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The SME Stream

The SME Stream

Auteur(s): iHeartRadio NZ
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Looking for actionable business insights all in one place? BNZ is here to help you find a way with a curation of the ‘best bits’ from top business podcasts. Save time searching; subscribe to the SME Stream where you can listen to relevant, timely, business-related content today.

The SME Stream is a curated playlist of business podcasts brought to you by Bank of New Zealand (BNZ). The podcasts contain general information only, not financial or other professional advice. For help, please contact your bank or professional adviser. Any opinions expressed in the podcasts are not necessarily shared by BNZ, or its related entities. BNZ is not liable for any losses resulting from the content of the podcasts.

 Économie
Épisodes
  • Inside the AI race: Energy use, agents and the real impact on work

    Inside the AI race: Energy use, agents and the real impact on work
    Nov 20 2025
    Reporting from the front line of the artificial intelligence revolution, Time magazine reporter Harry Booth has a unique perspective on the technology moving markets and transforming business. The London-based University of Auckland graduate has been part of Time’s team of AI reporters for the last 16 months, his byline regularly appearing in the pages of the iconic news magazine. This week’s episode of The Business of Tech podcast features an in-depth conversation with Booth, who gave me a tour of how AI is reshaping the world of work, explained the technology’s breakneck pace of development, looming questions over its energy use, and the critical signals to watch as 2026 approaches. Is AI really cleaning up? Despite dire predictions that white-collar jobs would be decimated, Booth finds reality to be more complex and, in some ways, more sobering. In areas like translation, seasoned professionals aren’t being replaced outright. Instead, their roles have shifted. Translators Booth interviewed are now tasked with correcting AI-generated text – a role rebranded as “AI cleanup” – which brings downward pressure on rates without necessarily delivering true productivity gains. Surprisingly, fixing flawed machine translation can take as long as translating from scratch, eroding job satisfaction and earnings for skilled workers.​ The same story, Booth notes, is playing out in other “canary in the coal mine” sectors. A frequently cited study found that software engineers using AI coding assistants believed their workload to be 20% faster. But empirical measurement showed a 20% slowdown. This suggests productivity impacts are far from settled, with AI often under-delivering unless carefully tailored to fit the workflow.​ From assistants to agents Much has been made in the past year of the rise of “AI agents” – systems that operate independently and can execute multi-step tasks, not just answer queries. “We’re seeing the emergence of agentic AI — these aren’t just chatbots, but systems that can carry out tasks, fetch data, and increasingly do things in the world on our behalf,” Booth told me. He believes we’re still in the early innings. Some AI can now complete longer software engineering tasks. The length of time an AI system can work independently has roughly doubled every four to seven months. If that trend holds, Booth suggests we could see agents capable of a full workday by 2027. However, today’s agents remain far from being true digital employees. Meaningful productivity gains only appear when companies design AI tools that address specific, high-value pain points using both language models and smart software engineering.​ Energy, infrastructure, and the next bottleneck On the infrastructure side, AI’s growing thirst for energy is emerging as a defining challenge. Far from being a personal moral issue (a single AI prompt’s carbon footprint is tiny, Booth points out), energy is a strategic concern for the giants racing to train ever-larger models. “AI isn’t a climate disaster at the individual level, but as companies multiply their data centres, the real bottleneck for development is shifting – from talent and chips to energy itself,” he said. With global electricity production growing slowly and massive datacenter builds underway, companies are securing long-term energy deals – sometimes using the rhetoric of AI’s needs as justification for keeping older, dirtier power sources online.​ But Booth also highlights a surprising upside: the same AI giants are pouring fresh capital into clean-energy tech, particularly nuclear fusion. Projects previously imagined as decades away are suddenly within striking distance. Fusion investment has exploded from US$2 billion to $15 billion in just three years, with players like OpenAI, Google, and Softbank on board. New Zealand’s own OpenStar is part of this story, pursuing commercial fusion with techniques borrowed from the scrappy world of startups. While a fusion-powered data centre is still years away, the influx of funding is credibly accelerating commercial viability, with some experts predicting net-positive fusion within a decade.​ What Harry Booth is watching in 2026 As AI accelerates, Booth will keep his investigative lens focused on several fronts in 2026: Will the time horizon, how long an AI agent can independently operate, keep doubling at today’s pace? How will new training techniques, like direct observation of professionals and ever-more-complex simulation environments, impact AI capability? Will scaling models with ever-greater compute keep delivering breakthroughs, or are diminishing returns setting in? Most importantly, can the infrastructure, both silicon and power, keep up? Can the effort to make AI safer and more transparent move as quickly as the technology itself?​ Tune in to this week’s The Business of Tech to hear the full conversation with Harry Booth, ...
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    43 min
  • Catherine Beard: BusinessNZ Advocacy Director on the report calling for a long-term plan to strengthen the country by 2050

    Catherine Beard: BusinessNZ Advocacy Director on the report calling for a long-term plan to strengthen the country by 2050
    Nov 19 2025

    Bold, bipartisan centred planning is key to ensuring New Zealand doesn't succumb to the effects of a dwindling population and economic growth.

    A new BusinessNZ report's calling for a cross-party vision and long-term goals to strengthen the country by 2050.

    It notes a labour shortage of at least a quarter of a million is expected before then, and there's also a one in four chance the population doesn't grow.

    Advocacy Director Catherine Beard says businesses are sick of political u-turns and flip-flops.

    She told Mike Hosking we’re currently stumbling towards the future in a blindfolded fashion, and the report is designed to get everyone to think outside of the box.

    LISTEN ABOVE

    The podcasts in the SME Stream contain general information only, not financial or professional advice. Any opinions expressed in the podcasts are not necessarily shared by BNZ, or its related entities. BNZ is not liable for any losses resulting from the content of the podcasts

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    3 min
  • Mary Holm: personal finance expert on the growing number of Kiwis facing financial pressure this Christmas

    Mary Holm: personal finance expert on the growing number of Kiwis facing financial pressure this Christmas
    Nov 19 2025

    New data shows that more Kiwis will have to take on debt ahead of this coming Christmas season.

    A nationwide survey by MYOB showed 35 percent expected to feel financially better off in a year's time, while 38 percent expected to be about the same, and 24 percent believed they would be worse off.

    Personal finance expert Mary Holm says more Kiwi households will be struggling to afford presents for their kids, but there are workarounds.

    "There's buying only op-shop gifts or second-hand books, which could be quite fun, going and rummaging around bookshops to find the right gift for people."

    LISTEN ABOVE

    The podcasts in the SME Stream contain general information only, not financial or professional advice. Any opinions expressed in the podcasts are not necessarily shared by BNZ, or its related entities. BNZ is not liable for any losses resulting from the content of the podcasts

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    5 min
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