René Essomba

🚀 Our sister company, Circini Limited, just shared a fascinating new perspective on the evolution of data architecture, and it’s well worth a read. As organisations across Aotearoa and Australia accelerate their cloud journeys, the ability to design malleable, future-ready data ecosystems has never been more important. 💡 Circini’s latest article explores how modern architecture is shifting from rigid monoliths to adaptive, intelligent platforms; capable of flexing with tomorrow’s demands. 🔗 Read it here: sen.nz/5skk6s 👉 Follow Circini for more insights on data strategy, governance, and transformation. #DataArchitecture #DataPlatforms #ModernData #Analytics #ANZBusiness #DigitalTransformation #DataStrategy #Circini 

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Poor or "brittle" AI implementations - built on top of "shabby" data foundations/migrations - will result in the generation of post "mop up" work enough for 40+ individuals. #FutureShock #ALLModelsAreWrongBut... #SleepersWake #OpenYourMind #AIinTheHandsOfDataAndAnalyticsIlliterates #AIweaponsOfChoice #"ImAfraidIcantDoThatDave" #NeedMoreEthicalDataAndAnlyticsProfessionals #AdvocatingForBalancedAIbubbleDeflation https://lnkd.in/gVH3iAua One in four Australian jobs are at 'high risk' of automation, new research reveals https://lnkd.in/gKh2fZwV

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🇦🇺 Thrilled to share this piece in the The Australian Financial Review by Tess Bennett about Sovereign Australia AI and the journey we're embarking on to build Australis - Australia's own foundational language model. I couldn’t be prouder to be building this alongside my mate and Co-Founder Simon Kriss This isn't just about building another AI model. It's about ensuring Australia maintains its digital sovereignty and voice in an increasingly AI-driven world. We shouldn't be dependent on decisions made in Washington, Silicon Valley, Beijing or Europe about how AI understands and represents our Australian culture, values, and way of life. Yet to achieve this isn’t easy and it takes scale to compete, so we’ve made a massive investment in compute and have acquired 256 NVIDIA Blackwell B200 GPUs hosted in NEXTDC's secure Australian data centre in Melbourne, and managed by our colleagues at SHARON AI What makes me particularly proud of what we’ve done so far: ✅ Ethical from the ground up - We're committing $10M to compensate copyright owners, working WITH creators rather than against them ✅ Built for Australia, by Australians - From the ground up, built, trained and inferenced onshore, here in Australia, and compliant with our privacy and copyright laws ✅ Customers & Partnerships In Place - We partnering with some amazing Aussie organisations to help them solve some of Australia’s AI challenges. The partnerships we can speak about include ACS (Australian Computer Society), UNSW Canberra & GT Systems Australia, with more to follow! The path to digital sovereignty doesn't require billions, it requires vision, ethical principles, and the determination to ensure Australia's voice isn't lost in the global AI conversation. We're proving that sovereign AI can be built responsibly, affordably, and with respect for the creators whose work makes it possible. Australia's digital future should be in Australian hands. Let's build it together. 🚀 Special thanks to Craig Scroggie, Andrew Leece, Kieran Habojan, Dan Mons, Sudarshan Ramachandran, Rhod Brown, Brett Bonser, Melissa Hamilton, Josh Griggs, Rhett Sampson and so many more. #ai #sovereignai #llm #gpt #innovation #australia #australian https://lnkd.in/gnF8N3mR

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Air New Zealand is working with OpenAI in a first-of-its-kind collaboration in Aotearoa to expand the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across the airline, aiming to boost efficiency and enhance customer outcomes. Read more: https://lnkd.in/d9TRuA8E

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We’ve made it official. DiUS has signed a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS to help more Australian organisations deliver value from generative AI, not just pilots and proofs of concept, but production-ready, business-changing systems. It means closer collaboration, greater access to programs and co-funding, and the ability to move faster, whether you’re experimenting, optimising, or scaling. We’re already seeing the impact. Case in point: our recent work with Pendula, helping them bring to life an agentic AI feature powered by Amazon Bedrock and the brand-new Amazon Nova models (now live in Sydney 🎉). Four weeks from vision to value, and one-third the cost of other models. Big thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the continued partnership, and to all the teams turning ambitious ideas into real outcomes. Exciting times. More to come. 🔗 Check out the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/gQpqTzJZ #generativeAI #agenticAI #AWS #AIinAustralia #partnership

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What “AI-Native Software” Really Means (and why most get it wrong) Everyone’s calling their app “AI-powered.” But adding a ChatGPT API doesn’t make your software intelligent — it makes it dependent. True intelligence isn’t a feature. It’s an architecture. At Software Co, we define “AI-native” software as systems that learn, adapt, and evolve — not ones that wait for instructions. It learns from data. It adapts to context. It improves with every interaction. AI isn’t a widget; it’s a worker — embedded in the workflow, not bolted onto it. This shift changes everything: Developers become system designers. Designers shape human-AI conversations. Businesses evolve faster because their systems do. So next time you hear “AI-powered,” ask: Does it use AI — or is it built on intelligence? That’s the difference between hype and architecture. And it’s exactly what we’re building at Software Co. https://lnkd.in/gcjgttkm #AINative #AIArchitecture #SoftwareEngineering #Innovation #FutureOfWork #SoftwareCo

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My main takeaway from the final day of #eResAU2025: Australia’s economic complexity challenge isn’t about research excellence, it’s about research translation. We reward discovery more than diffusion. Building impact means redesigning success metrics, embedding industry/government collaboration from day one, and aligning infrastructure to real-world use, not “whiz-bang” tech. Pauline Fetaui Loren Bruns Dr Paul Dalby PhD GIA (Affiliated) Isabel Ceron, PhD AURIN - Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network

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Scaling AI in Aotearoa: from pilots to production Datacom explores why AI adoption is accelerating across New Zealand—and what it takes to scale responsibly: strong foundations, effective governance, the right skills, and a clear path from experimentation to enterprise value. Read the blog: AI adoption in Aotearoa is accelerating. Now it’s time to scale. https://lnkd.in/gT4n2-dB Hear more from Datacom at the Aotearoa AI Summit 2025t, this Thursday (18 September), Shed 10, Auckland. Register: https://aotearoaai.nz #AISummitNZ #Datacom #AIinAotearoa #AIAdoption #AIatScale #DigitalLeadership #ResponsibleAI #NZTech

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#CSIRO has developed a clever new way to protect images online by adding tiny, invisible changes that don’t affect how we see them but confuse AI systems trying to use those images to learn or create deepfakes. This helps keep your photos and digital content safe from being used without permission and supports more #responsible and #ethical use of AI. #AI #Technology #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #TechNews

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Deloitte’s repayment fee for botched AI report revealed Deloitte Australia has repaid almost $98,000, or more than 20 per cent, of the $440,000 fee it charged the federal government for a report that had to be reissued due to AI-related errors. (https://lnkd.in/gAagxAAA) #artificial_intelligence #Agentic_AI

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How do you deliver smarter support at scale? Simon Clarke from Suncorp reveals how the organization is using AI and automation to transform customer experience, automating over 24 million transactions and embedding more than 100 AI and machine learning models across customer service, pricing, underwriting, fraud detection, and claims. From enhancing conversational chatbots to ensuring ethical AI, Suncorp shows what it takes to drive impact responsibly in a large, complex enterprise. Watch the full video on CX Network now: https://brnw.ch/21wVWrO #CX #AI #Automation #CustomerExperience #CXNetwork

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