Thursday Headlines: PM expected to announce Federal Royal Commission into the Bondi terrorism attack, US seizes Russian-flagged vessel linked to Venezuelan oil, thousands of Aussies hit with highly transmissible flu strain, Grok under investigation by Australia’s online safety watchdog over deepfakes, and Warner Bros rejects ‘inadequate’ $160bn Paramount bid.

Deep Dive: In 2025, the architects of artificial intelligence were named Time’s Person of the Year - making the question no longer whether AI will shape our future, but how fast and on whose terms. 
 
What started in our feeds is now reshaping classrooms, the economy and the physical world around us - with massive AI data centres now being built in Australia. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Helen Smith is joined by Toby Walsh, Chief Scientist at the UNSW AI Institute, to break down what to expect from the tech in 2026. 

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