The AI Corner

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Fiona Hewitt, founder of Unboxable, for a candid look at how AI is reshaping work, leadership and organisational culture across New Zealand. Fiona has spent 20+ years leading transformation and now helps executives face the uncomfortable truth: AI isn’t just a tool, it’s a forcing function for how businesses are run. Discover why “standing still” is the real risk, ho...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Leo Garcia‑Curtis to explore how embedding conversational AI and voice agents is creating new revenue pathways and productivity gains for New Zealand businesses. Leo brings his journey from e‑commerce agency founder to AI growth strategist, showing why now is the time to move. Discover concrete takeaways: how to prioritise AI workflows vs simple automation, what “age...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Emily Makere Broadmore, founder of trategic communications firm Heft, and Director of Creative Intelligence consultancy Beyond Logic, to explore how she moved from AI cynic to advocate, what changed her mind about Claude, and why she's making ethical decisions about hiring juniors in the AI era. You'll hear Emily's rules for good AI use (bad use is worse...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Serge van Dam, Wellington-based tech investor and board director with portfolio companies spanning fintech, proptech, and AI, to explore how he guides founders through AI adoption, what makes people resistant versus receptive, and why New Zealand's small market size is actually an advantage. You'll hear Serge's four-persona framework for spotting AI adopt...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Taru Peters‑Naug, founder of Do AI, who has led data‑science and AI strategy roles at ANZ and Squirrel, and now works with Kiwi businesses to build practical AI‑powered products. Hear how organisations in Aotearoa can move from planning with AI to actually using and building with AI. Taru shares how he applies human‑centred design and engineering to AI; his view on w...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Caelan Huntress, Head of Learning & Enablement at Agentic Intelligence, transforms everyday professionals into AI‑enabled performers. He blends his background in marketing and acrobatics with immersive, hands‑on workshops to help organisations embrace AI in a tangible way. We cover how to bring AI into your daily workflow (even something as simple as “what’s for...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Hitarth Sharma, founding engineer at a stealth AI startup backed by OpenAI, to explore how he moved into AI, what he’s building now, and why memory systems are central to the next frontier of agent design. You’ll hear Hitarth's rules for upgrading models (when a jump is worthwhile), how he handles hallucinations and blending personal vs professional memory, plus...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Gavin Sharkey, Managing Director of Kōwhai, as we explore how New Zealand organisations can move from AI curiosity to sustainable adoption. Hear why many AI pilots fail, how to prioritise high‑impact use cases, and why embedding governance, measurement and mindset change is just as important as the tech. In this episode we discuss: • 00:00 – Intro & guest bio• 00...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Jacob Bank, founder & CEO of Relay.app, as they explore how AI agents are evolving beyond chatbots and copilots. You’ll hear how Relay pivoted through multiple prototypes to land on “agent + workflow” tooling, plus Jacob’s definitions of agents vs workflows, advice for trusting AI in business, and his predictions for how many junior knowledge roles will vanish by...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Frances Valintine, founder of academyEX, to explore how AI is reshaping education, business, and national identity in New Zealand. Frances shares her views on generative AI revolution, and why now is the moment for NZ to step into an AI‑first future. You’ll hear about the real blockers holding back adoption (mindsets, scale, institutional inertia), concrete strategie...

Erin and Mike dive into one of ChatGPT’s most useful but least understood features: memory and instructions, spanning Custom Instructions, Projects, Custom GPTs, and even Connectors. They talk through how memory remembers context across chats, how custom instructions shape every reply, and how projects and custom GPTs let you organise files, rules, and even trigger outside actions. These features...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Leslie Tan to discover how AI‑overviews, generative engine optimisation (GEO), and evolving search behaviour are reshaping SEO in New Zealand. In this episode we discuss: • 00:00 – Intro & guest bio• 00:26 – AI‑overviews reshaping search experience• 03:19 – Google vs new AI search platforms• 07:24 – GEO & answer engine optimisation explained• 11:15 – Importan...

----- Clip produced in late August -----Erin joined Mike on the couch to check out Google’s latest AI tool, Nano Banana: the GenAI image editor built on Gemini. It lets anyone blend, edit and combine photos with realistic results. Faces stay consistent, scenes make sense and the whole process feels more fun than technical. No design skills required. In this episode of AI On The Couch, Mike and Eri...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Mark Laurence, founder of Ten Past Tomorrow, as he helps NZ organisations move from AI enthusiasm to real impact through senior leadership alignment, culture change, and strategic adoption. Learn why starting at the top matters, and how organisations can build a foundation for lasting transformation. In this episode we discuss: • 00:00 – Intro & guest bio• 00:28...

Join host Mike Bayly and guests Bex Rose (AI Surge ANZ) and Sam Gibson (Education Sector Lead, Noel Leeming) to explore how AI is reshaping education in New Zealand: what it means for teachers, school leaders, students, and even businesses. Discover why now is the time for schools to act, set guardrails, and bring everyone on board before they’re left behind. In this episode we discuss: • 00:00 –...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Tom Barraclough, tech policy strategist and co‑founder of Brain Box Institute and Syncopate Lab, as he explores sovereign AI in New Zealand: why it matters, how law is being turned into code, and what New Zealanders should demand from AI systems that affect their lives. Discover the intersection of infrastructure, data, policy, and democracy in shaping AI’s future he...

Join host Mike Bayly as he sits down with Blake Harkness, graduate network engineer at MainPower and founder of Harkness AI. Blake is part of a new wave of engineers applying AI to real-world infrastructure: building customer service chatbots, automating regulatory compliance, and showing how even traditional industries can adopt AI. Discover how Blake balances quick wins with long-term innovation...

Join host Mike Bayly and guests Simon Archer, co‑founder of PolicyCheck, and tech veteran Scott Houston, as they champion agentic AI in the insurance sector. This episode explores why insurance is ripe for disruption and how AI-powered workflows can bring clarity, speed, and trust to policyholders and brokers alike. They break down three major breakthroughs (cutting admin overhead, improving polic...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Tane Van der Boon, founder of Inviol, to explore how AI and computer vision are being deployed to tackle complacency and prevent injuries in New Zealand’s most dangerous workplaces. Discover how Inviol builds AI that detects unsafe behaviour in real time, why edge computing matters for latency and reliability, and how startups can partner with legacy industries to sc...

Join host Mike Bayly and Matteo Castiello, founder of Insurgence, as he walks us through his journey from a planned career break to spearheading enterprise generative AI adoption across Australasia. Learn practical takeaways including: the power of low‑friction, task‑first AI use cases; how composable point solutions can scale into transformative systems; and why AI success depends on business‑led...

Erin came to the couch overwhelmed. Too many AI tools. Too little time. And one big question: what tools do I actually need to stay ahead in the future of work? In this episode of AI On The Couch, Mike strips it back. Forget chasing every shiny new tool, the real game is getting really good at one. Whether it’s ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or something else, depth beats distraction. No fluff. No jargo...

Join host Mike Bayly and Justin Flitter, founder of New Zealand.ai, to hear how local business leaders unlock AI’s potential by anchoring adoption in business strategy, cultural heritage, and context. Learn how businesses can shift from ad‑hoc experimentation to sustainable AI adoption, create defensible IP using internal data, and safeguard cultural identity through context‑rich models. In this e...

Join host Mike Bayly and 18‑year‑old guest Nicholas Hardwick, founder of Quela.io, an AI and IoT startup solving real-world business problems, while still at uni. In this episode, Nick shares how he built from failed ventures to global clients. Discover how Quela.io is pivoting from services to scalable products, why Nick hires locally while expanding in India, and what he's learned about AI a...

Erin left the AI hackathon buzzing with questions about a new buzzword she kept hearing: vibe coding. Love by some. Hated by others. Instead of typing lines of code, developers (and even non-developers) are now using natural language to spin up apps in minutes. Tools like Lovable make it possible to say “build me something like Airbnb” and instantly see a working prototype take shape. In this epis...

Join host Mike Bayly and guest Dan Xu, CEO & Co-founder of Element X, for a candid look at how pragmatic, pre-hype AI development took root in New Zealand. From bioengineering to building one of NZ’s first AI consultancies, Dan explains what’s changed, and what hasn’t, since GenAI went mainstream. Learn why most AI pilots stall, what use cases are actually working, and how businesses can adopt...