For 16 hours last July, Elon Musk’s company lost control of its multi-million-dollar chatbot, Grok. “Maximally truth seeking” Grok was praising Hitler, denying the Holocaust and posting sexually explicit content. An xAI engineer had left Grok with an old set of instructions, never meant for public use. They were prompts telling Grok to “not shy… Read more »
Startups are raising capital later. Often with more traction. All of which is lowering the risk to investors, thanks to AI-enabled product development. Welcome to the shifting Australian startup ecosystem. Investments in AI have dominated the headlines of late. Globally record sums are being poured into the space, with forecasts suggesting AI could add $600 billion to… Read more »
Gold Coast AI workforce startup Zeligate has raised $500,000 in a Seed round. The deal California B2B early-stage VC DNX Ventures, which also has an office in Tokyo and principal based in Australia, making its first local investment. Zeligate will look to raise a Series A in 12 months to end 2026. Founded in 2023… Read more »
Microsoft will offer refunds after admitting that it “fell short of our standards” by failing to inform users of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite that they could have stayed with a cheaper version of the suite that did not include the tech giant’s Copilot AI features. The move relates to the October 2024 introduction of… Read more »
In the short time since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) products have become increasingly ubiquitous and advanced. These machines aren’t limited to text – they can now generate photos, videos and audio in a way that’s blurring the line between what’s real and what’s not. They’ve also been woven into… Read more »
Form-building startup Paperform has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) platform, called Stepper, to help small businesspeople automate workflows. Paperform, which founders Dean and Diony McPherson bootstrapped for the past decade, now has more than 23,000 subscription users globally. Stepper is the next logical step: automation for business people to scale without adding complexity or cost, Dean,… Read more »
Australian technology leaders are losing sleep over increasing regulatory complexity, growing damage from ransomware, and the challenges of near-ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfakes, a new survey by cybersecurity body ISACA has found. Generative AI (genAI) and large language models will drive the agenda in 2026, with 64% of Oceania respondents to ISACA’s 2026 Tech… Read more »
Australian design unicorn Canva has unveiled its biggest product overhaul in its 12 years, as part of what it is calling its ‘Creative Operating System’. The blockbuster new system features Canva’s own large language model trained specifically for design, and permanently free access to the Affinity professional design tool, and new features to help you… Read more »
Melbourne compliance and data privacy startup SecurePII has raised US$3.5 million (A$5m) in Seed funding. The round was led by Sydney VC Tidal Ventures. SecurePII was founded by Jason Thals, Haydn Faltyn and Bill Placke, self-confessed skiers, mountain climbers, soccer players, cyclists, marathon runners, campers, golfers, paragliders and travellers who are “into motorbikes, sports cars, woodwork, Lego, science fiction,… Read more »
Over the coming weeks ahead of the TechStars Sydney Demo the Future evening on December 8, Startup Daily is profiling the 12 startups and their founders in the 2025 cohort. We kick things off with AI clinical note taking platform VetNotes. Startup: VetNotes Founder: Mitch Sigley One-liner: AI Scribe for Veterinarians What’s the problem… Read more »
Buying and selling online with e-commerce is old news. We’re entering the age of A-commerce, where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly able to shop for us. At the end of September, OpenAI launched its “Buy it in ChatGPT” trial in the United States, using AI agents built to interact with us to do more of… Read more »
The federal Labor government has flatly rejected calls from the likes of Google, OpenAI, and the Productivity Commission to carve out a copyright exemption for AI training data.
Melbourne data security engineering platform Redactive AI has been acquired by pan-Pacific data management firm RecordPoint. The startup, cofounded by ex-Atlassians Andrew Pankevicius and Alexander Valente, plus AI Engineer Lucas Sargent, exits after just two years in business. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Their goal was to tackle the missing AI engineering… Read more »
I’m personally pro-tech and use AI every day. I’m genuinely excited by progressive tools that expand what creators and businesses can do. But the pace of what’s happening — and how it’s being rolled out — has been eye-jarring: creators sidelined, copyright murky at best, implementation racing ahead of consent. Right now it feels like a land-grab: who can… Read more »
PredicTx Health, a University of Melbourne spin-out that uses AI to personalise chemo dosing based on body composition analysis, has raised $1.6 million. The funding came from the University’s Genesis Pre-Seed Fund, a government grant and angel investment and will be used to commercialise a world-first AI-powered precision oncology platform. PredicTx was cofounded Professor Justin… Read more »
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