Kiwi company Allbirds has announced a new direction and it's drawn questions from experts.

After years of losses, the former sustainable shoe company is transitioning to AI after selling all its assets this month.

It's revised its moniker to NewBirds AI - seeing share values surging up to 700 percent.

NZ Herald senior business writer Chris Keall says the tech and business-based press has raised concerns about what this could do for the company.

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The US earnings season is in full swing, with many leading companies posting their results.

The Middle East conflict is looming over this year's data and experts have raised concerns.

Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explained further.

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Airlines are now treating the fuel crisis as a long term issue.

The conflict in Iran, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz, has forced airfare rises and route cuts.

Board of Airline Representatives NZ Executive Director, Cath O'Brien, says airlines have to look well ahead.

"At the moment, we're planning for the season that runs October to March. As we plan ahead, we have to plan networks on a totally changed basis of cost. And I think that's the real challenge."

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The Government’s looking at ways to give businesses long-term certainty about fuel.

Latest figures show we have 56 days of petrol, 45 of diesel, and 47 of jet fuel either here or en-route.

Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones told Mike Hosking officials are considering what additional information they can release.

He says the real plague is uncertainty, and it's not a bad idea to further mend the uncertainty in the business community.

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There’s renewed hope in the Kiwi start-up scene with a surge of investment in 2025.

New data shows the number of deals rose 14%, with total investment surging 61% to $754 million.

Fintech and health-tech saw strong gains, while climate and clean-tech dropped.

Angel Association Chief executive Bridget Unsworth told Mike Hosking 47 companies were funded, compared to 51 in 2023.

She says more money going into fewer deals is an exciting sign of the start-up ecosystem maturing.

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Inland Revenue has claimed New Zealand needs higher taxes, building off earlier arguments made by Treasury.

It sees scope to increase the goods and services tax (GST) rate - offering a cash transfer to low-income earners - and tax more capital gains.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explained further.

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Shares in A2 Milk dropped this week after the company downgraded their earnings forecast - after the business was hoping to increase their net profit for the June year.

A2 Milk has cited supply chain issues, partly relating to the conflict in the Middle East.

Milford Asset Management's Jeremy Hutton explained further.

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If you haven’t watched the Bunnings video yet showing its staff being attacked, I recommend you go and watch it - especially if you feel uneasy about the company using CCTV for facial recognition. It’s a compilation of incidents that have occurred in its stores.

The first incident shows a man pulling a knife on a staff member and threatening them so he can walk out the door with two trolleys’ worth of stolen goods. That happened at the Porirua store.

The next incident shows a man holding a box who runs at and knocks over a staff member, while another man behind him tries to steal a second box. That happened at the Takanini store.

The incident I found hardest to watch is a man approaching a staff member at their car in a mostly empty car park. He sidles up to them, then smacks them in the head when they’re not expecting it. He then chases the staff member as they run away and trip because they are so frightened.

Now, let’s be clear about what’s going on here - Bunnings is releasing this video as part of a PR campaign. It’s trying to convince us that it needs to use facial recognition technology in two of its Hamilton stores.

What blows my mind is that it has to go to these lengths. It's been trialling facial recognition since 2018. It's fought its way through a tribunal process in Australia. It's had the Privacy Commissioner here, and the equivalent over the ditch, watching them. It's engaged a Māori digital sovereignty expert. It's released at least two of these video compilations.

And all of this, so far in New Zealand, is just for permission to operate in two stores. Not all stores - just two. Two Hamilton stores.

That’s because there are still enough people worried that Bunnings will take our biometric data and sell it, lose it or wrongly deny entry to some innocent person.

I would have thought this was a slam dunk. I would have thought the answer would be: yes, absolutely - go ahead and use facial recognition if that’s what you need to do to keep your staff safe.

Because sure, something might go wrong one day with the CCTV. But go and watch those videos. Things are going wrong right now.

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