AI Down Under

Epizodai

• Dr Brian Lowe - Chief AI Officer in Australia 22.07.2026 1val 19min

  Brian Lowe has held the title of Chief AI Officer—one of the few in Australia to do so—and brings a clear message for business leaders concerned they are falling behind on AI: you are not missing out. In fact, up to 95% of AI initiatives never reach production, and much of what is presented as progress is often little more than hype.Brian began his career with a PhD in Information Systems and has since built deep experience across enterprise AI and data. His roles have included Assistant Director at the Bureau of Meteorology, CTO of an AI startup, Head of Data Architecture at one of Australia’s big four banks, and Director at a major university, where he helped the institution navigate the early emergence of AI. Most recently, as a Chief AI Officer, he advised organisations across government, utilities, and global retail. He is now focused on building a sovereign Australian AI model—trained on Australian data, hosted domestically, and governed by Australian law.Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansloweIn this episode, Brian explains what a Chief AI Officer actually does day to day, and much of it involves cutting through noise and challenging misplaced optimism. He has seen conferences showcase questionable case studies, consultancies promote solutions that fail to deliver, and executive sponsors persist with struggling initiatives to avoid admitting failure. His approach to navigating this landscape draws on an unexpected source: a lesson from a Simpsons episode about a monorail.Then he takes apart agentic AI. Much of what is sold as agentic is just automation, a technology that has been around for 20 years, rebadged with a bit of AI sugar on top. The properly agentic systems are useful but they misfire, and his test for where you can trust them is simple. Would you hand your online banking to an assistant who gets it wrong 3% of the time?He also explains why the US government accidentally handed Australia the business case for its own AI model, why students who learn with AI do worse, why everyone running a team of AI agents has become a manager whether they like it or not, and why AI has made hiring good people harder than it has ever been.ALSO IN HERE- Why beer ended up in the nappy aisle, and what it says about your data- The "bad debtors" his team discovered that you actually want to keep- The AI he instructed to abuse him, and why it improves his thinking- Why the best AI implementation he has ever seen won a Nobel Prize- Why a $70k graduate might beat your AI subscriptionCHAPTERS0:00 Who is Brian Lowe1:15 He is building an Australian AI model2:00 The two events that made the case for it5:33 "95% of an AI project is data"7:36 Start from scratch, or fork and fine tune10:15 Most business problems do not need model training11:27 The Industrial Revolution question14:57 A four day week, if we get this right16:45 What a Chief AI Officer actually does18:50 "There's a lot of bullshit out there"23:10 How to spot snake oil before you pay for it25:22 The monorail episode28:01 95% of AI projects never make it30:18 "You are not missing out"33:52 Rebadged RPA with AI sugar on top35:03 Beer in the nappy aisle40:09 What agentic AI really is43:31 The online banking test45:00 The best AI implementation he has ever seen49:18 The infinitely patient tutor53:06 Students who learn with AI do worse55:46 The AI he built to abuse him56:52 Everyone is becoming a manager1:02:08 Why teams cap out at seven1:04:54 Why AI made hiring harder1:09:44 The $70k graduate vs the API bill1:15:08 How AI hacked your brain1:17:44 "You cannot substitute people for AIs"
• Simon Kriss - CEO, Sovereign Australia AI 22.07.2026 55min

  Simon Kriss is building Australia's own AI. His argument is simple. Every model Australian businesses and governments use today is rented from overseas, and somebody else holds the off switch.Simon spent more than 35 years in the corporate world, held the chief AI officer role, and has keynoted at the UN in Geneva. He mentors boards and executives on AI adoption, and he is now CEO of Sovereign Australia AI, raising the backing to build a large language model from the ground up right here.CHAPTERS0:00 One of Australia's leading voices on AI0:52 What Sovereign Australia AI is building1:22 Somebody else holds the off switch2:51 Talk fests, and why the money hasn't come5:40 China builds practical AI. America builds God in a box.7:47 The six layers of sovereignty10:01 Why "not too bad" confuses an American model12:54 Anti woke orders and Australian values16:18 Why fine tuning is only "domestic, not sovereign"23:51 Five years out, and the trust problem30:26 The US Cloud Act, explained33:09 "It might as well be sitting in Texas"35:31 Staying at the model layer, and "we built Wi-Fi"38:39 The talent case, and the DeepSeek connection42:17 The Friday evening a model got switched off43:21 Investors can't see the burning bridge44:21 How to spot fake "Australian owned"47:52 The UK playbook he wants to copy51:15 Fencing wire, snow skiing, and having a go53:17 Digital colonisation and the war scenarioSubscribe for more conversations with the people actually building AI in Australia.
• AI Engineer @ $3B Software Firm 20.07.2026 35min

  He builds AI for a living, and he says most businesses asking for AI don't need it. They need automation.Edward Budiman is an AI engineer at NiCE, where he does client facing AI implementation. Before that he was an AI and automation engineer, and before that he studied data science.0:00 Who he is and how he got into AI0:44 The build that saved a hundred people hundreds of hours2:15 He custom built it, before n8n existed3:21 Why one big prompt loses to lots of small ones6:16 People ask for AI. They mean automation.9:06 How he picks an orchestration platform13:35 Everyone moved to Claude14:00 The biggest mistake businesses are making16:24 Most people are asking the wrong question18:12 The projects that keep coming back21:17 "80% is just automation"22:44 The surprise waiting for new AI engineers23:23 Stuck inside the Microsoft ecosystem26:51 He shipped a worse system to stay Microsoft native28:13 Is SaaS dead33:04 Why FDEs are the future
• Head of AI @ $2B Finance Firm 20.07.2026 37min

  His AI agents do the analyst's work at a $2B finance firm. Deal research that took analysts three weeks now takes a coffee break.Ivan Wong has a PhD in microbiology. He now runs data and AI at LVP, a $2B Sydney private equity firm, where he built the entire AI capability himself as one of their first tech hires.0:00 A PhD in microbiology, then NASA, then AI1:03 How good is the thing he built, really1:47 Three weeks of deal research, now a coffee break4:11 Why he built instead of buying7:15 He rebuilt Salesforce in under 12 hours10:15 The "AI brain" explained11:54 What the microbiome taught him about finding alpha14:42 The career path that looks random and isn't17:34 The hard part isn't building18:43 Building the agent that does the analyst's work19:22 The problem with freeing up your juniors21:01 Benchmarking the models, and why Claude won22:19 The four things he actually evaluates25:44 Why cheap models are a false economy27:26 The local model on his desk