Tech Talk

Is your company’s AI strategy a ticking financial time bomb? While consumer subscriptions offer "subsidised intelligence," the transition to enterprise agents like OpenClaw is exposing businesses to "AI bill shocks" and context window bloat. From the hidden mechanics of token-based billing to the capital expenditure of moving models on-premise, Daren Tan of ALPHV Technologies joins Tech Talk to unpack how to scale AI without breaking the bank.Learn More About:Token Billing Mechanics: AI costs are driven by "tokens", broken-down text fragments, where input data (prompts/PDFs) and output responses are billed at different rates depending on the model's reasoning complexity.The "Context Window" Bloat: As chat histories grow, LLMs re-process the entire conversation for every new prompt, exponentially increasing costs. Daren recommends starting fresh threads to prevent "context rot" and wasted spend.Four Pillars of Bill Shock: Organisations face financial risk from 24/7 agentic loops, "agentic checking" (AI verifying AI), and the illusion that enterprise API costs mirror $20 consumer subscriptions.Model Routing & Caching: Strategic cost-saving involves "model routing", sending simple tasks to cheaper "Nano" models, and utilising prompt caching to receive up to 90% discounts on recurring queries.The On-Premise Pivot: When cloud costs become commercially unviable, shifting to local hardware (like Nvidia DGX systems) offers fixed costs and mandatory data sovereignty for regulated industries, albeit with significant upfront Capex.The Governance Gap: Deploying autonomous agents like OpenClaw without strict oversight can grant AI full access to file systems, creating critical security vulnerabilities and credential risks.Tech Talk is brought to you by Maxis Business. Building Tomorrow's Business Today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Free buses, childcare, broadband and housing; who decides what makes a universal basic right? This week, Matt and Roshan discuss Universal Basic Services and begin a two-part conversation on social resilience, post scarcity abundance, and the techno utopians battling to shape and profit from the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Employees leaking company secrets. Traceability gaps blocking production. 74% of organisations regret their AI vendors. The rush to adopt artificial intelligence is creating massive blindspots. Daren Tan of ALPHV Technologies joins Tech Talk to unpack the expensive realities of enterprise AI deployment and how to stop "Shadow AI" in its tracks.Learn More About:The Shadow AI Threat: Employees using free-tier consumer AI tools pose a massive cybersecurity risk, requiring strict endpoint management and enterprise legal contracts to prevent proprietary data leaks.Escaping Pilot Purgatory: Enterprise AI projects often fail to scale because leaders chase consumer-level "magic" without engineering for compliance, traceability, and localised hardware costs.Traceability & Explainability: Organisations must build step-by-step reporting tools to justify AI decisions (such as rejecting a bank loan) to ensure accountability when system errors occur.The "Human in the Loop" Safeguard: To manage unpredictable edge cases, companies must deploy fail-safes and manual override triggers that pause autonomous workflows when model performance degrades.Agentic AI & Open Claw: The next frontier of enterprise automation involves autonomous AI agents executing complex device-level tasks, driving a surge in localised processing hardware like Mac Studios to avoid staggering cloud token costs.Tech Talk is brought to you by Maxis Business. Building Tomorrow's Business Today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a new sheriff in town. Can Roshan Kanesan bring the outlaw Matt Armitage to heel? It’s unlikely when you consider that the first topic today is Wetware, where brains on chips learn to play the classic game Doom and biocomputing enters the cloud. Matt also outlines plans to fell millions of hectares of the Arctic’s boreal forest and sink them in the ocean in the name of saving the planet. And the weird lessons we can learn from fungus eating ants and rocks about carbon sequestration. All of this as cover, just to make batteries sound exciting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI can now write software, debug systems, and generate entire applications in minutes. Some technologists are even claiming that coding is effectively “solved.”But if AI can write the code, what happens to software engineers? Do we still need to learn programming? And why are companies still struggling to find technical talent?On this episode of Tech Talk, we speak with Sharma Lachu, Founder and CEO of Accendo Technologies, about whether AI has truly solved coding, how teams can maximise productivity with AI tools, and what the future looks like for developers and engineers in an AI-driven world.Tech Talk is brought to you by Maxis Business. Building Tomorrow's Business Today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re back in the land of the weird. A former karaoke company eats $17bn of trucking stocks. Claude’s 60-year-old coding skills see the COBOL cowboys ride off into the sunset as they wipe $30bn from IBM’s stock in a single day. Microsoft flexes its superhuman powers to etch our history in glass, and erect a real life Fortress of Solitude. Oh, and Hollywood loses its mind over ByteDance’s text to video model Seedance 2.0, which allows any casual user to make the blockbuster of their dreams.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2026, the convergence of 5G and AI is shifting businesses from reacting to problems to predicting them. As networks get faster and intelligence becomes embedded into operations, enterprises are beginning to rethink how they manage supply chains, improve efficiency, and make decisions in real time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Instead of talking about equitable societies, AI has once again decided we have to revert to the ‘world in peril’ format. A safety lead at Anthropic quits to pursue a future in poetry, while the US Defence Secretary seeks to label the company a risk to national security. While using those same technologies for classified military operations.But don’t worry, we’ve got some light relief in the shape of martial robots dancing on TV.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As artificial intelligence becomes more accessible, it is rapidly changing the nature of cyber threats. From highly personalised phishing and automated intrusion attempts to the growing risk of deepfakes and identity manipulation, attackers are finding new ways to scale and adapt. At the same time, organisations are racing to strengthen their defences with AI of their own. Suresh Srinivasan joins us to explore whether cybersecurity teams are keeping pace, how the balance of power is shifting, and what businesses need to understand as the digital threat landscape enters a far more complex and unpredictable phase.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you feel like a slave to your smartwatch. Is your Screen Time report laughing at you? With holidays around the corner, Matt and Rich look at some of the ways you can use the break to bust open those digital bad habits and reset your devices so they work for you instead of against you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the past two years, organisations everywhere have been experimenting with AI. Pilots are running, proofs of concept are being showcased, and leadership teams are under pressure to show progress. But behind the excitement, many initiatives never make it past the testing phase.We speak with Khalil Nooh, CEO and Co-Founder of Mesolitica, about why so many AI projects stall before reaching full deployment. From data readiness and leadership mindset to structural barriers inside organisations, we explore what separates companies that successfully scale AI from those that remain stuck in experimentation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI agents. They sound like your spy dreams come to life. Send them out into the world to snoop on your behalf. In reality, they’re kind of important but boring. Which is why Matt and Rich have put off talking about them for so long. But then a bot only social media platform called Moltbook comes along and suddenly everyone is interested in what these little bits of code have to say. Especially to each other. When they think we aren’t watching. Today they unpack OpenClaw, aka Moltbot, and try to explain what a 2026 operated by agents is going to look like.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As tech giants race to weave AI into every pixel of our digital lives, Mozilla has done the unthinkable: they’ve given users a way out. We dive into Firefox’s new "AI-Off" switch and what it means for the future of the web. We spoke with Alexander Wong from SoyaCincau to find out whether this is a landmark win for user consent or a desperate stand by a "human-first" browser in an increasingly automated world.We explore the growing "AI fatigue" hitting the tech industry and ask the hard questions: Is AI becoming the new bloatware? Can "Digital Quiet" become a luxury feature? From the ethics of the "Organic Web" to the power dynamics of Silicon Valley, we break down why the right to opt-out might be the most important feature of 2026.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite their best efforts to resolve the problem, it looks as though Richard and Matt have found no solution to work, though they have found some interesting approaches that might. On today’s show they offer up their apologies and outline what you can expect to see at your desk in 2026. From agentic AI bundling up your day, to managerial trends and mentoring.They also take a look at some of the trends that looked as though they were going to sweep the workplace, like radical transparency and accountability. And why companies are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meta’s recent $2 billion acquisition of the Singapore-based Manus AI has signaled a major shift: APAC is now outpacing the West in the race for autonomous agents. As geopolitical tensions rise over tech transfers, Europe is left questioning if its "safety-first" regulations are leaving it behind.We speak with AI expert Clemens Wasner to unpack the fallout of the Meta-Manus deal and what it means for global tech sovereignty. Drawing on his decade of experience in Japan and China, Clemens explores the friction between EU governance and APAC speed, the surprising overlap in robotics and chips, and how localised "Sovereign AI" is reshaping the 2026 economic map.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Never has it been so hard to figure out what’s good for you. 10,000 steps a day or 7,000? More red meat or less? To use painkillers or not to use painkillers?Increasingly it seems that medical advice is being issued based more on feelings and political ideology than scientific fact. In the  second part of their Tech in ‘26 series, Matt and Rich examine some of the headline treatments and advances we’re likely to see this year.From new blood tests for dementia and associated brain shuttle treatments that can break the brain-blood barrier, to the expansion of GLP-1 and similar obesity treatments. Plus the future of primary care, with telemedicine going mainstream, and the role of AI in just about every part of medical research and diagnostics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Quantum computing is advancing faster than many realise, and when it does, it could break the encryption that protects banking systems, payment infrastructure, and government data.In this episode of Tech Talk, we speak with Wo Swee Teck, Managing Director at Securemetric Technology, about why Post-Quantum Cryptography is no longer theoretical, and what the real risks are of delaying preparation.We explore Malaysia’s readiness following guidance from NACSA, how banks and government agencies are approaching crypto-agility, and what organisations often underestimate about cryptographic migration. From legacy systems to long-term trust, this conversation looks at the operational, economic, and national implications of the quantum era.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2026. Will it be the year that a robot butler finally delivers crisps to Matt on a silver platter? That nuclear fusion goes mainstream and everyone owns their own star generating tokamak? Maybe a way to send actual viruses to digital scammers.Or will it be more rent to own subscriptions, low earth orbit collisions, private space travel and incomprehensible fridges. In the first part of a series on technologies in ‘26, Rich and Matt take a look at consumer tech, imagine what IRL AI looks like, advances in energy production. And those all-important billionaire bolt holes in space.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Tech Talk, we explore how 5G, AI, and mixed reality are reshaping the future of healthcare delivery. Following among the world’s first multi-country live surgery conducted by Universiti Malaya Medical Centre and CelcomDigi, we look at how holomedicine is enabling real time surgical mentoring, immersive medical training, and cross border collaboration.T. Kugan, Chief Innovation Officer at CelcomDigi, and Professor Dr Adina Abdullah, Head of Digital Health Unit at Universiti Malaya Medical Centre, share how ultra low latency 5G and holographic visualisation are moving from pilot projects into real clinical environments. We discuss what this means for access to specialist care, surgical education, and Malaysia’s ambitions as a regional healthcare and medical training hub.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“If you’re enjoying it, you aren’t really listening.” That’s Matt’s upbeat introduction to 2026. He’s probably not wrong. In a world of constant iteration cycles and incremental upgrades, we take time to salute some of the big names and services that the tech world lost in 2026.Skype, AOL and the Blue Screen Of Death; we salute you for the familiarity you brought to our lives in a world of confusion, change and AI creep.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.