Kia ora! Welcome to New Zealand’s weekly roundup of AI news and education.
The AI Corner podcast is back with our first 2026 episode featuring Adam Holt 🎙️.
We’re diving into OpenClaw (previously Moltbot and Clawdbot), the open-source local agent that’s gone viral for letting you autonomously and determine automate real tasks through the likes of WhatsApp while running on your own machine.
It feels like another ChatGPT-level shift, but mixing tool access, files, credentials, and persistent memory can get risky fast, which is why security teams are already warning about prompt injection and delayed exploits. Adam shares what you should know about OpenClaw and outlines how to keep safe.
Happy reading ✌️
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🇳🇿 New Zealand News
NEMA warns of fake AI-generated landslide images circulating on TikTok during Mount Maunganui slip. Images showed destroyed campgrounds and raging waterfalls that did not exist at the site. Victoria University's Dr Andrew Lensen says this is the first time AI disaster imagery has significantly impacted NZ public response involved.
4 min read.
Our take: Every institution communicating during a crisis now faces a trust tax. When audiences can't distinguish real from generated imagery, verified channels become the only credible distribution, and brands that haven't built that credibility beforehand lose their voice entirely.
AI-powered road inspection, fire warnings, parking enforcement, and pool surveillance rolling out across NZ councils. Retina Visions' AI and machine learning automates defect inspection for 30+ councils and road authorities. TechnologyOne says six years of embedding AI is now delivering measurable value.
2 min read.
Our take: The shift from reactive to predictive maintenance changes the cost model entirely. Fixing a road defect detected early costs a fraction of emergency repair after failure. Councils running predictive systems will show materially different infrastructure budgets within two to three years.
Auckland Council turns to AI to cut $3.5M annual recycling contamination cost. Real-time AI monitoring on collection trucks identifies contamination as waste enters the vehicle. The system replaces labour-intensive manual bin inspections across the region.
6 min listen.
Our take: This is computer vision solving a logistics problem that was previously too expensive to measure at scale. Once you have contamination data by route and suburb, you can model the economic return of each intervention before you spend a dollar on it.
Master Builders gold award winner warns AI-generated renovation designs ignore NZ building compliance. Reagan Langeveld of Symphony Construction says builders receive increasing numbers of AI-generated plans that clash with bracing lines, cover structural fixings, and conflict with existing plumbing. Regional compliance rules, seismic requirements, and geographic variables differ across NZ councils.
2 min read.
Our take: The liability sits with whoever submits the building consent, not the AI tool that generated the design. Builders are now spending billable hours redesigning AI output that homeowners believed was buildable, and that cost gets added to the project, not subtracted.
Government launches Public Service AI Work Programme including AI search assistant for Govt.nz. The two-year plan includes 15 initiatives covering common AI tools for agencies, safe use standards, Maori perspectives embedded in AI services, and workforce AI training for executives and end-users.
2 min read.
Our take: The Govt.nz AI search assistant is the initiative most likely to reach everyday New Zealanders. If it works, finding government services stops being an exercise in navigating bureaucratic websites. If it doesn't, it becomes another digital front door that sends people back to the phone queue.
HPE and 2degrees deploy sovereign private AI cloud in New Zealand. The NVIDIA-powered platform stores and processes all customer and business data within NZ borders. 2degrees will use it for autonomous network operations, self-healing infrastructure, and predictive maintenance.
6 min read.
Our take: Every time our data crosses a border, it falls under someone else's legal jurisdiction. Onshore AI infrastructure means decisions about NZ data get governed by NZ law, and that distinction matters more as AI workloads handle increasingly sensitive information.
Auckland University team builds AI companion that spots early stress signals from wearable data. Kunal Gupta was motivated to develop this new product 'Toku Hoa’ after experiencing depression stigma growing up in India. The tool sends gentle check-in notifications when it detects stress patterns, offering reflection rather than diagnosis. Initial focus: young Maori and Pasifika men.
3 min read.
Our take: Young Maori and Pasifika men face disproportionate mental health risk and the highest barriers to seeking help. A non-judgemental AI that notices stress before the person does, and offers CBT techniques proven effective in clinical settings, addresses both the access gap and the stigma gap simultaneously.
📚️ AI for Business
Helping leaders and teams adapt, learn, and scale with AI.
1️⃣ Nobody's an expert in GenAI yet: Two types of people right now — those waiting for their employer to roll out an AI strategy, and those tinkering after hours with tools nobody told them to use. The second group is pulling away fast.
1-min read.
2️⃣ The $180k AI leader stuck in the middle: Head of AI sounds incredible on paper. Above them, execs who haven't touched the tools. Below them, teams who tried ChatGPT once and wrote off all AI forever. The result is council meetings, PowerPoint decks, and not much else.
1-min read.
3️⃣ 95% of Claude Code success is folder design: The next demo you watch will show a cool agent or skill. Ask yourself what folder structure makes that work. The cool stuff only works because the infrastructure exists.
5-min read.
4️⃣ Your SaaS tools are becoming the engine, not the interface: Claude Apps lets you run Slack, Figma, Asana and Canva directly inside the AI chat window. MCP is becoming the standard protocol, meaning the apps you connect work everywhere your AI tools do.
2-min read.
5️⃣ Turn a 30-minute call into a slide deck in 15 minutes: Claude Code pulls the Fireflies transcript, extracts key points, generates a full deck outline, and feeds it to Gamma. The leverage comes from context already in your vault, not the AI alone.
3-min watch.
🌍 Tech Updates From Global
The selected top headlines from each major AI tech company.
OpenAI
Retiring older ChatGPT models including GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 on February 13 as over 99.9% of users have shifted to GPT-5.2.
Launched Prism, a free AI-native LaTeX writing and collaboration tool for scientists powered by GPT-5.2.
PVH Corp (Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger) adopting ChatGPT Enterprise across design, inventory planning and marketing operations.
Unveiled EU Economic Blueprint 2.0 with a programme to train 20,000 European small businesses in AI skills.
Upgraded ChatGPT Containers to support Bash commands, Node.js and package installations, evolving it into a full cloud computer.
Anthropic
Embedded interactive third-party apps including Slack, Figma, Canva and Box directly into Claude's interface via Model Context Protocol.
Facing $3 billion lawsuit from music publishers alleging unauthorised use of over 20,000 songs in model training.
Released Petri 2.0, an open-source AI safety auditing tool for improved behavioural testing and eval-awareness.
Introduced Personal Intelligence mode allowing Gemini to integrate Gmail, Photos and YouTube history for highly contextual responses.
Launched Auto Browse in Chrome enabling AI to execute tasks like booking appointments directly within the browser.
Rolled out Project Genie from DeepMind, generating interactive 3D worlds from text prompts for Ultra subscribers.
Microsoft
Posted Q2 2026 revenue of $81.3 billion (up 17% YoY) with cloud revenue alone exceeding $50 billion.
Unveiled Maia 200 custom AI chip on 3nm process with 140 billion transistors, designed to challenge Nvidia's inference dominance.
Secured $750 million three-year Azure cloud deal with AI search startup Perplexity.
Amazon
Announced second wave of 16,000 job cuts globally under "Project Dawn" as it accelerates pivot to AI-driven automation.
Alexa+ auto-upgrade drew backlash after Prime customers were migrated to the new AI assistant without explicit opt-in.
xAI
Launched Grok Imagine video API claiming the top spot in text-to-video rankings ahead of Kling and Runway.
Federal judge signalled likely dismissal of xAI's trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged code theft.
Meta
Posted record Q4 revenue of $59.9 billion (up 24% YoY) with net income reaching $22.8 billion.
Ramping capital expenditure to between $115 billion and $135 billion in 2026 for AI infrastructure expansion.
Zuckerberg declared 2026 a "pivotal year" for social commerce powered by AI agents on Facebook and WhatsApp.
Apple
Posted all-time high quarterly revenue of $143.8 billion (up 16%) with record earnings per share of $2.84.
Acquired Israeli startup Q.ai for approximately $2 billion for silent speech technology reading facial micro-movements.
Nvidia
CEO Jensen Huang confirmed substantial OpenAI investment, dismissing reports of a stalled $100 billion deal as "nonsense".
Launched Earth-2 family of open AI weather models delivering 90% reduction in compute time for high-resolution forecasting.
🤦 ️ AI Funny Of The Week
We all love AI, but it’s certainly far from perfect …
👋 Mike & Erin