Let’s be honest, even just writing this sentence has meant engaging with some very basic artificial intelligence (AI) as the computer checks my spelling and grammar. Ultimately, the quality and integrity of the finished article are a human responsibility. But the questions this raises go well beyond everyday word processing. Powerful AI is now changing… Read more »
Australian entrepreneur Ned Dwyer has reason to celebrate, after Great Question, the San Francisco-based startup he co-founded in 2020, raised $20 million (US$13 million) in venture capital investment. And the Series A round has also prompted Dwyer to reflect on his experiences as an expat in Silicon Valley, and what has changed since for fellow… Read more »
Victorian agtech startup Drone-Hand has raised $720,000 in a pre-Seed round for its autonomous livestock management platform. The raise was led by US VC Radius Capital, supported by three local agribusiness investors Gippsland-based Edward Barraclough founded Drone-Hand in 2023, having grown up in NSW on a mixed livestock property. The idea was inspired by an… Read more »
Australia’s top national security bureaucrat used an AI chatbot to ghostwrite speeches and messages to his colleagues, internal documents show. As Finance Minister Katy Gallagher announces a significant government-wide AI plan to promote its use in the public service, Crikey has used freedom of information (FOI) laws to reveal how a government employee is already using the nascent… Read more »
A Sydney AI-powered ecommerce startup focused on customer satisfaction during delivery – known in the trade as WISMO (Where is my order?) – has raised $2.3 million in pre-Seed funding. The round for Keeyu was led by Rampersand, with support from Archangel, Startmate, Empress Capital, Exhort Ventures, Sydney Angels, Southern Angels, and others including Marketplacer’s… Read more »
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 »
In September, US electric car maker Tesla rolled out a semi-autonomous driving feature it describes as “the future of transport” in Australia. As its name suggests, the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system blurs the line between human and machine control. Our current licensing and road-safety frameworks were not designed to handle this situation. A federal government… 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 »
The federal government’s $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) has invested $54 million in Australian founder Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) medical devices company Synchron as part of a US$200 million (A$305m) Series D. Synchron was spun out of University of Melbourne by cofounders Dr Tom Oxley, Prof Nicholas Opie, and Dr Rahul Sharma in 2012. The company is… 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 »
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