Updates relevant to founders in New Zealand, plus globally-relevant ones. 10 in total.
Google's July 30, 2026 Workspace feature drop lets Gemini generate a complete slide presentation that matches your existing brand formatting by describing it and referencing prior…
In late July 2026 OpenAI released its Codex Security CLI and SDK as open source under Apache 2.0 (npm install @openai/codex-security). It scans repositories, reviews staged and uns…
Moonshot AI released open weights for Kimi K3 on July 27, 2026: a 2.8-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model with a 1-million-token context window, the largest open-weight mod…
On July 24, 2026 Anthropic released Claude Opus 5, its fourth new model in under 60 days (after Sonnet 5, Fable 5 and Mythos 5 in June). Opus 5 delivers close to flagship Fable 5 q…
On July 23, 2026 AI-chip startup Etched — founded by three Harvard dropouts in 2022 — closed a $300M Series C led by Sequoia at a $10.3B valuation, with a16z, Jane Street and SK Hy…
Techstars is running its Founder Catalyst Global Fall 2026 pre-accelerator, a 10-week, fully virtual, non-equity and free program from Sept 22 to Nov 27, 2026. Applications close A…
On July 9, 2026 OpenAI unveiled GPT-5.6 in three variants: Sol (the workhorse), Terra (mid-tier), and Luna (budget). Sam Altman says the models are markedly more token-efficient —…
xAI released Grok 4.5 on July 8, 2026, priced at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, with public access the next day. Elon Musk called it 'an Opus-class m…
The taxpayer's paying (underpayment) UOMI rate is 8.97% p.a. effective 16 January 2026 (down from 9.89%), not 10.96%. Best phrased as 'currently 8.97%, set by Order in Council and…
Dependent-child sponsorship threshold rose to ~NZ$58,240/yr from 9 March 2026 (80% of the new $35.00/hr median wage), not NZ$55,844 (which held only 10 Mar 2025–8 Mar 2026).