Productivity stories

New Zealand SMEs lifted staff hours but eased wage growth in January, leaning on existing rosters as they cautiously test post-holiday demand.

Asia-Pacific organisations hit steeper technical hurdles than global peers as they try to scale agentic AI from pilot projects to production.

MYOB links its CX platform with Customer Science analytics, automating reporting and lifting contact centre satisfaction and resolution rates.

New Zealand investors are warned AI-fuelled gains face “incredible danger” from US inflation, soaring debt and turbulent midterms ahead.

One Identity appoints Michael Henricks as combined finance and operations chief to steer scaling identity security business growth.

Liverpool John Moores University launches AI Academy with Multiverse to upskill 134 staff and free hours weekly for teaching and research.

Cognizant is expanding its Google Cloud partnership to accelerate enterprise deployment of agentic AI using Gemini Enterprise at scale.

Access Group is investing £1.5m of Apprenticeship Levy funds to train 115 staff on new AI programmes across roles and skill levels.

TerraPay and Sabre have struck a multi-year deal to power instant cross-border bank payouts for travel agencies, airlines and hotels.

Agentic AI in live contact centres is slashing rollout times, lifting self-service above 80% and boosting customer satisfaction by up to 20%.

Meaningful Planet secures seed backing from SFC Capital to tackle GBP £1 billion in wasted UK corporate mobile spend with its MILO platform.

HR, IT and finance must align on corporate travel or risk frustrated staff, weak compliance and poor cost control, SAP Concur warns.

Stop wasting budget on grunt work: use agentic automation to handle competitor intel, reporting, SEO and lead routing so marketers drive revenue.

Firms race to embed AI, yet staff fear risk and job loss. Can redesigning work and sharing control finally earn employees’ trust?.

Ramp launches an AI Accounting Agent that codes transactions, handles accruals and reconciles ERP data to speed up the month-end close.

Vape Guardian secures seed funding of GBP £350,000 via Angel Investment Network to expand its vape-detection tech in schools and beyond.

UK scale-up founders warn staff lack AI skills, with most slowing hiring and a third expecting job cuts within a year, Helm survey finds.

Hunting deploys Legalfly’s AI platform to standardise contract review, cut repeat legal work and tighten governance across regions.

Exclusive Networks deepens its UK and Ireland portfolio by adding Extreme’s AI-driven cloud networking platform to its cybersecurity-focused line-up.

Hexaware and CareInsight partner to embed AI in everyday healthcare operations, targeting large-scale rollout across payers and providers.