaged with, providing a completed vendor identification form. The AFP say they will allege the man registered a business to closely remember the legitimate contractor and opened a bank account to receive the funds. AFP says business email compromise and fraud were among the most common self-reported cybercrimes for businesses of all sizes, and individuals, in Australia in the 2023-24 financial year.

23.07 The federal government quietly launched a sovereign-hosted instance of OpenAI’s GPT-40 for use by the Australian Public Service recently, though it has since been removed. ITnews says the work is part of a whole-of-government pilot program, GovAI, which aims to fast-track AI adoption within public service. Currently in closed beta phase, it is expected to be expanded by November.

23.08 Patient data stolen in the Genea Fertility cyber hack in February has been published on the dark web. ABC News says the data includes patients’ full names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Medicare card numbers, medical diagnosis and clinical information about the services received from the IVF provider and other service providers. Genea won’t confirm how many patients are affected, the name of the cybercriminal group claiming responsibility or whether a ransom was paid.

20.07 The ACSC has issued an alert saying it has seen active attacks targeting on-premises SharePoint Serve customers. A vulnerability is enabling unauthorised attackers to execute code over a network, the ACSC says. Microsoft is preparing and testing an update, with the ACSC urging organisations to monitor Microsoft advisories for updates and patches. US government agencies, universities, energy companies and an Asian telco are reportedly among those already hacked.

18.07 Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta directors and officers have settled claims seeking US$8 billion in damages for their handling of repeated privacy violations at Facebook. Shareholders had alleged Zuckerberg’s actions led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which data of millions of Facebook users was leaked and used by a political consulting firm, the BBC reports. The settlement came just as the trial was about to enter its second day.

17.07 OpenAI is integrating a payments checkout system into ChatGPT enabling consumers to complete purchases while on the platform, Payments Journal says. OpenAI is reportedly working with Shopify and other brands to develop the system and negotiate rates, after an upgrade to the shopping feature earlier this year, done in collaboration with Shopify, enabled users searching for a product on ChatGPT to see top results with prices, reviews and links to sites.

17.07 Optus has obtained an interim injunction to prevent data in the breach earlier this month from being accessed or published by anyone, including third parties. The breach saw personal data of 5.7 million customers compromised. The airline says there is no evidence any personal data stolen has been released, and it is continuing to actively monitor.

17.07 Changes have been proposed for a $53m federal government Agtech grant program to subsidise on farm connectivity. InnovationAus says the proposed changes to the On Farm Connectivity Program will give primary producers more choice in where they source equipment and will significantly tighten which devices are eligible for rebates and will require proof of use from farmers.

15.07 Bunnings is calling for privacy law changes to enable it to use facial recognition technology. In a submission to the Productivity Commission review into how new technology such as AI should be used, managing director Michael Schneider says the Privacy Act should be reformed to keep pace with changes ushered in by AI, saying he’s concerned the evolving interpretation of privacy regulations appears to prioritise prescriptive compliance over balanced outcomes, AFR reports. Last year the Privacy Commissioner ruled Bunnings had breached the privacy of thousands of customers with its earlier use of facial recognition.

14.08 Optus is building and launching a sovereign LEO satellite, set to launch in early 2028. A consortium is working on the satellite which will include a specialised space telescope to take high-resolution pictures of space objects and a compact communication terminal which functions at fast speeds using laser light to send and receive data. More conventional radio frequency communications capability will also be included, Optus says.

11.07 Digital health accelerator program ANDHealth+ has received $33m in government funding to continue and expand its health technology commercialisation program. The acceleration and incubation program connects digital and connected health startups with support and funding to address critical commercialisation hurdles. ANDHealth+ says up to $5m will be provided in flexible, milestone-based non-dilutive funding and access to international markets to 10=15 startups over two years.

11.07 Forget the smartwatch, Samsung is looking into wearable devices potentially including earrings and necklaces. The company says AI could enable a wave of devices allowing users to communicate and get things done quickly without having to take out their phone, CNN reports.

10.07 Microsoft is claiming US$500m in savings thanks to AI in its call centres last year, with ‘tens of millions’ more savings from using AI to handle interactions with smaller customers, BusinessTimes reports. Last week the company announced it plans to lay off nearly four percent of its workforce to make savings amid its heavy AI investments.

07.07 Melbourne law firm Massar Briggs Law has been ordered to personally pay costs after submitting a native title summary document containing AI-fabricated citations. The junior solicitor had used Google Scholar and the citations were either incorrect or did not exist. The judge noted AI use in the legal profession is growing, and practitioners must be aware of its limitations, Lawyers Weekly reports.

07.07 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared AI a key pillar of Australia’s future economic model, with the government aiming to create the right framework and make the right investments in skills and training to ensure AI is a contributor, not a competitor, Smart Company says.

04.07 The Australian Department of Defence has signed a five-year $495 million deal for Microsoft Azure cloud services. The Azure services will largely support Defence’s rollout of a new SAP-based ERP system, which recently went live, ITnews reports.

04.07 Goodman is setting up a $2.7 billion data centre business in Hong Kong. Reuters says the company has partnered with investors including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and will be a 20 percent cornerstone investor, with the group owning four existing data centres held by Goodman, and two facilities currently being developed.

03.07 OpenAI’s Australian Blueprint calls for the country to ‘act more boldly and decisively to maximise AI’s possibilities’ promising a $115b windfall for Australia by 2030. The blueprint also calls for tax breaks for businesses adopting AI and claims data centres will create more than 8,000 jobs – with both those suggestions being questioned by experts who say data centres aren’t the mass-employer Open AI implied they will be once switched on, and the tax incentives are simply a grab for taxpayer money, Forbes Australia reports.

03.07 Australia’s tech sector’s contribution to GDP fell 2.6 percent in 2023-24 in its first decline in 17 years prompting a warning that the country needs to be building its digital economy rather than importing solutions, InformationAge reports.

02.07 Australia’s banks have launched confirmation of payee, which checks the name, BSB and account number entered with account details held at the receiving bank and showing the match results before payment is made to protect against scams. The Australian Banking Association says the $100m initiative will add a ‘powerful’ extra layer of protection for everyday transactions.

02.07 Service records of around six million Qantas customers have been compromised after cybercriminals targeted a call centre and gained access to the airline’s third-party customer service platform. The NZ Herald reports Qantas as saying it is continuing to investigate the proportion of data stolen but expects it will be ‘significant’.

01.07 Datacom has reported increases in group revenue and profit in the year to March, thanks to strong growth in Australia. Revenue was up from $1.47 billion to $1.48 billion with net profit after tax increasing $3 million to $37m, Datacom says. Group EBITDA was down as were staff numbers.

AppWrap June 2025

27.06 The Business Council of Australia is ‘doubling down on the critical growth drivers’ of digital infrastructure, connectivity and AI with the appointment of AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady as directors. The BCA says the appointments are a ‘significant’ strengthening of the board’s capabilities in tech and innovation and will help shape its mission to lift Australia’s productivity.

27.06 A San Francisco federal court judge has ruled that Anthorpic’s use of copyrighted works to train its AI was ‘fair use’ and not a copyright breach, but the company may face a big bill for piracy instead. Anthropic downloaded more than seven million books from ‘shadow libraries’ including countless copyrighted works, without permission. The LA Times reports the judge as saying there will be a trial on the pirated copies, and the resulting damages – noting that piracy on that scale could result in judgements worth ‘untold millions’.

27.06 DeepSeek is facing potential bans in Germany after Berlin’s commissioner for data protection and freedom of information asked Apple and Google to remove DeepSeek from their app stores accusing the company of illegally transferring user data to China. The official says DeepSeek did not provide convincing evidence data was protected as required by EU law, Euronews reports. The app has already been banned from Italian app stores, with other countries banning, or recommending it not be used, on government devices.

26.06 Two Sydney quantum startups have published research they say provides a pathway for scaling the number of qubits on a chip from current numbers under 100 to the millions needed to make quantum computation a ‘practical reality’. The result is enabled by new cryogenic control electronics operating at close to absolute zero, developed at the University of Sydney. The university says the development will take us from the realm of quantum computers being fascinating lab machines to a real-world offering, solving real world problems.

26.06 A former Western Sydney University student has been charged over a series of hacks at the University. The 27-year-old allegedly began infiltrating the system to get discounted parking on campus before threatening to sell peers’ data on the dark web, ABCnews reports.

26.06 Autohive has launched its AI agent building platform in New Zealand and Australia. The company is a spinoff of Kiwi software performance monitoring company Raygun, and is designed to enable SMBs to create and use AI agents. Mi3 notes the platform offers a range of use cases including handling customer inquiries 24/7, transforming spreadsheet data into actionable items and generating client proposals and reports.

25.06 Xero is looking to crack the US SMB market with plans to buy US-Israeli payments provider Melio in a US$2.5 billion deal. Reuters says the deal fills a gap in Xero’s offering, adding payments to its accounting software while enabling both companies to scale up. US sales account for just seven percent of Xero’s sales currently.

24.06 Kiwi company Halter has raised $165 million in series D funding. The funding, lead by global tech investment company Bond, values Halter at $1.65 billion, Halter says. The funding will be used for ‘exciting product innovations’ and expansion in New Zealand, Australia and the US. Among the investors was Kiwisaver company Generate, which threw in $10m.

20.06 A preliminary report into age assurance technology has found that age verification tools are ‘not guaranteed to be effective’, while face scanning technology gave incorrect results and some vendors were too keen to keep gather too much personal data. The Guardian reports operators of the systems insist age assurance can work and maintain personal privacy. The report suggests there aren’t any substantial tech limitations in the tested offerings, though no single solution worked for every situation.

20.06 PwC Australia has reported a 17 percent drop in profits to $619m, according to its first audited financial results. AFR says the figures show revenue dropped six percent to $2.17 billion – but the company’s 628 partners earned slightly more at an average of $767,000.

19.06 The Australian Signals Directorate has signed a $70m deal with AWS, pushing its renegotiated whole-of-government deal past $364m, ITnews reports.

18.06 Optus has agreed to a $100m fine for ‘unconscionable conduct’ in selling customers phones and contracts they didn’t want or need – in some cases when they lived outside of Optus’ reception. ABCnews says more than 400 customers, many vulnerable or experiencing disadvantage, were sold phones or signed up to the contracts. The Federal Court needs to approve the penalty – agreed to by Optus and the ACCC – and orders on customer compensation and the way sales staff are paid.

17.06 Google and OpenAI are reportedly winding down work with Scale AI after Meta’s US$14b investment in the AI data company. Meta is taking a 49 percent share in the company. Time reports that a Scale competitor has seen demand for its services ‘triple overnight’ on the back of the deal. Another company has added potential contracts worth US$50m as companies seek ‘truly neutral partners’. “With Meta being such a large owner of Scale, the ability for [Meta] to get information around what other foundation model labs are doing becomes a lot more challenging to manage,” the boss of another AI training data company says.

17.06 Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has warned employees the company will need fewer employees in future thanks to efficiency gains through AI. CNN reports Jassy says while the net outcome isn’t yet known, in the next few years the corporate workforce is expected to reduce through extensive AI use and urged employees to view AI as ‘teammates’.

16.06 Amazon is spending AU$20b to expand its Australian data centre network to support increasing AI and cloud demand. The work includes three solar projects to meet energy requirements of the expanded infrastructure, TechRepublic reports.

13.05 The ASX has sold its shareholding in blockchain developer Digital Asset Holdings for $57m. The ASX partnered with Digital Asset Holdings in 2016 for its ill-fated Chess replacement. The program was scrapped in 2022, with a $250m writedown for the ASX, Capital Brief reports.

12.06 An identity and access management failure within Google Cloud has caused large scale disruption across a range of internet services, including Google Workspace apps, Cloudflare, Spotify, Discord, Snap, Shopify and Replit. Silicon Angle reports the issue was traced to a misconfiguration in Google Cloud’s IAM systems.

11.06 Australia has ‘no alternative’ but to embrace AI and seek to become a world leader in its use and regulation, industry and science minister Tim Ayres says. He says the government is still setting a course of action, considering approaches from like-minded countries, and the response will include legislation and regulation, The Guardian reports.

11.06 Disney and Universal studios are suing AI image creator Midjourney, alleging copyright infringement. The suit filed in federal court in Los Angeles claims Midjourney allows users to blatantly incorporate and copy famous characters including Shrek, Darth Vader and Frozen’s Elsa. Time magazine says the lawsuit challenges one of the AI industries fundamental assumptions: that it should be allowed to train upon copyrighted materials under the principle of fair use, and could reshape the battle over AI and copyright.

10.06 Anthony Albanese is convening experts, unions and business leaders later this year to brainstorm ideas for economic growth and productivity, ABC News reports.

06.06 Apple has accused the Australian government of threatening consumers’ security and privacy while damaging the economy and stopping innovation, with its proposal to require tech firms to allow consumers to use alternative app stores and make third party payments inside apps, InformationAge says. A 28 page submission to Treasury argues that Australia should not follow the EU’s footsteps, and that the moves will reduce protection against scams, malware and potentially harmful content.

06.06 Lion has developed a ‘Pub Crawl’ app – not for customers but for its sales team – enabling them to automatically record how many taps at pubs serve its beers to ensure pubs are meeting their contractual requirements. The app was built using SAP’s Business Technology Platform and AWS Rekognition and uses computer vision and AI, ITnews reports.

06.06 Australian navy ship HMAS Canberra inadvertently caused wireless internet and radio outages across parts of New Zealand on Wednesday, with the ship’s navigation radar interfering with Wifi from Taranaki to Marlborough. The Guardian reports that when the radar was heard on the frequency used by internet providers and radio stations, those commercial operators had to stop using the channel. The issue was resolved when HMAS Canberra changed frequencies.

05.06 Ghost nets ranging in size from 50cm to more than five metres have been uncovered along Gulf of Carpentaria coast thanks to drones and AI. The project, led by Charles Darwin University, is enabling more efficient planning, targeted net removal and improved marine debris assessments. It has surveyed nearly 84km of remote coastline and located 72 nets Charles Darwin University says.

04.06 Hackers are abusing a malicious version of a Salesforce-related app to steal data, gain access to corporate cloud services and extort companies in Europe and the Americas, Reuters reports. The Google Threat Intelligence Group says hackers have tricked employees at companies into installing the modified version of Salesforce’s Data Loaded.

03.06 Telstra has launched Australia’s first direct-to-satellite text messaging service. ABC News reports for now the service is only available to Galaxy S25 users who pay up-front, and it has some technical limitations. However, it will provide coverage for those outside lang-based 4G and 5G networks. Voice calls via LEO satellites are still two years away.

02.06 The case of a primary school teacher who is suing her former employer for almost $800,000 for wrongful dismissal, saying she was in part fired because she used her right to disconnect, is tipped to become a litmus test of the right to disconnect laws. However, 9News reports the Queensland case is unlikely to provide a definitive interpretation of the legal limits of the law, and the right to disconnect aspect is only one element of the teachers claim.

02.06 Victorian firefighters are battling IT outages with three different systems failing on 1 and 2 May, along with five separate incidents within the last week. The United Firefighters Union says issues with the Station Turn Out system, which alerts firefighters to incidents and dispatches them, including opening doors for firetrucks, and the Firecom real time information source advising on the emergency, nearby resources and location of vehicle, have impacted the ability of the service to respond to emergencies, CyberDaily reports.

02.06 La Trobe University has official switched on its Australian Centre for AI in Medical Innovation (ACAMI) supercomputer. The supercomputer will be used for AI-driven medical and biotech research, La Trobe says. It is backed by a $10m investment from the Victorian Government.

02.06 Apple has appealed against the EU’s decision requiring it to make iOS more compatible with rival products, saying the rules are ‘deeply flawed’ and a threat to user security. Apple says the requirements force it to share sensitive user data with competitors, creating security risks, MacRumors reports.

01.06 Google has called on a US judge to reject the idea it should spin off its Chrome browser as remedy after the company was found to have an illegal monopoly in search. US government attorneys are calling for the divestment of the browser, and for Google to be barred from agreements with partners like Apple and Samsung to distribute its search tools. Google, meanwhile, noted that of the around 100 witnesses at the trial, not one had said if they had more flexibility they would have installed Bing, AFP reports.

AppWrap May 2025

29.05 The technology trial for Australia’s social media ban is ‘broadly on track’ according to the government, but the company behind the age assurance trial has revealed just one type of technology has been tested on children so far, The Guardian reports. A $275,000 report the federal government commissioned last year into Australian attitudes into age assurance technology has still not been made public, despite being delivered to government on 2 January.

28.05 In her first CDR determination, Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind has found that Regional Australia Bank breached privacy safeguards even though the error was caused by its third-party provider, Biza, which had implemented a patch for faulty software, but failed to identify that RAB would be affected. Data of up to 197 consumers was ‘co-mingled’ in the incident. Kind says RAB took reasonable steps to comply with the relevant privacy safeguards, but Biza did not – nevertheless, RAB is liable for any failings, and can’t shift liability for non-compliance to Biza.

27.05 Australian edtech platform Year13 is eyeing US expansion as it bolsters its leadership with the appointment of several former Atlassian executives. Pirow Cronje joined former Atlassian product and engineering leads Nick Menere and Mark Chaimungkalanot at the company. Year13’s Career Coach ‘AI-powered’ career guidance offering, developed in partnership with Microsoft and piloted in North Carolina, is expected to rollout in Australia and internationally this year, MediaWeek says.

26.05 WiseTech Global has announced its largest ever acquisition with a US$2.1b deal to buy US rival E2open. The merger expands WiseTech’s customer base by around 5,60, including 250+ blue-chip customers, and signals a return to the founder Richard White’s strategy of expansion through acquisition, StartupDaily reports.

26.05. The eSafety commissioner has launched proceedings against a man who posted deepfake images of prominent Australian women online and is seeking a $450,000 maximum penalty imposed. Anthony Rotondo failed to remove the images while he was based in the Philippines and the commissioner launched the case when he returned to Australia, The Guardian reports. The site he posted on has been shut down.

24.05 Salesforce has reportedly restarted talks to buy data management software company Informatica and a deal if reached, could be announced next week. The two companies ditched earlier talks – which were reportedly advanced –  in April 2024 after failing to agree on terms, Reuters reports.

22.05 OpenAI is buying Apple veteran Jony Ive’s AI device startup, io, in a US$6.5 billion all-equity deal. The deal will see io’s team working on hardware that allows people to interact with OpenAI’s technologies, endgadget reports.

21.05 Victoria has allocated $14m for two AI projects in its state budget, including a $11.1m project for a regulatory digitisation and AI program to replace paper-based and outdated digital processes. A second project will pilot the technology to improve recognition of prior learning across the vocational education system, Smartcompany reports.

16.05 An electrical fault has seen Gilmour Space postpone Australia’s first home-grown orbital rocket launch. ArsTechnica reports the nose cone fell off the Eris rocket hours before it was due to launch. No one was injured and no damage was done to the rocket or launch pad. No new launch date has been set.

16.05 Academics have slammed a trial of age assurance technologies commissioned by the federal government in preparation for the introduction of a social media ban for under-16s. Fifty-three technologies are being trialled but writing in The Conversation, the academics say there are internal tensions about the trials design choices, centred on a lack of focus on ways to circumvent the technology, privacy implications and verification of vendors’ claims. ‘Unresponsiveness’ of some major tech companies in being part of the trial is also cited.

15.05 Telstra has sent 55,000 text messages through its new satellite to mobile service during testing. The service is expected to launch ‘in the coming months’, the telco says.

14.05 Up to 100 of Microsoft’s employees in Australia will be made redundant as part of the 6000 job cuts – about three percent of its 228,000 employees – being made across the global business. AFR reports that while the job losses are expected to target middle management they will hit staff at all levels of the company. The company, which has remained mum on whether AI is playing a part in the job cuts, has just under 3,000 staff in Australia. CEO Satya Nadella has previously noted that around 20-30 percent of Microsoft’s coding is now handled by software.

13.05 Tim Ayres, senator for NSW, has been sworn in as Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science, replacing Ed Husic. Ayres has previously been assistant minister for trade and for the Future Made in Australia policy, ResearchProfessionalNews reports.

10.05 Autonomous delivery robots have yet to jump the hurdle of legal status and safety concerns in Australia, with issues around their regulatory status meaning they’re largely banned in public except in a few council areas with trials in place, the Guardian reports. Delivery robots are being seen increasingly in other parts of the world, but experts says current Australian laws are unclear, making companies hesitant to bring the technologies to Australia.

09.05 Ed Husic has been dumped from his role as Minister for Industry and Science, a role he has held for all of the Albanese government’s first term. InformationAge reports the ousting is the result of factional power-plays post election.

08.05 A University of Sydney academic is warning that Meta’s new standalone Meta AI chatbot is ‘a sophisticated data harvesting tool’ to potentially sell more to users via Meta’s ecosystem of apps. Professor Uri Gal warns that Meta’s cross-platform integration private information can seamlessly flow into the company’s advertising machine to create user profiles ‘with unprecedented detail and accuracy’ and that the chatbot has the capability to become an active participation in the manipulation, with the potential for product placement in its responses. The Washington Post has warned that Meta AI keeps a copy of ‘everything’ and deleting the app’s memory is problematic.

08.05 The US Trump administration plans to rescind predecessor Joe Biden’s global AI chip export restrictions. Biden’s rule, due to take effect May 15, had seen most countries subject to caps. A Commerce spokesperson says the Biden AI rule will be replaced ‘with a much simpler rule that unleashes American innovation and ensures American AI dominance’ Reuters reports.

08.05 A US federal jury has ordered Israeli spyware company NSO Group to pay Facebook parent Meta almost US$168 million in damages for exploiting WhatsApp to deploy its Pegasus spyware. NSO exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp’s infrastructure to silently install the spyware without requiring any action from targets other than having their devices turned on, ComputerWorld reports. Around 1,400 accounts were compromised before engineers patched the vulnerability.

06.05 New Zealand is proposing to follow Australia in banning under-16s from using social media, with a planned draft law to force social media companies to verify user age before enabling people to sign up or face $2m fines. A date for when the bill, authored by National MP Catherine Webb, will be introduced to parliament is unclear and bipartisan support will be required, the Guardian notes.

01.05 ANZ’s digital banking platform, ANZ Plus, is introducing fully passwordless web banking from mid-2025, enabling customers to use either a passkey – which could be their fingerprint, face or mobile device Pin, or by entering their mobile number and approving a log in request to their ANZ Plus app. ANZ says the passwordless offerings will make it easier for customers, while also adding an extra layer of protection.

01.05 The Australian Institute of Marine Science has gone to market seeking developers for a proof of concept that could become a digital twin of its three marine technology test ranges on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef. InnovationAus reports the initial focus will be on the ReefWorks tropical marine technology test range south of Townsville, but the digital twin may eventually scale to other ranges.

01.05 ChatGPT is adding shopping features, enabling users to see prices and reviews more easily and find direct links to purchase personalised product recommendations. BBC reports OpenAI as saying the selections will be chosen ‘independently’ and will not be ads.

01.05 Tech Booster plans for small business, promises of an increased push to get students into STEM, a new office to cut red tape and improve Australia’s global competitiveness, and crypto reforms are among the tech policies being pushed ahead of this week’s federal election. InformationAge offers up a breakdown of the contrasting policies across a number of tech areas.

01.05 Login credentials for around 100 staff at Australia’s big four banks have been compromised according to cyber intelligence firm Hudson Rock. The company told ABC ‘dozens’ of compromised staff credentials were found at ANZ and Commonwealth Bank, with fewer than five at NAB and Westpac. All were stolen between 2021 and April 2025. The banks have protections in place to prevent stolen passwords being exploited but in a worst case scenario the credentials could enable initial access. The report follows one earlier this week when ABC revealed more than 31,000 customer banking passwords had been stolen across the big four banks.

AppWrap April 2025

29.04 Australians are less trusting and positive about AI than most according to research from the University of Melbourne. It found 78 percent of Australians are concerned about negative outcomes and 37 percent say they’ve personally experienced or observed negative outcomes ranging from inaccuracy, misinformation and manipulation, deskilling and loss of privacy or IP. The report also highlights low AI literacy and strong public support for AI regulation.

28.04 The first 27 of more than 3,200 planned satellites for Amazon’s US$10 billion Project Kuiper have been launched into space. The network aims to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has 8,000 satellites in orbit, with 1,600 of Kuiper’s satellites expected to be up by July 2026, CNBC reports.

23.04 A 38-year-old man has been charged over the NSW Online Registry Website breach which saw almost 9,000 ‘sensitive’ court filings accessed earlier this year. The man, who has been released on bail, was charged with unauthorised access to restricted data, after files including domestic violence orders and affidavits were downloaded, NSW Police says.

22.04 NSW Police have switched off a face-matching tool, 14 years after its last update following concerns with its old algorithm. InformationAge reports NSW Police declined to reveal why the technology was paused, but it follows criticism of the Cognitec technology’s demographic bias, an audit warning about facial recognition’s risks and progress on a tender for a new biometric platform.

23.04 The EU has fined Apple €500m and Meta €200m under the Digital Markets Act legislation introduced last year to curb big tech’s power. In Apple’s case the EU Commission says the company failed to offer alternative app marketplaces to users and app developers, while Meta’s fine came for choice offered on data collection, with users forced to chose between allowing Meta to combine data collected on Facebook or Instagram, or pay a monthly subscription. The BBC reports both companies have reacted angrily, with Meta accusing the EU of attempting to handicap successful American businesses.

22.04 Australian health startups Umps Health, Vively Health and Eugene Labs will share in $2.2 million in investment from the first round of Bupa’s Ventures Fund. The three companies are at Seed and Series A funding stages, Bupa says. Umps provides proactive insights with in-home sensors to support independence and wellbeing at home, Eugene offers genetic testing and counselling and Vively has developed a wellness platform to help people understand the impact of lifestyle choices on glucose levels in real time.

19.04 An Australian couple have developed an ‘autofill’ system enabling agricultural robots to automatically fill themselves up with more pesticide or fertiliser. Farmer Andrew and Jocie Bate launched their agtech startup in 2012 and have 145 robots working on farms across Australia. They told ABC News they believe the new autofill system is a world-first.

18.04 A US judge has ruled Google has a monopoly in online advertising tech. AP reports the finding is the second time in a year that Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge, following the August 2024 decision that Google’s search engine has illegally leveraged its dominance to stifle competition. Remedy hearings in that case are scheduled to begin next week and will see lawyers aiming to have Google sell its Chrome browser.

17.04 WiseTech is reportedly under formal ASIC investigation over its founder’s share trading during a blackout period and the company’s handling of market disclosures related to misconduct allegations.

15.04 The personal data, including driver licence information, credit card details and passport information, of Australian Hertz, Thrifty and Dollar customers is among data which appears to have been compromised in a supply chain attack. The rental car company says an unauthorised third-party stole data after exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities within file-transfer vendor Cleo’s platform late last year. Hertz says it is not aware of any misuse of the information and has hired Kroll to provide two years of dark web monitoring services to potentially impacted customers.

14.04 Woolworths Group has renewed its agreement with Google Cloud for another five years to ‘further enable the power of data and insights’. The companies have worked together since 2017, Woolworths says.

14.04 Western Sydney University and University of Sydney have been hit by cyber attacks. Information Age reports the information of around 10,000 current and former students was accessed at WSU, while a hacker claims to have compromised source code at USYD.

15.04 The Australian Computer Society is calling for the next federal government to ‘connect the dots’ and take a ‘unified, national’ approach to skills and translating innovation into impact, saying they are not side issues, but central to future prosperity. In its election position paper the ACS urges fast-tracking of the National Skills Taxonomy, investment in a Digital Skills Passport and expansion of professionalism frameworks like SFIA.

14.04 The Trump administration is readying to announce ‘a special focus-type of tariff’ on smartphones, computers and other electronics products within two months, with semiconductor tariffs also planned, the Guardian reports. The new tariffs will fall outside the ‘reciprocal’ tariffs. Last week Trump exempted smartphones, computers and some electronic devices from the tariffs, including the 125 percent tariffs against Chinese imports. Semiconductor chips from China will also be the focused of a national security probe.

11.04 Canva has launched a new AI-powered spreadsheet offering, Sheets, to compete with Microsoft Excel. The offering is one part of the Australian company’s largest ever update, which also include Magic Charts to create interactive reports and animated visualisations, Canva AI to generate slides and edit photos with verbal prompts and Code for coding websites and apps, AFR reports. Canva is currently preparing for a float.

11.04 Should a zombie apocalypse ever strike, you might want to pop across the Tasman to New Zealand, where telco One NZ has been named ‘the most zombie resilient network’ by the US-based ‘historical, cultural and scientific research group’ Zombie Research Society (yes, it is a real thing – the society, not the zombies). One NZ says the award, on the back of the launch of its One NZ Satellite, is the ‘most bizarre endorsement ever’ for its mobile network.

10.04 A trial update to the NSW Digital ID and Wallet will allow users of digital photo cards to convert them into verifiable credentials. Previously, users could only store a digital copy of a photo card and the changes will provide a more secure way for people to prove their identity and age digitally sharing information through a QR code, BiometricUpdate reports.

10.04 Amazon boss Andy Jassy has defended the company’s investment in AI, saying it is necessary to remain competitive – and wants customers to invest ‘aggressively’ in AI too. The company plans to spend more than $100b on capital expenditures this year, with the vast majority of that for AWS AI capabilities, TechCrunch reports.

10.04 US president Donald Trump has issued an executive order revoking the security clearance of former CISA director Chris Krebs and cybersecurity vendor SentinelOne. Krebs, who was fired by Trump in 2020 after countering Trump’s false claims of election fraud saying they were ‘unsubstantiated or technically incoherent’, is currently SentinelOne’s chief intelligence and public policy officer. Dark Reading says Trump has ordered an investigation into Krebs’ criticism of his fraud claims.

08.04 Woolworths has bought into telehealth, investing in Perth startup Hola Health’s $6 million Series A raise. StartupDaily reports Woolworths led the raise via its Healthylife subsidiary. Hola, which offers online consultations, prescriptions, medical certificates and specialist referrals, is now Healthylife’s exclusive telehealth provider. The raise values Hola at $70 million.

08.04 An EU official has downplayed expectations over the size of fines expected for Apple and Meta for infringing digital antitrust rules, saying the issue is about compliance, not fines. Politico reports decisions in the Apple and Meta cases are expected in the coming days, with the official suggesting the fines shouldn’t be compared to those handed out for past antitrust infringements which reflected repeat offences. The DMA only came into force a year ago.

05.04 China has called time on a deal to spin off TikTok into a new US-based company, owned and operated by a majority of American investors, following US President Trump’s tariffs. AP reports White House officials believed a deal for the spin off was close but it is uncertain whether a tentative deal can be announced after the Chinese government signalled it wouldn’t approve the deal until there can be negotiations about trade and tariffs.

04.04 The NSW government will consider establishing an emerging technology commercialisation fund aligned with state priority areas as part of an ambitious ‘innovation blueprint’ which aims to help grow more unicorns and help create nearly 100,000 jobs by 2035. The Blueprint sets a target of $27 billion in additional investment for NSW over the next 10 years.

04.04 Oracle has finally admitted to suffering a serious data breach, confirming to customers that some of its cloud systems have been breached. Bloomberg reports Oracle, which initially categorically denied the incident, has told some customers that a hacker has stolen old client log-in credentials and that the FBI and cybersecurity company Crowdstrike are investigating. Credentials from as recently as 2024 are reportedly among those stolen. The incident, which is separate from the health-care hack Oracle suffered last month, came to light when a hacker offered to sell millions or lines of data allegedly from 140,000 Oracle Cloud tenants.

03.04 The Western Australia Department of Communities, which is upgrading its aging child protection CRM has been urged to upgrade access permissions and disaster recovery plans by the end of the year. ITNews reports an audit has flagged several issues with the system including around disaster recovery and an inability to obfuscate sensitive information accessible to third-party vendors.

03.04 Ransom gang KillSec has demanded ransoms from a Brisbane tech provider and a Melbourne creative content agency. InformationAge reports a portion of apparent clients for tech provider Hexicor, whose client base includes more than 1,000 government and 1,500 business customers, is included in the breach listing.

AppWrap March 2025

31.03 Canberra quantum company QuintessenceLabs has received $15m from the federal government’s National Reconstruction Fund as part of a $20m funding round for the company. The AFR says the funding is earmarked to help the company expand its manufacturing facilities and grow internationally.

30.03 Ditching your mobile phone won’t stop you being distracted according to a UK study which found it’s not the devices themselves that are distracting people, but how we’ve been trained to constantly check them. ABC News reports the study found people find other ways to distract themselves when their smartphone is out of reach.

30.03 Elon Musk has sold X to his own xAI company in a US$33b all-stock deal, with Musk saying the deal with ‘unlock massive potential’ by blending xAI’s capability with X’s reach. AP reports the deal values xAI at $80b and X at $33 billion according to Musk.

27.03 CSIRO and academics at at least 13 universities have been targeted with questionnaires from US authorities about whether they have received funding from China, are undertaking climate or ‘environmental justice’ projects and more. InformationAge says US authorities have already cut funding to six Australian universities, including ANU, Monash and the University of NSW as part of the Trump administration’s war on universities.

27.03 Fulton Hogan is trialling watch-type devices with its Australian roadworkers to identify traffic threats and alert road workers of danger, RNZ says.

26.03 Around 9,000 sensitive NSW court files, including domestic violence orders and affidavits, have been accessed in a ‘major data breach’ of the NSW Online Registry website. The NSW cybercrime squad has begun an investigation and work is underway to urgently identify and contact affected users, The Guardian reports.

25.03 The ACS has welcomed tax cuts for tech professionals included in the Federal Government’s 2025 Budget. The tax relief measures for IT specialists, software engineers, cybersecurity experts and other digital professionals integral to the economy are a ‘positive step towards retaining and attracting tech talent’ and will enable them to invest more in their careers and upskill. However the ACS says it is concerned about the lack of investment and incentives for the private sector around AI.

25.03 The AFP says it accessed the controversial Auror retail surveillance system 365 times in 2024. Auror is currently under investigation by the OAIC, which had previously been looking at the AFP’s use of the system, InformationAge reports. The AFP had paused use of the Kiwi platform, but began reusing it after a privacy impact assessment was completed at the end of 2023.

23.03 Some of Australia’s biggest organisations are scrambling to check their cybersecurity after a hacker claimed to have breached Oracle Cloud and stolen credentials. Infosec company CloudSek says more than six million records, affecting more than 140,000 tenants, have been exfiltrated in the breach, which has been denied by Oracle. AFR says companies including Australia’s biggest banks, Telstra, Optus, Qantas, Woolworths, Coles and the ASX are among those named by the hacker.

21.03 The Consumer Technology Association, whose members include Microsoft, Samsung and Accenture, has joined others in lobbying for the Trump administration to retaliate against Australia for ‘harmful’ foreign tax rules, the Guardian reports. Their comments come as part of a review that will inform the looming retaliatory tariffs.

20.03 Big tech including Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon and X have lodged a formal compliant calling for the Trump administration to target ‘coercive and discriminatory’ Australian media laws. The Computer and Communications Industry Association says the news media bargaining incentive, which includes a levy for digital platforms, is requires US tech companies to subsidise Australian media companies, the Guardian reports.

19.03 Meta is vowing to curb misinformation, disinformation and deepfakes in Australia ahead of the federal elections in May. The company says it is continuing to work with AFP and the Australian Associated Press for fact checking of content across its platforms. Content debunked by fact-checkers will have warning labels attached and distribution in Feed and Explore will be reduced. A new media literacy campaign with AAP will also be run to help Australians ‘critically assess’ online content.

19.03 Google parent Alphabet is buying cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion in its biggest deal ever. The deal will see Wiz become part of the Google Cloud unit. AP says Wiz, which was started five years ago, is on track for an estimated $1 billion in revenue this year. The acquisition comes as Google faces a potential breakup of its internet empire and at a time when the Trump administration has been inserting itself into major deals such as the TikTok sale.

19.03 Meta is fighting to shut down a memoir from Kiwi whistle-blower and former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams. An emergency arbitration ruling this month saw Wynn-Williams ordered to temporarily stop personally promoting or distributing copies of the book, but does not stop the publisher or its parent from distributing or promoting Careless People. Slate says the memoir is filled with scandal and a portrait of Facebook’s execs as flawed, awkward and hypocritical humans.

19.03 New Zealand has become a ‘fully playable’ destination in the Minecraft world. Six Kiwi destinations, including the Waitomo Caves, Abel Tasman National Park and Doubtful Sound, are downloadable in a move Tourism NZ says is expected to generate $50m in visitor spend this year. The content coincides with the release of A Minecraft Movie next month.

17.03 A new government-backed digital manufacturing hub has opened at Swinburne University of Technology. The hub aims to drive new AI and IoT-powered digital manufacturing technology, such as digital twins, into manufacturing. It received $5m in funding from the Australian Research Council.

17.03 Microsoft’s AI technology and policy lead for Asia and former Australian CTO, Lee Hicken has been appointed as director of the National AI Centre. Hicken says he will take on the new role in May.

13.03 ASIC is suing FIIG Securities for alleged ‘systemic and prolonged’ cybersecurity failures that enabled the theft of 385Gb of confidential data affecting 18,000 clients. ASIC says FIIG failed to take the appropriate steps, as required by an Australian Financial Services licensee to ensure it had adequate cyber risk management systems in place. Hackers entered the network in May 2023 and were not detected until several weeks later – and a week after it had been notified of potential malicious activity by the ACSC. ASIC says the matter should be a wake-up call to all companies on the danger of neglecting cybersecurity systems.

12.03 Atlassian’s Scott Farquhar is taking over as chair of the Tech Council of Australia. Farquhar, who takes over from Robyn Denholm who has led the organisation since it started in 2021, says there is ‘enormous’ potential to expand advocacy in areas including digital infrastructure and emerging technology.

15.03 OpenAI and Elon Musk have agreed to fast-track a trial over OpenAI’s ‘for profit’ shift, though a decision on whether the case will be by jury or judge-alone has been delayed, Reuters reports. Musk has accused OpenAI, which he cofounded, of straying from its founding mission of developing AI for the good of humanity, rather than corporate profit.

12.03 UK business management software provider The Access Group has snapped up Kiwi job management platforms GeoOp and GeoNext for an undisclosed sum. Geo has a strong Australian presence. The Access Group says the deal will expand its offering in ERP software.

12.03 Spain’s government has approved a draft law imposing fines of up to €35 million for not correctly labelling AI-generated content. EuroNews reports the bill classified incorrect AI labelling as a serious offence with penalties of €7.5m to €35m or 2-7 percent of a companies global turnover. Startups and medium-sized companies could receive lower penalties. The move is designed to limit deepfakes.

11.03 The Australian Financial Complaints Authority is to receive new investigative powers to consider the actions of banks receiving scam transactions. Currently scam victims can only raise a dispute with the AFCA against the bank which sent the consumer’s funds. The changes will come into effect in 12 months, the AFCA says.

07.03 A Melbourne man has been ordered to pay $34,990 in compensation and sentenced to 200 hours of community service after swindling $35,000 using the LabHost cybercrime platform which was marketed as a ‘on-stop-shop’ for phishing, the AFP says.

06.03 Google  received 258 user reports about suspected AI-generated deepfake terrorist or violent extremist material or activity generated by its Gemini AI in the 11 months to the end of Feb 2024. The figures were released by eSafety, which wants tech companies to do more when it comes to tackling terrorist and violent extremist material and activity on their platforms. The eSafety transparency report details what companies are doing to prevent misuse of their platform.

06.03 A ransomware group is threatening to publish data, including valid passport documents, it claims it has stolen from Wendy Wu Tours. CyberDaily reports that the amount of data stolen isn’t revealed on the darknet leak site, but several documents are shared as evidence of the hack including nine scans of passports belonging to residents of Australia, the UK and Germany, and a passenger pre-travel form which includes names, addresses, emergency contacts and frequent flyer numbers.

06.03 The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has dropped its investigation into the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership, concluding that despite Microsoft investing billions into OpenAI and having exclusive users of some of the company’s AI products, the relationship remains the same as previously and is not subject to review under merger rules, the BBC says.

05.03 Australian organisations will spend almost $6.2 billion on information security and risk management products and services in 2025, an increase of 14.4 percent, year on year, Gartner says.

05.03 Microsoft has launched two sales AI agents to its lineup. Sales Agent and Sales Chat will initially connect to Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. Agent will ‘help grow your pipeline’ researching leads, reaching out to customers and setting up meetings, while Chat will provide insights from CRM data, pitch decks, meetings, emails and the web. Both will be released for public preview in May, Microsoft says.

04.03 Meta, TikTok and Snapchat have hit out at the Albanese government’s plan to exempt YouTube from a social media ban for under-16s, calling the move irrational, indefensible and a ‘sweetheart deal’. The platforms made individual submissions to a government consultation process on the ban arguing Google-owned YouTube should not be treated differently, the Guardian reports.

03.03 Microsoft is cancelling data centre leases and increasing subscription prices for 365 software by up to 45 percent, in a push to make users carry AI costs, Queensland University of Technology and UNSW Sydney academics write in The Conversation. Kevin Witzenberger and Michael Richardson say Microsoft’s moves are indicative of a change in strategy to make AI profitable by shifting the cost onto consumers in ‘non-obvious’ ways.

02.03 Thousands of Microsoft 365 customers have been hit by outages which locked many out of accounts, including Outlook and Azure. Most impact was felt in the US. AP reports Microsoft has identified a potential cause of impact and reverted the suspected code to alleviate impact.

AppWrap February 2025

28.02 Apple is introducing ‘age assurance’ technology which allows parents to input the child’s age without sharing sensitive information like birthdays. Parents can instead share a general ‘age range’ rather than an exact birthday or other identifying information, the Canberra Times reports. The offering comes as the Australian government looks to require social media platforms to take ‘reasonable steps’ to assure the age of users. Social media platforms have previously called for app stores to be required to do the checking.

27.02 The FBI says North Korea was behind the theft of around US$1.5b in Ethereum virtual assets from the Bybit cryptocurrency exchange last month. Some of the assets have been converted into Bitcoin and other virtual assets which have been dispersed across thousands of address on multiple blockchains and are expected to be further laundered and then converted to fiat currency, the FBI says.

28.02 After more than 20 years, Microsoft is shutting down Skype, which it acquired in 2011 for US$8.5b. The company, which says Skype will be retired in May, has been focusing on Microsoft Teams for a number of years.

26.02 Australian IVF company Genea says obtained an interim injunction from the Supreme Court for an injunction to attempt to prevent patient data stolen during a cyberattack earlier this month being disseminated or used. The company says its patient management systems containing patient data were accessed by an unauthorised third party but it is unknown what personal data has been compromised at this time.

25.02 A review of the SAP-based Parliamentary Expense Management System says the benefits used to justify the original $38m expense have only ‘partially’ been realised, with the results not glowing. A two-year uplift is underway to deliver missing functions in a more suer friendly way, InnovationAus reports.

24.02 A report into the ATO’s AI use has raised questions about the design and explainability of the models when flagging individuals for auditing. The Australian National Audit Office audit questions design decisions made around work-related expense models, and the extent to which the ATO can be assured models are free from bias, meet modern data ethics standards and produce easily explainable results, ITnews reports.

24.02 The Australian government is banning products and web services from Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky on all government devices and systems, saying it poses an ‘unacceptable security risk’. Canada, the UK and the US have already announced restrictions on Kaspersky software, leaving just New Zealand remaining of the Five Eyes countries. TechCrunch reports Kaspersky’s spokesperson as saying the company is disappointed with the decision with the directive which was issued without warning.

23.02 Treasurer Jim Chalmers has headed to Washington as Trump and a top trade advisor hit out at countries levying additional taxes on American tech companies. The AFR says Trump’s recent comments accusing overseas governments of plundering the revenues of US tech companies are the strongest signal yet that his administration will retaliate against Australia’s proposed media bargaining code, which would force tech platforms to pay for news or face penalties.

23.02 Hackers have stolen $1.5 billion from Dubai-based crypto platform Bybit’s Ethereum digital wallet in what is believed to be the biggest crypto theft in history. The company, which holds $20b in assets, has told users their funds were ‘safe’ and it will refund those affected, the BBC reports. Hackers ‘exploited’ security features and transferred the money to an unidentified address.

19.02 Microsoft has unveiled a quantum computing chip, which it says could bring quantum computing within years. Microsoft says the Majorana 1 chip, developed after 17 years research, features a ‘breakthrough’ material, the topoconductor, a category of material that can create an entirely new state of matter which isn’t solid, liquid or gas, The Guardian reports. Microsoft says Majorana 1 could potentially fit a million qubits onto a single chip not much bigger than a desktop CPU.The claims have, however, been questioned by some physicists, according to the WSJ.

17.02 The Albanese government is reportedly halting plans to begin designing its News Media Bargaining Incentive policy over fears of a Trump backlash. The SMH (paywalled) says the delay is due to fears the policy will be seen as being unfairly targeted towards the US and result in reciprocal tariffs on Australian exports.

15.02 OpenAI’s board has unanimously rejected a US$97 billion takeover bid by Elon Musk, saying the company is not for sale and dubbing Musk’s bid his ‘latest attempt to disrupt his competition’. AP notes Musk, an early OpenAI investor, sued for breach of contract a year ago over what he called a betrayal of OpenAi’s founding aims as a non-profit. The company is increasingly seeking to capitalise on the commercial success of generative AI, but first needs to buy out the non-profits assets. Musk was attempting to buy the non-profit.

13.02 An AI ‘Bail Assistant’ to promopt the use of correct bail criteria for NSW bail hearings has been paused after preliminary models proved problematic, with the NSW Judicial Commission deciding the assistant wouldn’t make judgements more accurate or restore public confidence. InformationAge reports that the assistant failed to incorporate all of the mandatory tests and was just as difficult for users to navigate.

12.02 Five Russians and the ZServers platform have been sanctioned by the Australian government for enabling the 2022 Medibank data breach. The five individuals are the owner of ZServers and staff members. It is the first time Australia has imposed cyber sanctions against an entity, the Australian Federal Police note.

11.02 Airservices Australia has selected Australia’s AvSoft and Yarra Drones and US-based OneSky to participate in the first round of technical integration with a new data-sharing platform designed to enable drones and other uncrewed craft to be seamlessly incorporated into Australian airspace. The Flight Information Management System will enable Airservices to share flight information between air traffic control, traditional aircraft and uncrewed airspace users, Airservices Australia says.

11.02 The US and UK have both refused to sign a declaration on ‘inclusive and sustainable’ AI at a Paris summit. Sixty other signatories, including Australia and New Zealand, France, China and Canada, signed the document which calls for priorities to ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy and sustainable. The Guardian says the UK says the statement has not gone far enough in addressing global governance of AI and its impact on national security, while the US has criticised ‘excessive regulation’ of technology and warned against cooperating with China.

11.02 US vice president JD Vance has criticised Europe’s ‘excessive regulation’ saying it could cripple the AI industry, Time reports.

11.02 Microsoft is adjusting its Office-Teams pricing in an effort to avoid an EU trust fine, Reuters reports. The company has offered to widen the price differential between Office with Teams and without Teams in a move which could help rivals offer their own products at competitive prices and entice users to switch to them.

10.02 University of NSW’s Bronwyn Fox and Australia’s Temporary AI Expert Group are among those who have contributed to a new 300-page International AI Safety Report. The report looks at risks and safety of general-purpose AI risks including large-scale labour market impacts, scams, non-consensual imagery, bias, hacking and loss of control over AI. It notes a need for policymakers and governments to have access to the current scientific understanding on risks and calls for global collaboration to take advantage of opportunities.

08.02 Meta is cutting five percent of its workforce – or potentially around 4,000 jobs – on Monday as part of its performance-based job cuts. Workers in more than a dozen countries outside the US will be notified via work and personal emails and will lose access to systems within an hour of being informed, Business Insider says.

07.02 Some Australian Salesforce staff are among those impacted by the company’s lay-off of 1,000 staff, ARN says. It says it appears some partner account managers have been laid off.

05.02 AirTrunk founder and CEO Robin Khuda’s Khuda Family Foundation has made the largest ever donation to the University of Sydney, donating $100m to fund a 20-year program to create a pathway for Western Sydney girls into Stem careers. The University says it is one of the largest investments in women in Stem globally and will include tutoring, mentoring and university scholarships.

06.02 Workday is laying off 1,750 employees, or around 8.5 percent of its global workforce, saying it is realigning resources in light of increasing demand for AI and its potential to drive growth for Workday, FastCompany reports.

05.02 The Australian Cyber Security Centre has joined other Five Eyes agencies in issuing a ‘publication series’ on securing edge devices after observing an increase in targeted attacks on the devices. It has released four documents, covering mitigation strategies for edge devices for both executives and practitioners, security consideration for edge devices and guidance on digital forensics and protective monitoring specifications for producers of network devices and appliances. “Failing to secure these network perimeters is equivalent to leaving doors open,” ACSC says.

05.02 DeepSeek has been banned from all government devices and systems over security risks. The government says the ban is not due to the app’s Chinese origins but instead because of the ‘unacceptable risk’ it poses to national security, the BBC reports. It is unclear if the ban includes the wider public sector, such as schools.

04.02 Salesforce is cutting 1,000 jobs – while continuing a hiring push for AI-focused sales roles. Bloomberg says it is unclear which divisions will be impacted, and staff will be able to apply for other jobs within Salesforce. The company had nearly 73,000 staff a year ago.

04.02 The government has postponed plans to toughen online safety requirements for platforms until after the election. A government review has recommended penalties of up to five percent of global annual turnover or $50 million, for breaching duty of care but the regime will require legislation, with no timeline to legislate before the election, ABC says. There is also no timeline for revealing whether the fine regime will be adopted.

04.02 Mastercard plans to phase out credit card numbers by 2030, replacing them with tokenisation and biometric authentication. AMP Bank will offer Australia’s first numberless cards with others expected to follow, Queensland University of Technology academics note in The Conversation.

03.02 The ASD’s Australian Cyber Security Centre is warning of email scammers impersonating the ACSC, asking recipients to provide personal information, money or download software. It says organisations or individuals impacted and needing assistance should contact it.

03.02 A crackdown on outsourcing has saved NSW $450m. The bulk of the savings came from controls to limit the number of individual contractors doing the work of public servants, InnovationAus reports.

03.02 The Australian government has renewed its whole-of-government cloud sourcing deal with AWS for a further three years. The first AU$39m agreement, signed in 2019 ended up costing nearly $391m and was expanded in 2022 in a $174m deal. No price was given for the new deal, which the DTA says will reduce time, effort and resources to procure AWS services.

03.02 ASIC has launched an investigation into a December outage of the ASX’s embattled Chess system. The outage saw settlement of trading delayed and was blamed on a network issue that had remained undetected for nearly a decade. It paid out around $1m in rebates for the failure. The ASX says it has been notified of the investigation.

AppWrap January 2025

31.01 The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to block HPE’s proposed US$14b acquisition of Juniper Networks, citing antitrust concerns. HPE and Juniper both say they will ‘vigorously defend’ the deal in court.

29.01 The Australian government has granted $6.4 million to the not-for-profit cyber threat intelligence provider CI-ISAC to establish a health-focused cybersecurity threat sharing network. CI-ISAC (Critical Infrastructure – Information Sharing and Analysis Centre) has developed a health cyber sharing network with the funding, aiming to protect Australia’s health sector from cyber threats through enhanced collaboration and intelligence sharing, Australian Cyber Security reports.

29.01 The National Reconstruction Fund has taken a $32m equity investment in medical AI company Harrison.ai. The funding will ensure the company continues to base its operations in Australia and will enable it to continue its global expansion and further develop its suite of radiology and pathology diagnostic capabilities, the NRF says.

28.01 US President Trump has claimed Microsoft is in discussions to buy TikTok’s US operations. Trump made the claim to reporters aboard Air Force One. He signed an executive order extending the deadline for ByteDance to divest from TikTok a day after a law banning it came into effect. The outcome of the proposed deal is expected to be revealed in the coming days, Newsweek says.

28.01 Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler has been named digital economy and science shadow minister as part of a reshuffle by opposition leader Peter Dutton. Chandler takes over the role from Paul Fletcher, who is leaving politics at the forthcoming federal election. Western Sydney MP Melissa McIntosh has also been promoted to the role of shadow minister for communications, StartupDaily reports.

25.01 TechnologyOne founder Adrian Di Marco and Professor Bronwyn Fox, deputy vice chancellor of research and enterprise at the University of NSW are among those recognised in the Australia Day Honours. Two former NASA employees, Curtin University of Technology’s Leonie Rennie and the RAAF’s Brad Sheldon were also among those honoured for technology-related work, InformationAge reports.

24.01 Road Ninja, a Kiwi developed subscription online marketplace for commercial drivers, is expanding into Australia, focusing on the fly-in, fly-out driving jobs in the mining sector. The company claims to have onboarded more than 500 drivers and 100 companies in its first year in New Zealand, facilitating more than $1 million in transactions, NZ Trucking reports.

23.01 Australian tech workers are the highest paid workers in Australia, earning $20/hour more than the average employee according to Employment Hero’s SmartMatch Employment Report. Science and tech sector wages were up four percent in December, month on month, and six percent yoy, InformationAge reports.

20.01 Disaster experts are urging Australian governments to invest heavily in new technologies such as firefighting drones, water gliders, AI-powered fire detection, remote sensors, satellites and live feeds to fire fighters to fight future fires in Australia. Experts are calling for a multi-layered approach to hit fires early and stop them exploding into mega-blazes, ABC News reports.

23.01 LinkedIn is being sued for disclosing customer information to train AI models. The class action filed on behalf of millions of premium users alleges the Microsoft-owned platform disclosed private messages to third parties without permission to train models, and then attempted to ‘cover their tracks’ by quietly introducing a privacy setting  to enable or disable sharing, and updating its privacy policy, Reuters reports.

23.01 US President Donald Trump has announced a $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to build a network of data centres and the infrastructure to power AI development in the US. The Guardian reports the move comes just a day after Trump reversed predecessor Joe Biden’s executive order on AI safety standards.

17.01 Canberra Commonwealth Bank of Australia customers will be able to share their Medicare credentials for identity verification in one of the first proof of concepts for the Trust Exchange (TEx). IDTechWire reports participants will be able to use the myGov app to scan a QR code and share verified information from a test Medicare card, with the bank receiving government-verified details, but not sensitive information such as Medicare numbers. TEx aims to reduce the need to share personal information and hard copy documents.

13.01 Microsoft 365 users have taken to Reddit to discuss ‘workarounds’ to avoid being automatically upgraded to more expensive Microsoft plans, featuring AI, after the vendor began hiking prices by up to 45 percent. Microsoft says existing subscribers on recurring billing can switch to plans without Copilot or AI credits, or for a limited time to M365 Personal Classic or Family Classic plans, but some users have complained that Microsoft hasn’t made it clear that automatically moving to the more expensive plans with AI features could be avoided, InformationAge reports.

06.01 Canberra-based hyperscale cloud computing provider Vault Cloud has received a $22.5 million investment from the National Reconstruction Fund. The investment is the first in the NRF’s defence capability priority area, the NRF says.

For 2024 news from around the web head over to the 2024 AppWrap archive.

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