Synology today officially introduces AI Advisor, an intelligent assistant designed to simplify information discovery. By delivering accurate, localised technical guidance directly on Synology’s website, the AI Advisor ensures reliable insights while significantly reducing resolution time for users worldwide.

“AI Advisor integrates over a decade of Synology’s AI expertise,” said Steven Liang, Manager of the Generative AI Application Group at Synology. “With an agent-as-tool design, dynamic knowledge injection, context optimisation, and a continuous evaluation pipeline, AI Advisor delivers accurate, high-quality responses and continuously refines itself. These innovations will extend across Synology product lineup, advancing our vision of secure, intuitive solutions.”

Self-hosted ecosystem to ensure AI sovereignty

Prioritising customer privacy, the AI Advisor utilises a self-hosted LLM that operates entirely independent of third-party AI providers, ensuring no context is shared externally. Moving toward complete data sovereignty, the service will transition to a dedicated Synology infrastructure later in 2026, guaranteeing 100% data residency and keeping all user interactions within a secure, sovereign ecosystem.

Streamlined navigation from inquiry to implementation

AI Advisor integrates with Synology’s NAS Selector and NVR Selector tools. Users are guided through preliminary sizing and product recommendation workflows tailored to their deployment needs, enabling faster and more informed early-stage purchasing decisions. By understanding the intent and context of each query, the Advisor further streamlines the journey by directing users to relevant support articles, downloads, or configuration guides to ensure a fast transition from question to solution.

AI Advisor Accessibility and Availability

Alongside the introduction of AI Advisor, this website update brings support for global web accessibility standards, ensuring an inclusive and user-friendly experience for audiences worldwide.

The Synology Website AI Advisor is available now on Synology’s official website. To learn more about Synology’s AI-driven services and experience the new Advisor, visit Synology’s official website. www.synology.com

 Commerce an open, intelligent ecosystem of technology solutions and the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics and Makeswift, has announced a broad set of product innovations unveiled at Commerce Live 2026, spanning core platform advancements, new growth capabilities and emerging agentic commerce experiences.

The announcements highlight how Commerce is evolving its platform to help merchants move faster, scale across channels and adapt to new forms of commerce driven by AI.

“Commerce is giving merchants the infrastructure to move faster, the flexibility to handle complexity and the ability to succeed in new commerce channels as they emerge,” said Vipul Shah, chief product officer at Commerce. “These new improvements reflect a stronger platform and new offerings and capabilities designed to help merchants turn innovation into measurable growth.”

Advancing Core Commerce Capabilities Across the Platform

Commerce introduced a range of enhancements across the BigCommerce platform designed to improve performance, flexibility and global scalability.

Key updates include:

• Multi-language capabilities: Expanded global selling support with translation APIs, localised URLs and sitemaps, and native translation management tools
• Advanced promotions management: New features including promotion banners, multi-coupon stacking, bulk coupon generation and shipping method discounts
• Improved catalogue flexibility: Removal of unique product naming requirements to simplify catalogue management
• Advanced catalog filtering and saved views: New precision filtering by category, inventory and more lets merchants instantly surface the products that need attention and save those views for faster access every time
• Faster checkout performance: Checkout load times reduced by one full second, delivering a measurable increase in conversion rates
• Backorder support: New controls enabling merchants to continue selling out-of-stock items with SKU-level limits

These enhancements are designed to directly impact conversion, operational efficiency and international growth for merchants.

Enabling Growth Through Storefront, B2B and Channel Innovation

Building on the platform advancements, Commerce introduced new capabilities that help merchants differentiate and scale.

Modern storefront experiences
Commerce continues to evolve its storefront capabilities with Makeswift on Stencil (now in beta), enabling merchants to adopt modern, flexible frontend experiences while maintaining compatibility with existing implementations.

Native Hosting for Catalyst: Coming to open beta this summer, Native Hosting for Catalyst provides production-ready, performant hosting on Cloudflare, managed through a simple CLI interface. It includes log retention and custom domain support –  with no additional cost – making it easier than ever for merchants to deploy and manage a modern headless storefront.

Makeswift batch translation: After rolling out AI translations for Makeswift and gathering merchant feedback, Commerce is now introducing batch translation jobs, enabling teams to localise an entire site or launch a new locale at scale, not one page at a time. Merchants retain full review and approval control before anything goes live.

Expanded B2B capabilities
Commerce introduced new tools purpose-built for complex B2B operations, including AI-driven purchase order automation, event-driven webhooks and advanced pricing logic through cascading price lists.

“B2B commerce is one of our core strengths,” said Lance Owide, vice president of B2B product at Commerce. “From automating purchase orders to simplifying complex pricing models, we’re helping manufacturers and distributors reduce operational friction and scale more efficiently, while continuing to support the depth and complexity their businesses require.”

“Automating purchase orders and improving how we manage pricing has been a significant unlock for our business,” said Joe Sharplin, head of ecommerce at AS Colour. “We’re reducing manual work, minimising errors and delivering a more seamless buying experience for our customers.”

As part of its roadmap, Commerce is also unifying its B2B and B2C platform experiences, making it simpler for merchants who sell to both businesses and consumers to manage everything from a single control panel and build on one storefront API layer.

Payments and monetisation infrastructure
Commerce also highlighted continued innovation in payments, including BigCommerce Payments built with PayPal, expanded Stripe integrations and support for a growing set of local and alternative payment methods – all designed to reduce friction and improve conversion.

Feedonomics Surface expansion
Feedonomics Surface, Commerce’s self-service feed management solution, is now expanding channel support with availability across Microsoft Ads, TikTok and Pinterest, in addition to Google and Meta. The platform enables merchants to automatically sync, optimise and distribute product data across channels from a single interface.

Early adoption has already resulted in millions of products synced and measurable increases in gross merchandise value as merchants expand into new acquisition channels. Existing BigCommerce small businesses using Surface saw approximately 24% points greater year-over-year gross merchandise value growth in November 2025 compared to their peers.

Introducing Agentic Commerce Capabilities

Commerce also introduced a new set of capabilities designed to support the ongoing shift toward agent-driven shopping and buying, where AI systems increasingly participate in product discovery, decision-making and transactions.

These capabilities include:

• Enriched, agent-ready product data through Feedonomics
• Distribution across AI-driven discovery surfaces including ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, PayPal, and Stripe
• Agent-enabled checkout experiences that allow transactions to occur while merchants retain control of the customer relationship
• Conversational search and AI-assisted shopping experiences on the merchant’s own storefront 
• AI-powered merchant assistant – BigCommerce Companion – supports day-to-day operations

“Commerce as an industry is entering a phase where the distance between discovery and transaction is shrinking rapidly,” said Sharon Gee, senior vice president of product for AI at Commerce. “Our focus is on making sure merchants can reap the benefits of agentic commerce while maintaining control of their data, their customers and their operations.”

Built for What’s Next

The announcements at Commerce Live 2026 reflect a broader strategy: combining flexible infrastructure, connected data and intelligent automation to help merchants grow across today’s channels while preparing for what comes next.

To learn more about Commerce’s product upgrades, visit commerce.com/momentum.

For many small to medium businesses (SMB), the browser has quietly become the place where work happens. Staff use it to access email, accounting software, collaboration tools and, increasingly, AI tools. In fact, as much as 85% of daily work happens in the beloved browser.

That convenience has helped SMBs move faster, reduce overheads and stay flexible. But security hasn’t kept pace. Most browsers were never designed to manage sensitive business operations, control data exposure or govern how employees use AI tools. Yet they now sit at the centre of all three. And often without the visibility or controls organisations need.

This matters because attackers have adapted. They no longer need to break through a company’s infrastructure if they can steal a password, hijack a session or trick an employee into clicking the wrong link. According to Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 2026 Global Incident Response Report, nearly half (48%) of the incident response cases now involve browser-based activity. 

For SMBs with limited IT resources, the impact can be significant: lost data, business disruption, reputational damage and real financial cost.

The good news is that improving security does not have to mean adding complexity. It starts with recognising that the browser is now the front door to the business and taking a few practical steps to protect it.

Treat the browser like a business-critical tool 

Small businesses don’t need to add more security tools for the sake of it. But they do need to pay close attention to the tool their people use most. If staff are accessing payroll, finance systems, customer data and AI tools through the browser, then browser activity needs more visibility and control.

Start with the basics. Know which business-critical apps staff are using, who can access them, and what information can be copied, downloaded or shared. If you cannot answer those questions, there is a good chance your security settings have not kept up with how work is actually happening.

Tighten access to the apps your team uses every day

For attackers, it is often easier to misuse a legitimate login than break into a network. That makes identity and access one of the most important areas for small businesses to get right.

At the same time, identity has become one of the most reliable ways for attackers to gain access. The techniques are familiar, but increasingly effective. Phishing captures credentials. Malicious links and downloads compromise sessions. In some cases, simply visiting a compromised page is enough.

The underlying issue is visibility. Today, the browser is the primary interface to cloud applications and AI tools, yet many organisations have limited visibility into browser activity and rely on default browser protections. That means spotting risky browser behaviour, such as unusual logins, suspicious downloads or staff entering sensitive information into unapproved tools, can easily be missed.

Practical steps can go a long way: turn on multi-factor authentication, limit admin access, review which employees can use which apps, and remove access quickly when roles change.

Put guard rails around AI and data sharing 

AI tools are now part of everyday work for many small businesses. Used well, they can save time and boost productivity. Used carelessly, they can expose sensitive business or customer information.

As AI tools become part of everyday workflows, the browser is no longer just where employees access information. It is also where sensitive business data can be entered, shared and exposed in seconds. 

That doesn’t mean banning AI tools. It means setting clear guardrails. Make sure staff know which tools are approved, what information should never be pasted into public AI tools, and when human oversight is needed. For example, an employee might paste customer details, financial information or plans for a new product into a public AI tool to save time. Without the right safeguards, that information can leave the business with little visibility or control.

Many traditional security measures were not designed for how people use browser-based AI tools today. That means businesses can have protections in place elsewhere, while still missing risks at the point where employees actually interact with data.

For small businesses, the challenge is not to build enterprise-level security from scratch. It is to make smarter decisions about the tools employees already use every day.

Businesses that focus on visibility, stronger access controls and clearer rules around data and AI use will be in a better position to grow with confidence. The goal is not to slow people down. It is to make secure work the easiest way to work.

Contributed by Raj Sharma, Cyber Strategist, Australia & New Zealand, Palo Alto Networks

Oracle NetSuite, the #1 AI cloud ERP, has announced new NetSuite knowledge packages for AI coding agents that will help customers and partners accelerate and de-risk the creation of NetSuite applications and customisations. The new NetSuite SuiteCloud Agent Skills will make it easier for developers to create customised vertical and industry-specific applications by giving AI coding assistants a better understanding of the conventions, patterns, and best practices in SuiteCloud – NetSuite’s standards-based AI extensibility and customisation platform.

“Data is only powerful when it can be acted on quickly and safely,” said Brian Chess, senior vice president of AI, Product, and Technology, Oracle NetSuite. “With SuiteCloud Agent Skills, our customers and partners can transform how they extend NetSuite and move from lengthy, error-prone coding cycles to AI-assisted development that is fast, secure, and consistent.”

As the first ERP platform to leverage the agentskills.io open standard, SuiteCloud Agent Skills enable customers and partners to accelerate and simplify NetSuite customisations and extensions by introducing SuiteCloud development guidance across more than 25 AI coding platforms. With SuiteCloud Agent Skills, developers can build, review, and deploy SuiteCloud changes in natural language using popular AI coding agents, AI-enabled tools, and SuiteCloud Developer Assistant. The new SuiteCloud Agent Skills include:

• User Interface Framework References Skill: Helps developers deliver NetSuite-compliant user experiences and avoid costly rework by supplying exact specifications for 60-plus interface components and insights from real-world issues to help avoid common pitfalls.
• Permissions References Skill: Helps developers deploy secure, error-free configurations by providing a validated catalogue of 684 precise permission codes that help ensure users only have the access they need, in line with least-privilege security practices.
• SuiteScript References Skill: Helps developers save time and increase SuiteScript code quality by providing the correct field IDs, names, types, and required status without manual lookups.
• Documentation Practices Skill: Helps developers produce consistent, professional project docs by auto-generating README, ARCHITECTURE, and API files from code analysis.
• Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) Security Reference Skill: Helps developers embed robust security from the start by delivering NetSuite-specific OWASP security guidance as code is written.
• SuiteScript Conversion Skill: Helps developers improve efficiency and migrate from legacy v1.0 scripts to v2.1 in hours instead of days by mapping every API, restructuring entry points, and generating a validation report.

SuiteCloud Agent Skills Availability

User Interface Framework References and Permissions References skills are available now to customers globally. The additional skills will be available in Github soon.

Microsoft has announced the largest AI skilling commitment in Australia’s history: a pledge to help three million Australians build workforce-ready AI skills by the end of 2028. Delivered with partners across government, industry, education and the community sector, the commitment will expand access to practical, responsible AI training. This will help build an AI-ready workforce and support the goals of Australia’s National AI Plan to lift national capability and ensure AI is adopted safely and responsibly. 

The expanded commitment triples Microsoft’s 2024 pledge to skill one million people with digital skills across Australia and New Zealand, and the 2023 commitment to train 300,000 Australians – both achieved ahead of schedule – showing strong demand for practical learning. The new commitment deepens our support for Australians across three areas: the future workforce, the current workforce and the community, and addresses the skilling need in different ways – through our customers and partners to skill at scale, and through community and education to provide specialist skills. 

This new commitment is part of a series of investments into Australia’s AI future made today by Microsoft, including the company’s largest-ever global technology investment in Australia. By the end of 2029, the company will invest A$25 billion (USD 18 billion) in new digital infrastructure, national cyber defence capability, and workforce skilling programs. 

“Australia doesn’t just need more people who can use AI tools, we need a much broader set of capabilities: how to apply AI to real work, how to use it safely and how to judge when not to use it. Our goal is to make AI skills as common as writing a document – so this technology drives shared prosperity, creating opportunity that reaches students, workers, and communities right across the country,” said Jane Livesey, President, Microsoft Australia and New Zealand.  

The need is increasingly urgent. The 2025 Microsoft Work Trend Index found 53% of leaders say productivity must increase, while 80% of workers feel they lack the time or energy to do their jobs. At the same time, recent global LinkedIn research shows that AI has created a net increase of 1.3 million new AI-related roles since 2023 – with eight in ten C‑suite leaders now prioritising candidates with AI confidence over experience alone. This highlights the growing need to equip Australians with the skills required to work effectively alongside AI. 

“Helping to skill three million Australians in AI is ambitious, but it matches the scale of change underway. From classrooms to the frontline and the community, we’re committed to helping Australians build the confidence to use AI responsibly and turn new capability into new opportunity,” Livesey added. 

Future workforce: bringing AI into classrooms and clearer pathways into careers 

To prepare the next generation for an AI-powered economy, Microsoft Elevate for Educators is launching today in Australia to help schools and education institutions empower educators and transform learning. Offered at no cost, the program supports educators and school leaders to help schools move from early experimentation to consistent, safe AI adoption by combining trusted credentials, professional learning communities and system-level guidance. 

Through Elevate for Educators, teachers and school leaders can access the AI Literacy for Educators credential – a globally recognised standard for understanding, applying and leading responsible AI in schools – alongside community connection, practical training, implementation guidance and classroom‑ready resources. Together, these help education systems move from experimentation to everyday use, building the practical AI capability needed to improve teaching and learning outcomes over time. For students, this means earlier access to the skills needed to understand and apply AI in real‑world contexts, helping them graduate with the confidence to use these tools responsibly and participate more effectively in an AI‑enabled workforce. 

Recognising a growing gap for young people across all parts of the workforce, we’re partnering with Anyway (formerly Year13) to launch their latest tool for school leavers – an AI-powered Career Coach that delivers personalised career guidance, built on Microsoft Azure. The tool enables schools and governments to scale personalised student guidance, reduce counsellor workloads, and deliver measurable improvements in youth outcomes and workforce readiness.  

The Career Coach tool helps address a real capacity challenge for schools. With limited guidance counsellor availability across many Australian schools, too many students miss out on timely, personalised career advice, often at the exact moment they’re making high-stakes decisions about subjects, training and first jobs. To fast-track this support, Anyway and Microsoft will offer up to 1,000 schools across Australia free subscriptions to the tool, delivering personalised advice to students more quickly. Educators can register expressions of interest to be included in this program here. 

Beyond classroom learning, Microsoft is also helping create clearer pathways into the high-growth technical roles that will underpin Australia’s AI economy. Microsoft’s Datacentre Academy – launched last year in Sydney with TAFE NSW and expanded in March to Melbourne in partnership with Victoria University – provides practical, job-ready training and accessible entry points into datacentre and cloud careers. By connecting learners to in-demand skills and industry-recognised experience, the Academy helps more Australians move from learning to employment, supporting local jobs and the digital infrastructure needed to scale AI responsibly. 

Current workforce: building frontier-ready skills for every role 

AI adoption can’t be limited to specialists. As more organisations rapidly adopt AI, we’re seeing the rise of the “frontier worker” – people in every function who combine domain expertise with AI literacy, sound judgment, and the ability to work effectively with AI tools and agents. 

One of Microsoft’s flagship workforce skilling partnerships, the Institute of Applied Technology Digital (IATD), is helping Australians build job‑ready skills at scale, with enrolments reaching 500,000. Through free microskills and heavily subsidised microcredentials, the program provides fast, practical access to critical capabilities in AI, data and cyber–skills that are increasingly essential across every role. Co‑created and co‑delivered with TAFE NSW, Macquarie University and the University of Technology Sydney, the model’s strength has led to IATD being recognised as a TAFE Centre of Excellence, jointly funded by the Australian and NSW governments to skill an additional 50,000 people each year.  

Across the workforce, partnerships with major employers – including Telstra, Wesfarmers, and Westpac – will continue to deliver AI training at scale, with 150,000 workforce learners trained in the past year. Through bespoke programs that support both technical and non‑technical workers, these tailored initiatives provide free training pathways that help employees apply AI safely and effectively in their day‑to‑day roles.  

Microsoft is working with partners, including training provider Akkodis Academy, to deliver AI learning modules designed specifically for field and deskless workers. The training is built around how field- and trade-focused employees would use AI in practice, often on-site or in the field, and accounts for job-specific language, acquired shorthand, and a greater reliance on voice-based tools rather than typing. Through the AI Academy, over 14,500 enterprise learners in Australia have been trained, along with a further 10,000 educators and students, helping build practical AI capability across both frontline and knowledge‑based roles. 

Microsoft’s ongoing work with the Australian Council of Trade Unions will ensure the worker voice and skilling remain at the heart of Australia’s AI transformation, including through co-developing curriculum with the Australian Trade Unions Institute to equip union workers with the knowledge they need to support their members as they navigate AI transformation in the workplace.   

Through tools like AI Skills Navigator, we’re making it easier for workers and employers to find the right learning pathway, including trainings available through LinkedIn Learning, whether someone is starting with the basics or building advanced, role-specific capability. By bringing together curated training from Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning into a single, accessible experience, the platform helps individuals build practical AI and human skills through flexible, online learning that can be completed at their own pace. Free trainings such as Investing in Human Skills in the Age of AI – inspired by the book Open to Work by LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky and LinkedIn Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman – and this selection of free courses to earn professional certificates on AI, cybersecurity and more, look to explore the growing importance of critical thinking, empathy, communication and creativity as AI reshapes the way we live and work. 

Community: expanding access to AI opportunity with trusted partners 

For AI skilling to create national impact, it must be inclusive, reaching people and communities who have historically been underrepresented in technology. Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Report shows Australia ranks 11th globally, with 37% of the working-age population using generative AI tools at the end of 2025. Yet the report also finds adoption is accelerating unevenly and the digital divide is widening – reinforcing the importance of ensuring AI capability and opportunity are shared broadly. 

To strengthen community and nonprofit leadership with responsible AI, Microsoft Elevate for Changemakers is launching today to support Australian nonprofit and social impact leaders who are driving practical AI adoption in service of their communities. Designed to meet organisations where they are, the free program builds hands-on skills with free AI readiness credentials, alongside access to a fellowship of global champions for deeper applied learning, while also helping teams strengthen internal capability so AI can be used safely, effectively and in line with community expectations. 

The launch of Elevate for Changemakers builds on existing work with not-for-profits, including working with Indigenous-led organisations such as Deadly Coders. Through Minecraft for Education, we’re supporting culturally relevant pathways for First Nations students to build skills in AI, coding and cloud, helping grow Indigenous representation in Australia’s future technology workforce.  

To date, Deadly Coders has reached 5,328 students and 147 teachers across communities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory – building digital capability and opening pathways into future technology careers. The program scales access to culturally grounded AI learning and supports more young people to build the foundational skills needed to participate in an AI-enabled economy. 

New research commissioned by VistaPrint has found that tens of thousands of businesses risk closing not because they are failing, but because no one is ready to take over¹, at a time when small business insolvencies are already at record levels². Nearly one in three (31%) Australian small business owners plan to retire within the next five years, but just 16% have a documented succession plan. 

Close to half (45%) of all Australian small business owners considering an exit have no succession or sale plan at all. One in four (25%) have never even considered what will happen to their business when they leave.

“With one in three small businesses getting close to retirement without a clear plan for what happens next, we are heading towards a succession cliff. In many cases, the business is still heavily tied to the owner, through their relationships, reputation and day-to-day involvement, which can make it much harder to sell, hand over or keep the business going when they step away,” said Marcus Marchant, CEO of VistaPrint ANZS.

Exits Are Often Unplanned

Four in ten owners (40%) of all Australian small business owners have already experienced a sudden departure from a previous business – through health crises, financial pressure, burnout or market shifts. Yet one in five (19%) of those planning to retire have not discussed their exit with anyone – not family, not staff, not an adviser.

Built on Reputation, but at Risk of Disappearing

For decades, many of Australia’s small businesses have run on the back of the founder’s name and relationships. That works while they’re still behind the counter or laying the bricks. But when a business changes hands, those personal connections don’t always follow. Without visible branding and a digital presence, they’re starting from scratch.

Among small business owners aged 50 and over, reliance on reputation rather than formal branding rises to 78%. Nearly one in five (18%) of those nearing retirement have no professional logo, no website, no social media presence and no marketing program.

“If a buyer or successor can’t find you, can’t see what you stand for and can’t evaluate what they’d be taking on, then they’ll move on,” Mr Marchant said. “Branding isn’t vanity for these businesses. It’s the difference between a business that can be handed over and one that closes when the founder walks away.”

Making It Work 

Mark Griffiths, who, along with his brother Lee, took over Melbourne-based Griff & Lee Construction from their father in 2025, says investing in the way the business presented itself made the handover successful.

“We’d worked alongside Dad for years, so we knew the trade inside out. But when we stepped out on our own, we realised his reputation didn’t automatically transfer to us. We had to build our own identity from scratch: signage on the trucks, uniforms with a professional logo, and a website, so people could see we were a legitimate operation.”

“It’s made a real difference. We’re getting enquiries from people who found us online or saw our van on site. Dad mostly built his business on word of mouth and a phone number on the fridge, and that still works. But if you want to grow beyond the people who already know you, you need a new way for them to find you,” Mr Griffiths said.

Branding as a Business Asset

More than eight in ten owners (84%) believe branding would lift their business’s value or sales appeal.

More than six in ten (63%) of all Australian small business owners want their business to continue beyond them. Among those actively considering an exit, 72% say they’d invest in branding if it improved their sale outcome. The barrier isn’t willingness; it’s cost concerns and not knowing where to start.

For businesses preparing for succession, it’s important to actively get your brand out into the world. Ensure your logo appears wherever potential customers are likely to see it – from signage and uniforms to business cards, flyers and online channels.

A clear and consistent brand presence across these touch points helps make your business visible not only to customers, but also potential buyers. By applying your brand consistently, you shift the business from being built on “personal reputation” to becoming a transferable brand asset.

“The owners who act now, documenting how the business runs, strengthening how it presents itself, will have more choices and better outcomes than those who leave it until it’s too late,” Mr Marchant said.

WEX®, a global leader in intelligent payment solutions, today launches a new way for Australian fleets to manage fuel and EV charging through the WEX Motorpass® payments dashboard with the integration of the Chargefox EV charging platform. The move offers access to thousands of EV charging plugs and a unique digital payments infrastructure. 

Delivered in partnership with Australian Motoring Services, operators of Chargefox, the feature makes Motorpass the only multi-brand fuel card in Australia to offer digital EV charging payments. It aims to help businesses with current and transitioning mixed-fleets, with access to Australia’s largest EV charging network.

As tough emissions reduction targets drive electric vehicle adoption across Australian businesses, over one-third of fleet managers expect EVs to be their primary vehicle type by 2030, requiring rapid infrastructure development and innovation to support the fast-paced transition. Matt Arthur, Vice President and General Manager of WEX Australia, reinforced the critical role of vehicle fleets as a key contributor in the national energy transition. 

“Electric vehicles are key to the energy transition in Australia. Providing simplified access to charging infrastructure nationwide is essential to supporting businesses through the transition with confidence,” he said.

“The introduction of digital payments infrastructure that combines EV charging capabilities with multi-brand fuel access, while supporting driver confidence through a single app, is a crucial next step to ease the burden on businesses as they navigate the energy transition.”

Delivering on driver confidence

Range anxiety remains a key barrier in Australia’s transition to electric business vehicles. As of late 2025, range anxiety was listed as the main point of hesitation in as many as 60% of EV purchase decisions. For businesses requiring vehicles to complete long-haul journeys, charger access becomes a key friction point in EV transition. 

With the launch of the WEX Motorpass EV payments capability, the app’s advanced route planning feature equips drivers with the ability to easily locate and access public EV chargers along their route, reducing travel inefficiencies and subsequent costs to the business.

The Motorpass Driver app offers widespread access to over 3,000 public charging ports nationally. The native integration with Chargefox enables drivers to identify and access available chargers along their route, reducing pressure on depot charging schedules and grid restraints. 

Streamlining mixed-fleet admin

The WEX-Chargefox integration , allows fleet managers to track, manage, and report on EV charging and fuel transactions through WEX’s online platform, helping to remove a significant administrative burden for mixed-fleet managers.

“As fleets transition to EVs, reducing complexity makes a real difference,” said Islam Hassan, Chief Customer Officer, at Australian Motoring Services, operators of Chargefox. “By integrating charging into the WEX Motorpass app, we’re giving mixed fleets one familiar platform across all vehicles. It streamlines reporting and compliance for managers, and keeps things simple for drivers, with no extra apps, and no new processes.”

Single-system digital payments further simplifies data analytics for mixed fleets. Fleet managers, finance teams and business decision-makers can access, collate, and review data across all vehicles, including other costs such as maintenance, tolls, and car washes. This increased control helps give a more accurate picture of vehicle usage and cost of ownership, consolidated insights generated with near-real time visibility.

WEX’s EV functionality can be added to customers’ existing Motorpass fuel cards within one business day, with no need to reissue new cards, supporting almost immediate mixed-fleet integration. Motorpass customers can access the feature from Tuesday, 21 April. 

For more information, please visit the WEX Motorpass website.

Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using artificial intelligence (AI) products and features are growing 2.8 times faster than those that aren’t, according to new analysis from MYOB.

Based on aggregated and anonymised data from hundreds of thousands of SMEs, the modelling shows a clear edge in performance for the 40% of small-to-medium sized businesses currently adopting AI^[1].

Additional findings taken from the latest MYOB Bi-Annual Business Monitor, which surveyed more than 1,000 SMEs across the country, reveal where the benefits are being felt. Among those using AI, 54% report saving time and 34% say it is improving productivity, with the technology already driving gains across core business functions.

Despite the clear advantages on offer from AI adoption, MYOB’s April Business Monitor reveals almost half of (46%) of SMEs say they are not using AI and nor do they intend to over the coming 12 months.

CEO of MYOB, Paul Robson, said the results point to a widening AI divide.

“AI is the most powerful productivity lever the SME economy has experienced in years, already delivering measurable gains in efficiency, growth and revenue,” Paul said.

“Those adopting early are pulling ahead, and even modest uptake could unlock billions in additional revenue for the economy.

“As a core part of Australia’s technology sector for 35 years, MYOB sees AI transforming every employee’s impact, shifting from a ‘nice to have’ to a business-critical investment, though many SMEs still face barriers around trust, skills and understanding its value.”

Where AI is being used, it is increasingly being embedded into day-to-day operations, reflecting the broader trend of SMEs integrating AI into their business management solutions rather than treating it as a separate add-on.

Supporting this shift toward embedded, practical AI, MYOB has rolled out a suite of impact-led AI agents and AI-powered features across its business management platform, including Australia’s first AI BAS support agent, AI Business Insights, Smart Reconciliation and Smart Invoice Reminders. These have been designed to take the effort out of SME compliance and cashflow, and help business owners and their advisors save time, improve visibility and stay on top of their operations.

MYOB has also recently announced a five-year strategic partnership with Microsoft to jointly fund, build and scale AI innovation across MYOB’s business management solutions, accelerating embedded AI into day-to-day workflows and intelligent agents that forecast cash flow, guide compliance readiness, surface proactive insights and deliver next-best actions within the products customers already use.

For SMEs, while technology investment is accelerating, workforce readiness is not keeping pace. With two-thirds of SME employers not actively looking for AI experience when hiring and 72% claiming they have no plans to offer AI training, Paul added practical support is required, giving business owners the tools, guidance and confidence to adopt AI responsibly.

“With the right collaboration between industry, experts and government, we can help more SMEs turn that growth potential into real impact,” Paul said.

MYOB says building AI readiness into productivity programs will be critical and has welcomed the Federal Government’s $17 million AI Adopt Program as a step towards lifting capability across the sector. The AI Adopt Program is part of a suite of measures outlined in the Albanese Government’s National AI Plan released in December last year.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the way Australian businesses operate, enabling faster workflows, smarter decisions and new opportunities. Yet this transformation is not being felt evenly across the economy. The Australian Government’s AI Adoption Tracker shows us that while Australian small businesses are increasingly using artificial intelligence, those with fewer than 20 employees continue to lag well behind larger organisations in their adoption.

AI can be a powerful tool for small businesses looking to grow and improve how they operate but taking that initial plunge can be daunting. With a crowded market of AI tools, it’s not always clear which ones will deliver real value for your team, how to balance cost when many solutions charge a premium per user, or how to support employees in changing long-established ways of working so AI is actually used day to day.

Many small businesses are already putting AI to work in practical ways. For those early in their AI journey, the most immediate question is often how AI tools can support employees in their day-to-day roles.

Some of the most common and accessible use cases for small businesses include:

Recapping Meetings: AI can automatically capture key discussion points and action items, making it easier for teams to review conversations or stay informed when they can’t attend a meeting.

Summarising Information: When employees are faced with lengthy reports, datasets, or message threads, AI can distil the most important insights into clear, concise summaries to help save time and reduce information overload.

Compiling messages: From sales outreach to customer support responses, AI can help teams draft emails and messages faster, improving both speed and consistency.

Writing first drafts: AI assistants can help create initial drafts of business plans, marketing content, blog posts, or project documents, giving teams a strong starting point when time or resources are limited.

When the right solution is deployed across your business, scattered meeting conversations and AI interactions can be transformed into continuous intelligence. By connecting AI tools so they are integrated into the workflows where your work already happens, you can access contextually relevant suggestions and insights. At Zoom, we call this “conversation to completion”. This means turning discussions into documented decisions and actionable outcomes.

When rolling out AI to your employees, a thoughtful approach can make the difference between a tool that’s genuinely adopted and one that’s quickly ignored. The goal is to embed AI in existing everyday workflows.

Focus on impact

Rather than adopting AI simply because it’s available, start with the problems you’re trying to solve. What are the existing processes that frustrate your employees the most? Identify friction points in day-to-day work and explore how AI can help remove them.

For example, if employee feedback shows frustration with too many meetings and poor follow-through, AI-generated summaries can keep non-essential attendees informed without adding unnecessary meetings. These summaries can also be turned into post-meeting documents that capture decisions, outline next steps, and clearly assign actions to help teams move faster from discussion to execution.

Prioritise AI tools that work with your existing tech

Tool fatigue is a real challenge for businesses. In fact, the Global Collaboration in the Workplace survey, commissioned by Zoom and conducted by Morning Consult, shows that as the number of workplace apps increases, collaboration becomes significantly more challenging – an issue that can be amplified in smaller teams with limited resources. Before adding anything new, consider how well it connects with the systems you already have in place.

Support employees through training and education

After identifying where AI can add value in your business, the focus should shift to helping your team feel confident using it. Think about how AI-enabled workflows can be built into existing processes or clearly explained, so teams understand when and how to apply them to everyday challenges. Again, using AI first to help “fix” things employees have complained about is a great way to get buy-in from your team.

Employees who don’t use AI at work will often say it’s because they’re not familiar with it, or because they don’t know how it could help them. Addressing this gap early is critical. By investing in thoughtful onboarding and practical training, businesses can help ensure AI becomes a natural, useful part of the workday rather than an underused feature.

For small businesses, successful AI adoption doesn’t start with big projects or transformations, but rather with small, meaningful improvements to everyday work. By focusing on real employee pain points, choosing tools that fit within existing workflows, and investing in simple training, AI can quickly move from an abstract concept to a practical advantage. The businesses that take this approach will be in the best position to build confidence, momentum, and long-term value from AI.

Contributed by Sergio Aguilera, Head of Solutions Engineering APAC, Zoom