The SME Stream

2025 has been a memorable year for global equity markets, and it's prompted speculation from investors. 

Between economic downturns and tariffs, there's been plenty for experts to voice concerns about.

Fisher Funds expert Sam Dickie explained further.

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It’s been a tough run for the economy this year, but the Finance Minister is celebrating the progress that was made. 

Nicola Willis told Kerre Woodham the economy is growing, which means that when they look back on 2025, they’ll be able to say it ended a lot better than it started. 

She says that looking into next year, it’s set to grow much faster, with many more jobs being created. 

“People can look forward to their incomes rising faster than inflation and ongoing low interest rates – that's a positive way to start the next year.” 

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New Zealand's economy grew more than expected between July and September. 

But between April and June, it shrank more than previously thought. 

GDP rose 1.1% in the September quarter, surpassing all expectation but Stats NZ has revised the numbers for the June quarter, finding GDP actually fell 1%, not the previously-reported 0.9%. 

That means the economy shrank 0.5% in the year to September. 

NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham the data is showing there’s some momentum in the economy, especially within manufacturing and business services. 

He says consumers take a bit longer to feel upbeat, but the business core of the economy is picking up.  

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As 2025 wraps, how are we set up for the year to come?

We welcome economic experts Shamubeel Eaqub, Chief Economist at Simplicity, and Paul McBeth from the Bottom Line, to review a strange year in the markets.

Why was the market’s reaction to trade tariffs so unpredictable? Why has market commentary been so pessimistic lately, even as Wall Street approaches new records? Why has NZ’s economy remained sluggish while share markets rose abroad? Has the property investing market learned its lesson? 

Hear Shamubeel’s theory that it’s been a humbling year for market commentators, and Paul's thoughts on the surprising strength of NZX small caps and Freightways.

Plus, the AI question: A bubble, or the next industrial revolution?

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“Never a dull moment” is how Wellington-based veteran consumer tech reviewer and commentator Pat Pilcher describes the year in tech after relentless product launches, an “utterly insane” Black Friday sales season and the “enshitification” of the internet, thanks in large part to AI.

In our final episode of The Business of Tech for 2025, Pilcher joins the show to break down the biggest trends of 2025 and what’s coming in 2026, from AI agents and smart rings to humanoid robots and the debut of solid‑state batteries.​

Apple, AI and the year of the fold

Pilcher starts with the elephant not in the room: Apple’s slow play on generative AI. 

“Every tech player and their pet poodle had an AI offering except Apple,” he said. “This is just crazy. This is a company that sets the trends that everyone slavishly follows, and they missed the bus on the biggest AI trend probably of the decade.” 

Yet he thinks there is method in the apparent madness, arguing that “stepping back… until they get a mature offering” may prove “quite sensible” in such a fast‑moving space.​

That patience, he predicts, will collide with hardware in 2026. Pilcher is convinced 2026 is going to be the year of the iPhone fold, following in the wake of foldables leader Samsung.    

AI slop, deepfakes and the S-curve of tech adoption

AI dominated 2025, working its way along the classic S‑curve of technology adoption. While an enthusiastic user of generative AI tools, Pilcher is blunt about the downsides, from “AI slop” filling Facebook, X and LinkedIn to academics “pulling their hair out” as students outsource learning to chatbot tools.​

With hyper‑realistic video models like Sora3and an election year looming, Pilcher says “the general public needs to be a lot more critical, a lot more sceptical – and they’re not”.

Pilcher chooses Cory Doctorow’s famous term “enshittification” to sum up a key, regressive trend of 2025.

“You subscribe to a service, it sounds fantastic and it’s only $5 a month. Three months later, it’s $25 a month, does less, requires more of your information and they can’t guarantee your privacy and by the way, your password’s been stolen,” he said.

Pilcher sees this as evidence that the business model underpinning AI is dubious, with companies investing “billions and billions of dollars in massive data centres” in a period of “geopolitical instabilities and macroeconomic instabilities”.

Silicon became “the new global currency” in 2025, from Nvidia’s dominance to Google’s Tensor processing units (TPUs) and China’s push to go beyond 40nm (nanometers) under US export bans. 

Smart glasses, smart rings and genuinely smart homes

If 2025 was AI’s year, Pilcher also thinks it was when home and wearable tech quietly levelled up. He rates Meta’s new Ray‑Ban smart glasses, which can describe what you’re looking at and translate signs on command. Future prototypes, he notes, combine wristbands that track “tendon movements” for hand‑gesture interfaces with augmented reality (AR) overlays that could do everything from lie detection in negotiations to live 3D navigation in unfamiliar cities.​

Smart rings are another sleeper hit, with Pilcher praising rings for being “unobtrusive” and “tiny” while monitoring health stats well enough to “tell you proactively when you’re coming down with a cold or a flu a week before you start noticing symptoms”. In his own testing, backed by a blood‑pressure cuff and digital thermometer, a smart ring delivered accurate results.

On the home front, Pilcher says the long‑promised smart home is finally here, thanks to the Matter standard, which means new gadgets “will basically work regardless if you have an Alexa, Apple, Siri or… Google Home”. 

EVs, robots and the 2026 futures

Pilcher also covers the post‑rebate slump in EV sales, the rise of value‑packed Chinese brands like BYD, and the misinformation around EV fire risks, pointing out how a petrol vehicle, not a battery, was to blame in a widely shared bus fire incident. 

Putting his futurist hat on, Pilcher talks about smart contact lenses with built‑in displays and gesture‑tracking bracelets that could make smartphones “look as quaint as a Model T Ford”, always‑on access to AR shopping lists and navigation, and the first serious wave of humanoid robots. 

With cheaper AI silicon and compact models, he “wouldn’t be surprised if in late 2026… humanoid robots become the next must‑have consumer electronics category for the well‑heeled”. 

He also expects to see the debut of solid-state batteries as an alternative to Lithium-ion batteries that power everything from laptops to EVs, expecting new breakthrough technologies to offer longer battery life and durability.

Tune in to Episode 131 of The Business of Tech, powered by 2degrees Business, for the full conversation with tech guru Pat Pilcher, streaming on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Government insists it has a plan to turn the economy around. 

Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows the country is first forecast to be in the black by 2029-2030. 

The Finance Minister has admitted the country is borrowing money to pay the interest bill on the debt. 

Nicola Willis told Heather du Plessis Allan that bill is about $9 billion a year. 

She says around 80% of borrowing over the next few years will be for capital assets like hospitals, schools, and roads. 

There may also be more cuts to the public service as they aim to get back down to surplus.  

Economic growth is expected to be just 1.7% next year, and Willis says there's still room for efficiency in the public service. 

She will be sending letters out to her cabinet colleagues to give them ideas on where they can make some savings. 

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Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update has painted a concerning picture for the Government books.

It forecasted the deficit will peak at $16.9 billion dollars, and only drop to $60 million in the 2029-2030 financial year. 

Independent economist Cameron Bagrie says this forecast doesn't come with many surprises.

"If you look at the bigger picture, we're now going to have a decade of deficits. And if you look at the last two years, the situation's actually been worsening." 

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The Finance Minister's still aiming for a surplus this decade, despite today's bleak economic news.

Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows more delay to getting the books back to black. 

The deficit's expected to deepen more to a high of $16.9 billion and not narrow to $60 million dollars until 2029-30.

Nicola Willis says a 2029 surplus is very achievable.

"What that will take is just a small revision to the growth upwards, combined with fiscal discipline. And those are two things that our Government is committed to." 

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The Director General of MPI reviews the December Situation and Outlook for the Primary Industries (SOPI) that was released this morning. Kiwi farmers, growers, and primary producers are driving New Zealand’s economy with food and fibre exports set to reach a record $62 billion for the year to June 30, 2026. The sector now accounts for 83% of all NZ goods exports. 

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