NZ AI investment: big money vs green voices

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

We've been flat out preparing for and recording our first podcast, launching this week (when we can squeeze it in!).

Also, Trump's latest headline-grab: papal dress-up photos.

When asked who he would like to succeed Pope Francis, Trump said: "I'd like to be pope, that would be my number one choice”.

He proceeded to circulate a GenAI image of him as the Pope…

More offence given, criticism drawn, and just another week in US politics.

Happy reading ✌️

This week’s highlights:
💊 12 year-old builds “Pill Bot” to help Granny
🔍 NZ battles deepfakes; Aussie laws lead
🎓 Auckland Uni scores $250k Meta funding
🧠 AI's autism breakthrough
🧑‍🏫 Three AI use cases to kick-off “MayAI”
👁️ AI monitors NYC subway safety
🏁 Rally safety boosted by AI tech
📊 AI maps emotions in Aussie political debate

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ENVIRONMENT

⚡ Emerging Clash Between Kiwi Tier 1s & Green Advocates Over AI Future

📣 Word On The Street: As Spark and Genesis pour billions into AI infrastructure, while Greenpeace and Miss Earth NZ finalist sound alarms on AI’s growing carbon footprint.

🔍 Zooming In:

• Spark seeks partners for $1.2B stake in its data centre business with 118MW in development.

• Genesis' $100M tech investment aims to enable AI-managed electricity networks.

• Greenpeace research shows AI chip manufacturing emissions soared 4.5x in one year.

🏘️ Our Take: The collision between our digital future and environmental responsibility will play out in real time. While these investments position NZ to leverage our 85% renewable energy advantage in the global AI race, they raise critical questions about sustainability. Shae Parsons is using her Miss Earth NZ platform to highlight how AI systems rely on "vast computing power" and resource extraction, bringing much-needed balance to the conversation about our tech-driven future. The challenge ahead is balancing our digital ambitions with our clean, green reputation. Genesis CEO Malcolm Johns says AI already helped avoid using a 50MW diesel generator by managing hot water cylinders, proving efficiency gains are real.

EDUCATION SECTOR

🎓 Auckland Uni Secures $250,000 Funding From Meta

📣 Word On The Street: Auckland University wins $250,000 from Meta to develop AI tools helping students master programming with large language models.

🔍 Zooming In:

• The project focuses on coding comprehension and effective AI prompt crafting.

• Meta's multilingual models will make tools accessible in local languages globally.

• Computer Science Professor Paul Denny travelled to California to receive the award.

🏘️ Our Take: This investment signals growing international recognition of New Zealand's AI education capabilities and positions New Zealand at the forefront of AI education innovation. By teaching Kiwi students to effectively craft AI prompts and understand AI-generated code, we're preparing our future workforce for an AI-integrated tech landscape while making these skills accessible in multiple languages, potentially benefiting diverse communities across Aotearoa.

NZ ECOSYSTEM

💼 "Frontier Firms" Lead NZ's AI Revolution To Close Productivity Gap

📣 Word On The Street: Microsoft survey reveals “Frontier Firms” (organisations that use AI for automation and AI Agents to drive decision-making) are outperforming their peers, helping Kiwi workers who are short on time.

🔍 Zooming In:

• 79% of NZ's workforce lacks time or energy for tasks while bosses demand more productivity.

• 47% of business leaders already use AI agents to fully automate team workstreams, and 78% plan to incorporate AI as digital team members within 18 months.

• 46% of employees now see AI as a "thought partner", signalling we’re on the right path.

🏘️ Our Take: The move toward AI agents isn't just about automation, it's reshaping how our workforce functions. Microsoft warns this isn't merely a tech implementation challenge but a leadership opportunity to upskill our workforce. With leaders expecting employees to redesign AI processes and manage digital workers within five years, we're seeing a fundamental shift in job skills. Closing the knowledge gap between leaders (70% familiar with AI agents) and workers (only 29%) will be crucial for maintaining our global competitiveness. If NZ moves quickly to embrace this change, we'll set ourselves up for a more productive future, giving workers more time for meaningful contributions instead of being interrupted every two minutes by emails and meetings. The worrying insight from the survey was how humans are now turning to AI to avoid human interactions.

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

💊 12 year-old innovates to help his grandmother. A Wellington boy has created an AI-powered device called "Pill Bot" to help vision-impaired medication users, which started out to solve a problem for his grandmother with poor eyesight.
2-min read.

🎭 AI renders of portraits produced by Goldie spark cultural debate. A Christchurch eatery has hung three modified Goldie portraits of Māori tūpuna without Māori consultation, violating tikanga (behaviours and guidelines) by displaying ancestors where food is consumed. The case highlights how AI technologies are complicating cultural protections in Aotearoa's digital landscape.
4-min read.

🗳️ Political AI fakery under scrutiny. As NZ approaches 2025 local elections, politicians are using AI-generated images of Māori and Polynesian people without disclosure. Unlike Australia, Canada and Singapore, NZ has no explicit rules governing deepfakes in political campaigns.
4-min read.

🛡️ Fighting AI child sexual abuse images. Over 1 million attempts to view child sexual abuse material were blocked by NZ's web filter last year. The annual Digital Child Exploitation Transparency Report warns of the growing challenge from AI-generated content, with more than 700 reports received since 2023 of "disturbingly realistic" fake images and videos.
2-min read.

🔑 Protecting local culture from global power. AI tools are being trained on Western content, leaving many cultures behind. Only 1 Māori language model exists, but it proves a point: If we want AI to speak for us, we need to start uploading our own stories, or let foreign systems define our future.
3-min read.

✂️ Kiwi smart clipper cuts waiting times. After 10 years of development and $1M in funding, this Auckland startup's AI robotic clipper can now deliver salon-quality haircuts. The device could revolutionise personal grooming with patented tech that lifts hair while cutting.
3-min read.

🛍️ What’s Left On The Shelf

• Christchurch legal tech VXT raises $2.5m from Silicon Valley investors.
  1-min read.

• University Student building all-in-one, AI powered dashboard for farms.
  2-min read.

• By 2027, AI literacy will be part of every NZ school's Tech Curriculum.
  1-min read.

• AI to save fingers as Claymark invests $481K in NZ timber safety.
  3-min read.

• AI job applications & CVs get cold shoulder from NZ recruiters.
  3-min read.

🦘 From Across the Ditch

📊 AI maps feelings from Leaders in political debate. Monash Uni researchers created an AI model outperforming GPT-4 at detecting emotions, achieving over 80% predictive accuracy to reveal stark differences between Australian political leaders - Dutton expressed anger in 31% of speech turns while Albanese signalled 14% more trust expressions.
4-min read.

🦘 AI saves wildlife hours. Tasmania's conservation efforts have received a tech boost with AI processing over 774,000 camera trap images and identifying 29.2% as empty frames. This clever system has saved volunteers 900 hours of manual review time, equivalent to 23 weeks of full-time work.
3-min read.

🚸 Smarter school zone safety with AI. SenSen.AI is cutting chaos in Aussie school zones using real-time licence plate tracking and face-blurring tech. Fewer fines and safer kids.
3-min read.

🛡️ SA bans AI deepfakes. South Australia’s cracking down on AI-made porn—offenders could face 4 years' jail or $20k fines. The law targets the 500% surge in non-consensual deepfake abuse.
2-min read.

💰 Antler's AI-first investment spree. Aussie VC firm Antler backs eight AI-first startups with guaranteed follow-on funding when they raise AU$300,000+, who are all building with AI across robotics, cybersecurity, health and fintech.
8-min read.

🤔 Aussie x AI trust gap widens. Aussies are falling behind globally in AI adoption outside of the office, with just 36% willing to trust AI despite half regularly using it. The Melbourne University and KPMG report spanning 47 countries reveals our Trans-Tasman neighbours rank among the lowest globally for AI acceptance and optimism, alongside New Zealand.
4-min read.

🌍 The News from Global

🧠 Decoding social cues: AI's autism breakthrough. New AI translators are helping autistic people decode social interactions, with Autistic Translator gaining 3000+ users worldwide. AI tools act as tireless, judgment-free coaches interpreting communication nuances.
5-min read.

🔍 AI watches NYC subways. New York's MTA is partnering with tech companies to deploy AI surveillance that analyses security footage in real-time to spot "problematic behaviours" before crimes occur.
2-min read.

💳 Visa's AI agents go shopping. The payments giant is partnering with major AI companies including Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI to let AI assistants make purchases on your behalf. According to Alan Machet, Visa ANZ's Group Country Manager, this shift could be as transformative as the move from in-store to online shopping, with 42% already trusting AI for product recommendations.
4-min read.

🏁 AI tech keeps rally fans safe. The FIA has introduced an Artificial Intelligence Safety Camera (AISC) that monitors spectator positions at rally events in real-time. This Croatian-developed system flags potentially dangerous situations to event officials, allowing rapid safety interventions before the next competitors arrive.
3-min read.

🌏 Tech Updates You Should Know

• OpenAI: GPT-4o update withdrawn after complaints of excessive agreeableness, as ChatGPT hits 800M weekly users in "everything app" strategy.

• Google: AI Mode transforms Search with smart shopping recommendations and real-time info, adds invisible watermarks to AI-edited images, whilst Gemini may power Siri by 2025. NotebookLM App pre-registration opens.

• Meta: Launches standalone Meta AI assistant across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, with Ray-Ban smart glasses defaulting to always-on voice recording despite privacy concerns.

• Microsoft: Unveils Phi-4 reasoning models (14B and 3.8B params) outperforming larger rivals that can run on phones or laptops. Reports that as much as 30% of company code is now AI-written.

• Anthropic: Expands Claude with Atlassian and Zapier integrations, and adds Advanced Research tools for deeper reporting capabilities.

• DeepSeek: Quietly releases Prover V2 model with 671B parameters, achieving 88.9% on MiniF2F benchmark for mathematical reasoning.

📚️ Levelling Up With AI

We’ve run into May with the launch of “MayAI” 😅: 
3️⃣1️⃣ days of use cases showing how these tools work.

People overthink which AI tool to use, and overcomplicate it further by trying to bake in complex automation. Just pick 1 general purpose AI tool, use daily = top 1%.

Three simple use cases to try (click through for video):
1️⃣ ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode to multi-task
➜ Plan meeting agendas while doing housework
➜ Practise job interview questions when you shower
➜ Learn New Zealand's political history on your 30-min commute

2️⃣ Google's NotebookLM to help find podcast episode nuggets
Listening to podcasts is often done on the go, making it hard to capture great soundbites.
➜ Upload the podcast Youtube URL as a NotebookLM Source
➜ Prompt it for specific insights you vaguely recall
➜ Compare multiple experts' perspectives on the same topic across podcasts
➜ Track evolving trends across episodes from the same show

3️⃣ Keyboard microphone in ChatGPT as a note storage system
If you're also an avid note taker, you'll know the pain of juggling pages of notes, or keeping track of different documents for note keeping. Especially on the go.
➜ Capture thoughts on a walk, in the car, or between meetings using the microphone in your phone’s keyboard
➜ Download ideas via voice (10x faster than typing) when they're fresh
➜ Ask for a daily summary of all notes taken across multiple conversations

📅 AI Events in New Zealand

From 19 events last week to a whopping 28 events around the country & online this week. May has started off with a bang and is showing no signs of slowing down.

This week’s featured event:

• Auckland - SAP Business Unleashed Innovation Day, 7 May: Kiwi businesses dive into AI-powered transformation at Auckland's Park Hyatt. Free entry.

💼  AI Roles Around Aotearoa

Picklist of 🌶️ HOT 🌶️ roles in AI.

• Audience insights specialist - The Spinoff, Auckland

• AI Developer - Datacom, Wellington

• Full stack developer (AI/API Focus) - Ag Assist, Christchurch

🤦‍♂️ 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