The Business of Tech

The National Party is aiming to introduce legislation for its proposed social media ban for under‑16s before November’s election. The move, replicating a ban already in place across the Tasman, might look like a neat political fix – but it is far more likely to fail, backfire and leave our kids and critical infrastructure less safe. That’s the stark warning from veteran tech cons...

Australian startup Heidi Health has become one of the most visible examples of AI actually shifting the dial on healthcare productivity – and New Zealand is at the forefront of that story.  In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Heidi co‑founder Yu Liu about the company’s journey from student training tool to AI “care partner” for clinicians, a...

Another New Zealander has joined the global AI big league.  Auckland-raised engineer Jeff Hawke is now co‑founder and chief technology officer of Odyssey, a Palo Alto‑ and London‑based frontier lab that has just raised an eye‑watering US$310 million at a US$1.45 (NZ$2.55 billion) valuation – making it one of the world’s hottest AI “world model” startups. On this week&r...

China is racing ahead in artificial intelligence and robotics – and New Zealand risks being left on the sidelines if it doesn’t pay close attention. In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to two Kiwis who’ve just had a rare front‑row seat on China’s AI boom – Auckland-based ElementX co‑founder and chief technology officer Ming Cheuk, and Christch...

The Government’s plan to cut 8,700 public sector jobs and save $2.4 billion has been framed largely as a brutal cost‑cutting exercise.  In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech podcast, Hamilton‑based technologist Brandon Hutcheson argues it could instead be the catalyst for a once‑in‑a‑generation redesign of how government works – if we get the AI strategy right. He a...

When it comes to scaling high‑growth tech companies, AJ Tills has been in the engine room.  As one of Uber’s earliest hires in New Zealand, he helped the ride‑hailing giant push through regulatory resistance and turn the controversial startup into a default verb for getting around town, briefly serving as Uber’s US and Canada marketing chief of staff in New York.  Later, as c...

Starlink has quickly become the hero – and potential hazard – of rural broadband in New Zealand.  In a few short years, Elon Musk’s low-Earth orbit satellite service has gone from curiosity to default option for many farms, small towns and remote communities that never made it onto the fibre map. It’s racked up 58,000 subscribers and generated around $100 million in re...

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to the data centres of Silicon Valley or the cloud regions dotted around the world.  It is heading into orbit, hitching a ride on satellites and space stations in a way that could transform defence, climate monitoring, disaster response – and the balance of power itself. Starcloud, Google's Project Suncatcher, SpaceX V3 Starlink satellites,...

The Opportunity Party is attracting growing support from young tech professionals, scientists, and startup founders, demanding bolder, more evidence‑based leadership. That’s according to Opportunity party leader Qiulae Wong, the businesswoman, climate leader and mother who will lead the party into the election in a bid to crest the 5% popular vote threshold needed to see the party in a posit...

Market research has long been a privilege of the big end of town. Got $50,000 and six weeks to spare? Great, you can know what your customers think. Everyone else? Good luck. That model is being dismantled, and a New Zealand startup is doing some of the dismantling. In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, I sat down with James Donald, CEO of Auckland-based Ideally, fresh from closing a $16...

New Zealand is quietly dismantling the productive base that built its prosperity – and we’re doing it without anything resembling a plan. Over the past decade, the country has shed around 20,000 manufacturing jobs while the sector’s share of GDP has steadily eroded. Factories producing everything from pulp and paper to frozen foods and wood products have scaled back or shut down...

Artificial intelligence isn’t coming to the New Zealand public sector – it’s already here. AI is shaping everything from your tax bill to how quickly police process crime reports. And right now, it’s happening in a way that’s fast, fragmented and largely hidden from public view. On the latest episode of  The Business of Tech , I talk to BusinessDesk journalist C&...

Big organisations love to talk about innovation. They set up labs, hire “transformation” teams, and run hackathons.  Yet inside many companies, the best ideas still die in PowerPoint decks or get buried in cautious business cases. In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Gravity cofounder James Boult, an innovation specialist who has spent years inside large...

Forget soy, pea, or lab-grown meat – the next frontier in sustainable food might just be hiding in plain sight. Specifically, in the leaves of everyday plants growing across New Zealand’s farmland. In the latest episode of The Business of Tech podcast, I talk to Ross Milne, the CEO of Rolleston-based startup Leaft Foods, which has pioneered a breakthrough technique to extract and proce...

New Zealand drivers are about to discover a whole new way of paying to use the roads – and for most, it will be a shock.  For decades, petrol and diesel motorists have funded the transport network through fuel excise quietly folded into every litre at the pump - currently a 70c tax.  Soon, that largely invisible tax will give way to something much more visible – paying per ki...

This week on The Business of Tech, I talk to Inspired Education founder Nadim Nsouli to explore a bold experiment in AI‑driven schooling that will reach Auckland primary students from 2027. Inspired Education operates seven ACG private primary schools in New Zealand, including five in Auckland, focusing on personalised learning. A new learning programme, Inspired Edge Academy, compresses the tradi...

Why do some places become tech powerhouses while others, just as smart and connected, stall out?  In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, global innovation expert Mehran Gul, a former policy expert at the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations, dispels the myths about where breakthrough technology happens – and gives his take on what New Zealand should do to improve its inn...

When global giants argue about which AI models are safest, smartest and ready for prime time, a New Zealander in Redmond, Washington is one of the people making the call. Steve Sweetman leads the team at Microsoft's global headquarters deciding which AI models make it onto Microsoft Foundry – the platform that now offers more than 10,000 models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, DeepSeek, Microso...

This week on The Business of Tech, I talk to Neara co‑founder Jack Curtis about how a “physics-based digital twin” of electricity grids is changing the way we plan, build and protect electricity infrastructure – from Taranaki to Texas.  Neara has just raised A$90 million in a Series D round led by US investment firm Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), which also invested in...

A half-tonne metal “donut” silently floating in a vacuum chamber in Wellington might sound like science fiction. But as you’ll hear in the latest episode of The Business of Tech, it’s very real – and it could reshape New Zealand’s role in the global race for nuclear fusion. This week, I sit down with BusinessDesk journalist Greg Hurrell to unpack OpenStar &rsquo...

OpenClaw is the moment AI stops feeling like a clever chatbot and starts behaving like something closer to a digital co-worker. In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, you’ll hear exactly why. Veteran software developer and AI entrepreneurMike Hall joins me to break down what OpenClaw actually is in plain language. It’s not another prompt-and-response assistant, but a particular...

New Zealand loves to boast about its clean, green energy story. With around 80 to 90% of grid electricity coming from renewable sources like hydro, wind and geothermal, we look like one of the world’s quiet success cases on decarbonisation. But beneath that headline number lies a much more precarious reality. When lake levels fall and gas supplies tighten, our energy system starts to look ve...

In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, we look at the rise and fall of MethaneSAT, the $30 million national space project that was supposed to cement New Zealand as a serious spacefaring nation.  Instead, it became a case study in governance failure, misaligned incentives and lost opportunity.  Launched in March 2024 and lost in June 2025 after persistent spacecraft glitches, Met...

Two Kiwi engineers who helped build the future of self‑driving cars in Silicon Valley are now quietly laying the foundations for the next great tech wave: physical AI.  In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Harry Mellsop, co‑founder of simulation startup Antioch , and Adrian Macneil, co‑founder and CEO of data platform Foxglove , for a fast‑paced tour of where robotics is r...

New Zealand likes to see itself as an agile, innovative tech nation. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, the story is more sobering than triumphant.  A new survey of 4,000 business leaders from around the world by research group IDC has revealed that just 8% of companies in Australia and New Zealand can be classified as “frontier firms” when it comes to their uptake of A...