Tonight on The Huddle, broadcaster Mark Sainsbury and Thomas Scrimgeour from the Maxim Institute joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!

The Government has confirmed it plans to investigate the City Rail Link project, after reports revealed it could have cost $2 billion less. Do we think this review is needed?

Is it time to lift the Super age from 65? Another economist has warned we can't keep kicking the can down the road. What do we think?

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The Finance Minister says the Government's going to have to do something about Superannuation.

An OECD report warns if current policy settings continue, we could be spending 5% more of our GDP on health, long-term care, and pensions by 2060.

Minister Nicola Willis says the cost for superannuation is going up billions of dollars, while there are fewer workers for every pensioner.

She told Mike Hosking the cost is also rising as a proportion of taxes.

Willis says it will soon account for 20%, and every dollar spent isn't available for education, health, and infrastructure.

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The cost of computer components has shot up, and there's concerns about what it could mean for the tech sector.

The shortage of memory chips has prompted tech investors to worry about what this could mean for the market.

Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explained further.

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New Zealand's treading water, with a warning our increasingly overloaded pension system isn't sustainable.

The latest OECD snapshot of our economy suggests unless we adjust systems, including the costs of health, long-term care and pension will increase by about five percent of GDP by 2060.

It says it could be countered by changes including upping Superannuation contributions.

Economist Cameron Bagrie says we can't keep kicking the can down the road - and that we need to address entitlements, through lifting the retirement age or means testing.

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The rise in AI has seen demand for professionally written CVs in a bid to stand out against algorithms.

Experts say while AI can be useful to screen hundreds of applicants faster, it's created a transparency gap between employers and jobseekers.

CVs by Sarah director Sarah Wrightson says the screening software rules out applicants before a human gets a chance to look at their CVs, and it results in qualified applicants getting filtered out.

"I've had clients come to me saying that they've applied for 80 jobs and heard nothing back - and often, they've actually got really solid experience. The software's looking for alignment and clarity, humans read context, the software doesn't."

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As business owners, you know how hard it is keeping up with your business, let alone the news. Join Wilhelmina O'Keeffe each week as she gives you a rundown of the biggest stories that could impact your business, so you can make informed decisions with expert advice.

This week, the unexpected surprise in the unemployment rate, the overseas agreement hoping to stabilise our fuel stocks, plus the oil crisis hammers the retail industry and our smaller businesses.

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Market research has long been a privilege of the big end of town. Got $50,000 and six weeks to spare? Great, you can know what your customers think. Everyone else? Good luck.

That model is being dismantled, and a New Zealand startup is doing some of the dismantling. In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, I sat down with James Donald, CEO of Auckland-based Ideally, fresh from closing a $16 million Series A that values the company at $100 million.

Ideally is one of three AI-centric New Zealand startups to hit that psychological valuation milestone in the past month – a sign that our fledgling AI start-up ecosystem is gaining momentum.

James is a former Shell engineer turned serial founder whose previous company, Yonder, was acquired by a US travel tech firm. Now he's turned his sights on a $40 billion slice of the global market research industry – one where 90% of spend still flows to people-heavy agencies like Kantar and Nielsen.

His pitch: AI can do what took those agencies weeks to do, in hours, at a fraction of the cost, and with results in the hands of the people inside a company who actually know what questions to ask.

The pros and cons of synthetic data

In our chat, we get into the heart of what Ideally is doing differently. One of the most interesting debates in AI right now is the rise of synthetic data – building artificial personas to simulate how real people would respond. James makes a pointed argument: when the stakes are high, and you need genuine nuance, synthetic just isn't good enough.

We also dig into what James calls "living data" – the idea that consumer insight shouldn't die in a PDF buried in SharePoint, but should be a continuously growing, queryable understanding of your customer base.

And we talk about the SaaSpocalypse – that February moment when hundreds of billions were wiped off the value of software companies worldwide. Ideally sits squarely in that story: an AI-native challenger gunning for the market share of legacy research platforms and expensive agencies alike, with a usage-based pricing model designed to turn in-house marketers into researchers, rather than leave it to outside consultants.

This is a great example of how AI is being used to shake up long-established industries.

The Business of Tech is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome to the first episode of The Economy of Everything, with thanks to CMC Markets. To kick things off, our hosts Tamsyn Parker and Liam Dann tackle the cost of living crisis, what's happening with markets as the Middle East war kicks back into gear, and the significance of today's unemployment data release.

The Economy of Everything is brought to you by NZ Herald in partnership with CMC Markets.

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