Kiwi tech tackles pesky predators

Kia ora! Welcome to New Zealand’s weekly roundup of AI news, events, jobs and education.

A new addition to the weekly The AI Corner newsletter is our podcast section (no extra emails), spotlighting Kiwis driving forward the local and global AI ecosystem.

Happy reading ✌️

This week’s highlights:

🐀 Kiwi tech tackles pest problems
🔌 Vector's AI eye watches networks
🏊 AI designs Aussie dream homes
🎙️ Joe Sutheran: how I build with AI
🚀 Adelaide & Perth join AI race
🤝 Trump x UAE open AI floodgates
📚️ Levelling up with AI: 3 use cases
🏉 AI fakes target women’s NRL star
🚢 UK Navy eyes Aussie water tech

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ELECTRICITY SECTOR

🔌 Vector's AI eye in the sky

📣 Word On The Street: Vector's GridAware tech combines drones, helicopters and AI to inspect Auckland's entire power network (17,000KM worth) every 2.5 years.

🔍 Zooming In:

• The system will complete 170,000 overhead network inspections with AI-powered analysis.

• Traditional pole-climbing inspections replaced by airborne imaging and machine learning.

• The $7M Google partnership powers machine learning that identifies network faults.

🏘️ Our Take: As extreme weather events become more common, this technology gives us an edge in grid resilience. By identifying vulnerable sections before they fail, Vector can harden infrastructure against the next big storm. The system's rapid inspection capability also means faster recovery times when the inevitable outages do occur. The Vector-Google collaboration demonstrates how local infrastructure companies can partner with global tech giants to solve local challenges while developing intellectual property with international export value.

ROBOTS

🤖 Robots: From brain surgeons to caregivers

📣 Word On The Street: Jim Mora (RNZ reporter) interviews award-winning tech journalist Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson on how Robots are entering the workforce faster than regulations can keep up.

🔍 Zooming In:

• JP Morgan declares 2026 the "Year of Physical AI" as robots walk among us.

• Rice-sized surgical robots can reach parts of the brain human doctors can't.

• Factory robots costing just US$20,000 are quickly replacing human workers.

🏘️ Our Take: With robots costing as little as US$20,000 performing everything from brain surgery to elderly care, New Zealand needs to prepare for substantial workplace disruption. Jim Mora's interview with tech journalist Kurt Knutsson highlights our critical challenge: harnessing these technologies for breakthroughs while ensuring robots augment rather than replace our workforce. The time for strategic education and regulatory frameworks is now, not after the robots arrive.

AI x NATURE

🐀 Kiwi tech tackles pesky predator problems

📣 Word On The Street: Twenty cutting-edge tools developed through $8M funding are transforming pest management with AI detection and remote monitoring.

🔍 Zooming In:

• Next-gen tech has already generated millions in revenue sales to developers.

• Tools like AI cameras maintain predator-free space across tens of thousands of hectares in NZ.

• International buyers from Guam to Scotland are snapping up Kiwi-made pest control tech.

🏘️ Our Take: The tools bridging our rural-urban divide are transforming how we manage land and remote patrols. Farmers and DOC rangers can now monitor traps from their phones, receiving instant alerts when pests are detected across valleys or mountains. These systems mean rural communities get the conservation benefits without the constant boots-on-ground costs that made predator control prohibitively expensive for isolated regions. This suite of smart tools doesn’t just protect our native birds, it's establishing New Zealand as a global leader in conservation tech. From ceramic lures that work for months to AI cameras that instantly recognise predators, these innovations represent a massive leap forward in our Predator Free 2050 vision while creating new export opportunities in an emerging green tech sector.

🎙️ Latest from The AI Corner podcast

Last week we added a new arm to The AI Corner family, launching The AI Corner Podcast on Spotify and YouTube. Perfect for your commute or morning coffee ritual.

Episode one featured Salesforce pioneer‑turned‑AI-consultant Dan Fowlie, who reveals how GPT‑4 ignited his leap into hands‑on AI, why tech build costs are plummeting, and how Kiwis can seize the opportunity.

Our guest on episode 2 of The AI Corner podcast is Joe Sutheran.

Joe Sutheran shares how he upskilled from marketing analyst to AI specialist, mastering system instructions, building agent-powered workflows, and championing human-centric automation that any business can adopt.

Enjoy on Spotify or YouTube 🎧

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

🤖 Auckland Uni and FRAMECAD AI-Robotics partnership blooms. The University of Auckland's Industrial AI Research Group and FRAMECAD Ltd are partnering to develop collaborative robots that boost manufacturing productivity, showcasing how academic-business partnerships can drive practical AI implementation in NZ.
2-min watch.

💰 Non-profit funding gets smarter. A five-person Whanganui team has created an AI service helping regional non-profits secure grants, launching at Techweek on May 20. Their success-fee model means organisations only pay when funding is secured.
2-min read.

📡 Spark's AI transition cuts jobs. The telco giant is reportedly moving forward with a major outsourcing agreement affecting its networking team, with approximately 200 positions potentially being eliminated as operations shift to Nokia.
2-min read.

🎬 BBC's AI playbook lands in NZ. Laura Ellis revealed how the British broadcaster balances AI innovation with journalistic integrity across 3,000 weather forecasts and wildlife footage analysis. Her AUT talk comes as RNZ seeks its first AI chief.
6-min read.

🛍️ What’s Left On The Shelf

• AI holds up a flattering mirror to Kiwi Culture: understated brilliance; deep connection to place; community-focused; and dry humour.
  3-min read.

• Marlborough Boys College Director of E-Learning champions human skills grounded in Maori principles as AI reshapes intelligence.
  25-min listen.

• AI in the shadows: What your team isn't telling you about AI use.
  3-min read.

🦘 From Across the Ditch

🚀 Adelaide joins AI race. South Australia's capital is rapidly transforming from manufacturing hub to AI innovation centre with companies like Legal Oracle processing 1.2 million pages of legal text. The city's upcoming AI Day on May 16th will showcase local talent.
3-min read.

🌐 Perth's data centre boom incoming. Western Australia's capital is positioning itself as Australia's next data centre hub as Sydney and Melbourne struggle with land and power constraints. Australia attracted $6.7 billion in data centre investment last year, ranking second globally behind the US ($14.5 billion).
2-min read.

🏊 AI designs unliveable dream homes. Domain's search data reveals swimming pools are the #1 feature Australians want in their dream homes, followed by views and granny flats. These preferences were fed to ChatGPT to generate ideal homes, the results were stunning but impractical waterfront properties with non-compliant pools awkwardly placed in front yards.
4-min read.

🏥 Aussie health-tech outpaces Canva. Heidi Health has surged past Canva to become Blackbird Ventures' fastest-growing portfolio company ever, hitting $23 million in annual recurring revenue just 12 months after launch. The AI medical documentation company spent four years perfecting compliance with healthcare regulations before deploying its software globally, now valued at over $100 million.
2-min read.

🏉 AI deepfakes target rugby star. NRLW Gold Coast Titans player Jaime Chapman has called out the "damaging" impact of AI-generated fake photos after becoming a repeated target. "Next time think of how damaging this can be to someone and their loved ones," the 23-year-old NSW Blues player wrote on Instagram.
3-min read.

🌍 The News from Global

🤝 Trump opens AI floodgates with the UAE. The UAE has secured unprecedented access to 500,000 Nvidia's top AI chips annually as part of a groundbreaking US$200B agreement signed during Trump's Middle East tour. This deal transforms the global AI landscape by creating a third major power centre beyond the US and China, while requiring the UAE to align its national security regulations with American standards.
4-min read.

💬 ChatGPT becomes life coach. Different generations have distinct ChatGPT usage patterns, with Gen Z and millennials using it as a "life advisor" while boomers stick to basic search queries. Experts remain divided on whether it's wise to trust AI for major life decisions.
2-min read.

🚢 Aussie underwater drones impress UK Navy. AI-equipped underwater gliders from Perth have been demonstrated to British naval commanders, offering three-month autonomous missions without human oversight. These affordable drones analyse undersea acoustic data 40 times faster than humans, potentially revolutionising naval surveillance across AUKUS partners.
3-min read.

🌏 Tech Updates You Should Know

• OpenAI: Leak confirms OpenAI's ChatGPT will integrate MCP (huge development). Enterprise adoption soars, now used by 32.4% of US firms (of 40% of US firms adopting AI), with $12.7B revenue forecast for 2025. Restructuring talks with Microsoft aim to halve its revenue share and pave IPO path. Ships Codex for long-form code automation, launches GPT‑4.1 quietly, and unveils a new Safety Hub.

• Microsoft: Lays off 7,000 (mostly engineers) as AI investment ramps. SharePoint gains ChatGPT search integration.

• Google: Gemini lands across cars, watches, TVs, and XR. Accessibility boost lets “TalkBack” users ask Gemini about on‑screen content. AlphaEvolve self-evolves new math algorithms.

• Anthropic: Claude Sonnet and Opus updates incoming. MCP x Anthropic course with Andrew Ng recently released to educate on building with MCP (recently completed, would recommend it. Warning that it did hit the upper limits of my technical knowledge!).

• Alibaba: Launches ZeroSearch, slashing AI search training costs by 88%, no API needed.

• Meta: Delays Llama “Behemoth” model after weak internal tests.

• Apple: iOS 19 to feature AI battery optimiser that adapts to your usage in real time.

• Salesforce: Acquires Convergence.ai to supercharge AI agents; shifts pricing to per-action “Flex Credits”.

• Duolingo / Klarna: Duolingo’s AI-first model triggers TikTok revolt; Klarna quietly rehires support staff.

• xAI: Grok goes rogue, and prompt tampering sparks political bias.

• Sakana AI: Launches brain-like Continuous Thought Machine (CTM) for more human-style reasoning.

• China: Launches world’s first orbital AI cloud with 12 satellites, a floating GPU cluster (think AWS, but in space).

📚️ Levelling Up With AI

I ditched the ‘MayAI’ concept in favour of creating short form content out of the podcasts recorded. Here’s our favourite snippets from the week:

1️⃣ The AI revolution is all about building an AI orchestra around you: Dan leverages one agent to build, another to check their work. Apply this logic to any task (not just coding) and our focus shifts from fixing to deciding what from the AI output stays. Our future role is a conductor of our own team of AI Agents.
100-second clip.

2️⃣ Joe’s ingenious YouTube channel summariser is Kiwi AI curiosity in action: automatically emailing 48-hour digests of favourite channels, saving countless viewing hours while showcasing how personalised AI adoption tools are accessible to anyone willing to tinker.
105-second clip.

3️⃣ AI is flattening traditional workplace hierarchies by democratising tech capabilities: while coding and specialised skills become baseline requirements, the true differentiators emerge as uniquely human traits like emotional intelligence, vision-casting, and leadership that inspire others on the journey that no algorithm can replicate.
39-second clip.

📅 AI Events in New Zealand

24 events this week around the country & online this week. Busy month to be an AI enthusiast with 53 events under our belt after this week!

This week’s featured event:

• Auckland - Will AI Save Us?, May 14th: Join AUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Damon Salesa and BBC Head of Technology Futures Laura Ellis for a thought-provoking conversation on navigating today's dangerous information landscape at AUT's City Campus.

💼  AI Roles Around Aotearoa

Picklist of 🌶️ HOT 🌶️ roles in AI.

• Gen AI Engineer - Accenture, Auckland

• Video Editor & Motion Graphics Specialist - Morningside AI, Auckland

• AI Data Engineer - Gallagher, Hamilton

🤦‍♂️ AI Fail Of The Week

We all love AI, but it’s certainly far from perfect…

That’s all for this week!

Got news, events, or jobs? Hit reply (or, link here) — we love spotlighting what's happening across Aotearoa!

Until next week,

👋 Mike & Erin