Trans-Tasman AI Progress Comparison

And, Our Pandemic Secret Weapon

Author

Mike Bayly
February 24, 2025

Kia ora! Welcome to New Zealand’s weekly AI news round-up.

One month in and what a start! A huge thank you to all our subscribers - we're growing rapidly and we've only just begun.

Each week I spend 25+ hours researching New Zealand's AI landscape, with a keen eye on Australia, to bring you the most impactful updates. Through my own anecdotal perspective, here’s what I've noticed in our first month:

NZ's Landscape:

  • Thought leadership content on AI focuses heavily on legal sector

  • Environmental use case innovations - from pest control to forest mapping

  • Leading global dialogue on ethics and indigenous perspectives in AI

  • Microsoft dominates local content, Big 4 firms shape transformation approach

  • Strong government vision but limited evident startup / research investment

Australian Scene:

  • Significant startup funding, particularly in healthcare

  • Well-funded university research focused on healthcare AI

  • Active government investment across startups and industries

  • National AI capability plan behind schedule

  • Environmental innovations - from wildlife detection to reef monitoring

Early days for both ecosystems, but there's valuable learning on both sides of the Tasman. Looking forward to tracking how these distinct approaches evolve!

Enjoy this week’s read ✌️

Highlights from this week’s edition:

  • 🤝 NZ Faces AI Alliance Decision

  • 💰 NZ EdTech Startup Scores Big

  • 🌾 Aussie AgTech Investment To Transform Farming

  • 🌡️ AI To Help Fight Off Future Pandemics

  • 🌏 Is China’s AI Approach More Sustainable Than The West?

NZ TRADE

🌐 NZ Faces Critical Alliance Choice in Global AI Defence Race

📣 Word On The Street: PrimerAI founder Sean Gourley warns Kiwis to get serious about defence AI and avoid sitting on the fence between superpowers.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • NZ's current defence tech scene spans drones to maritime monitoring, but needs serious capital to compete globally.

  • Silicon Valley's embracing military contracts after years of resistance, creating a new tech gold rush.

  • Maintaining trade neutrality between US and China won't be an option as AI arms race heats up.

🏘️ Our Take: The global AI divide is forcing a rethink of our traditional 'trade with everyone' approach. Any potential conflict between AI superpowers would make dual partnerships impossible - from technology licensing to research collaboration to market access. Smart positioning now means a) capturing a slice of the booming defence tech market, b) securing our future access to critical AI technologies, and, most critically, c) determining who stands with us in times of conflict.

AI x HEALTHCARE

👨‍⚕️ AI Beats Docs, Kiwi Tech Pioneer Says

😔📣 Word On The Street: Orion Health founder Ian McCrae, whose company serves 150 million patients globally, backs AI's ability to match specialist-level medical analysis in seconds while fighting his own cancer battle.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • AI tool Deep Research matched McCrae's months-long medical research in 30 seconds, providing precise medication recommendations and dosage adjustments for his brain cancer treatment.

  • His new software project, Orchestral - aims to unify fragmented patient records across NZ's health system, enabling AI-powered insights and predictions for better care outcomes.

  • Medical knowledge now doubles every 72 days, compared to 50 years in the 1950s, making AI essential for keeping healthcare providers updated.

🏘️ Our Take: Kiwi innovation is setting the global pace for AI healthcare transformation, with Orion Health already serving 150 million patients worldwide. This local success story opens doors for New Zealand to become the world's testing ground for next-gen healthcare delivery, bringing cutting-edge AI tools to our medical system first while creating high-value tech jobs across the country.

FUTURE EMPLOYMENT

💼 AI Set to Reshape 40-60% of Office Jobs by 2030

Source: Maxim Institute Discussion Paper - Gone For Good: AI and the Future of Work

📣 Word On The Street: International data shows how AI's reshaping work globally - with key lessons for NZ as similar disruption heads our way, especially in professional and admin roles.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • 2.99M Kiwis across 19 industries could face AI disruption (not necessarily replacement!), with Professional Services (10.5%) and Construction (10.4%) leading employment figures.

  • Women in admin roles face higher displacement risk, with 50% of clerical tasks potentially automated within five years.

  • Financial services workers get a wake-up call - up to 80% of current tasks could be handled by AI, disproportionately affecting 15,300 European and 5,900 Asian workers.

🏘️ Our Take: While this research draws from US, EU and Australian data, the impacts are relevant to our 2.99M-strong workforce. The recommendations are clear: adopt teaching methods from high-performing nations like Singapore and South Korea, transform one NZ university into our dedicated AI hub, adjust immigration to favour AI expertise, while professional bodies from law to accounting must track how AI reshapes their industries over the next five years.

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

  • Polymath Scores $1.5M For Math App. A NZ edtech startup has secured funding to transform screen time into brain time, with their math-gaming app already reaching 50% of NZ primary schools, showing students learn 2x as fast as traditional methods. The platform is now eyeing global expansion while adding multiplayer features to make maths addictive. (4-min read)

  • Spark x Microsoft Partner To Power NZ AI Revolution. The global tech giant's commitment to train 100,000 Kiwis in AI skills gets real through a landmark Spark partnership and their new Auckland hyperscale data centre. The two-year programme, promised during OIO approval, combines workforce development and enterprise-grade AI access for NZ. (2-min read)

  • AI Beefs-Up Meat Quality. Alliance Group has rolled out AI-powered probes across six plants, using fluorescent light tech to measure juicy details like marbling and intramuscular fat. This groundbreaking system gives Kiwi farmers real-time dashboard insights, helping them make data-driven decisions about breeding and feeding. (2-min read)

🛍️ What’s Left on the Shelf

  • GovGPT AI Chatbot Experiment Ends. (4-min read)

  • Google's AI Spills Kiwi Court Secrets. (2-min read)

  • Legal Firms: Incremental AI Rollouts Win With 32% Gains. (5-min read)

  • AI-Powered Tree Scanning Speeds Up NZ Forest Mapping. (3-min read)

  • $5m AI Research RFP With Health Research Council: Opens Feb 26. Link

  • NZ Falls Behind On Deepfake Protection As Fraud Rises. (4-min read)

  • Lessons From NZ's 1980’s Poly-1 Project On Tackling AI. (5-min read)

🦘 From Across the Ditch

  • AI Health Advice Raises Red Flags. One in ten Aussies turning to ChatGPT for medical help and 61% asking questions that should be directed to healthcare professionals. USyd found non-English speakers were more likely to rely on AI for advice - a wake-up call for Aotearoa's multilingual communities to strengthen digital literacy. (6-min read)

  • AI Strategy Targets Farm Sector. Australia to roll out a National AI Capability Plan alongside a $20M investment in farm connectivity to ensure AI technologies reach remote regions. Australia's strategic investment in farm connectivity shows they're serious about democratising AI access beyond cities; a compelling case for NZ to rethink rural infrastructure. (7-min read)

  • AI Property Platform Scores Big. PropHero's $25.1M raise and 200% annual growth shows how AI is transforming real estate investment, with their platform analysing millions of data points across 40 countries. (1-min read)

🌍 The News from Global

🧬 AI could be our secret weapon against the next pandemic, with Oxford researchers identifying 7 key areas where artificial intelligence might give us the upper hand when the next pandemic arrives.

🇪🇺 EU loosens AI rules in bid to catch-up to the US, with Brussels rolling back red tape on AI regulation to level up against US tech dominance. The European Commission is backing this with €200B in AI funding, while a new streamlined code of practice drops in April.

🤖 China's AI guardrails could give it the edge, with Beijing's built-in ethical controls for AI could outperform Western systems' retroactive patches. Georgetown University suggests China's value-driven approach, rather than data-driven / profit-seeking Western approach, might create more reliable AI for business use with stronger ethical principles at the core.

🌏 Tech Updates You Should Know

  • OpenAI: Dominates Q1 with 400M weekly users, doubles enterprise adoption, and takes Operator global (minus the EU) at $200/month.

  • Spotify: Partners with ElevenLabs for AI narration empire, rolling out 29-language support while human narrators watch nervously from the sidelines.

  • Big Tech: Meta shines while Alphabet and Amazon stumble, as collective AI infrastructure spending approaches $240B between the three giants.

  • Grok: Musk’s Grok 3 enters the ring as "scary smart" challenger to ChatGPT, while xAI seeks $10B funding at $75B valuation.

🔦 Kiwi AI in the Spotlight

Xtracta Goes Global

Pictured above: Jonathan Spence. NZ Business

  • Auckland-based Xtracta has evolved from a $5K family business investment into a global AI powerhouse, using machine learning to extract data from documents like invoices and contracts. Their technology processes documents via OCR (Optical Character Recognition), finds specific values, validates extracted data, and continuously learns from corrections to improve accuracy.

  • The company's pivot to an 'Intel Inside' partnership model has been transformative, embedding their tech directly into existing software platforms. With 30 team members (10 overseas) and clients across the US, Canada, South Asia, Africa and Europe, they're proving NZ can compete in the global AI race.

  • While generative AI creates buzz, founder Jonathan Spence sees it at "peak hype cycle".(5-min read)

📅 AI Events

  • AI for Leaders Workshop, 24 Feb - Auckland: AI Forum chair Matt Ensor shows how to blend tech smarts with human leadership - includes drinks and networking. No cost.

  • The Future of No Work, 26 Feb - Auckland: Burger King's AI whiz and European automation guru share real workplace wins at Grid AKL. $51.75 pp.

  • 1st AI Engineer Meetup 2025, 27 Feb - Wellington: Two tech leaders, live coding demos, and pizza at Vic's Pipitea campus - perfect for hands-on engineers. Free session.

  • AI Business Value Workshop, 28 Feb - Online: Arcanum AI's CEO Asa Cox reveals proven AI wins beyond ChatGPT, from HR to Finance. Join ANZ's AI pioneer at 10am. Free session.

  • International Conference on Law and AI, 5-6 Mar - Auckland/Online: Global experts unpack AI's legal landscape through keynotes, panels, and interactive workshops. Pricing varies.

  • AI ROI Workshop, 6 Mar - Auckland: SupaHuman & Justin Flitter (NewZealand.AI Founder) present a hands-on AI masterclass on how businesses can unlock generative AI's game-changing potential. No cost.

💼  AI Roles around Aotearoa

Our picklist of 🌶️ HOT 🌶️ roles in AI, to support the growing industry.

🆕 New Roles We’ve Found 🆕

🤦‍♂️ AI Fail of the Week

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

When you ask AI for a table leg - slightly literal!

Cannot thank you all enough for your support & feedback this far! Until next week 👋 

Many thanks, Mike