Sydney AI security startup Dam Secure has raised $6.1 million (US$4m) in a Seed round led by Washington, DC-based cybersecurity and AI investor, Paladin Capital Group. Dam Secure, founded by Patrick Collins and Simon Harloff, is developing an AI-native platform for organisations to manage the security risks created by the rapid adoption of AI coding… Read more »
Google reads and summarises your email as to-do list. Powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, the new feature will bake AI summaries directly into users’ Gmail accounts along with buttons to write AI-generated responses, set up calendar events, and provide summaries of email threads, according to preview footage. By checking which people you email… Read more »
On December 14 2025, a terrorist attack occurred at Bondi Beach in Sydney Australia, leaving 15 civilians and one gunman dead. While Australia was still reeling in shock, social media saw the rapid spread of misinformation generated and powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI). For example, a manipulated video of New South Wales Premier Chris… Read more »
The National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) has invested $20 million in neuroscience startup Omniscient Neurotechnology as part of an ongoing $36 million Series D. NRF is co-leading the round with OIF Ventures, taking a preferred equity stake. Omniscient, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the complexity of the human brain by mapping an… Read more »
Woolworths has announced a partnership with Google to incorporate agentic artificial intelligence into its “Olive” chatbot, starting in Australia later this year. Until now, Olive has largely answered questions, resolved problems and directed shoppers to information. Soon, Olive will be able to do more: planning meals, interpreting handwritten recipes, applying loyalty discounts and placing suggested… Read more »
From smart Lego bricks to robots big and small. Annual technology showcase CES (formerly Consumer Electronics Show) returned to Las Vegas this week, highlighting some of the most interesting new consumer products coming in 2026, and beyond. While the event showed yet again that generative AI continues to be integrated into everything from fridges to… Read more »
Australia’s eSafety commission has issued a please explain to Elon Musk’s social media site, X, and his generative AI chatbot Grok following complaints about it making sexual images of women and children. The federal government body said there had been a small number of complaints about Grok being used to generate sexualised or exploitative imagery.… Read more »
Attempts at communicating what generative artificial intelligence (AI) is and what it does have produced a range of metaphors and analogies. From a “black box” to “autocomplete on steroids”, a “parrot”, and even a pair of “sneakers”, the goal is to make the understanding of a complex piece of technology accessible by grounding it in… Read more »
The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates data centres will consume 6% of Australia’s grid-supplied electricity by 2030. To put that in context, that’s more than the current share of Australia’s healthcare and social assistance industry. This reflects the rapid growth of Australia’s data centre industry – the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI). This growth is,… Read more »
A developer on my team came to me recently with an unusual request: “Will, can you please give me more work? I’ve finished everything.” That moment captured the promise – and the peril – of the AI revolution. Productivity gains are real. Finance professionals are drafting reports in half the time. Developers are coding faster.… Read more »
X (formerly Twitter) has become a site for the rapid spread of artificial intelligence-generated nonconsensual sexual images (also known as “deepfakes”). Using the platform’s own built-in generative AI chatbot, Grok, users can edit images they upload through simple voice or text prompts. Various media outlets have reported that users are using Grok to create sexualised… Read more »
As wall calendars are replaced and the fireworks smoke dissipates, our colleagues at SmartCompany put together an annual list of startups they’ll be paying close attention to in the year ahead. The 2026 list includes startups capturing carbon emissions in concrete, making life easier for parents with autistic children, launching rockets into space, and more.… Read more »
When Jake Shelley and Joseph Pons, former senior leaders at Deputy, launched their Sydney startup Jiffi in 2023, they started with a simple thesis: the tech industry is broken. Software oversaturation has left companies burdened with fragmented systems and inefficient processes that technology alone cannot repair. So as tech set out to build yet another… Read more »
As Payday Super comes into force, along with growing focus on artificial intelligence, Employment Hero founder Ben Thompson identifies 5 key trends he believes will play a role in the world of work in the year ahead. 1. Compliance and cash flow will be the dominant pressure point for employers Australia is already one of… Read more »
Getting the most out of AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity requires the right know-how and prompting skills. These founder tips are an excellent starting point. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek are only becoming more prevalent in the workplace. But getting the most out of those artificial intelligence tools requires the right know-how and prompting… Read more »
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