Build, Budgets and Bots

By the Orchestra editors · 4 min read

TL;DR

Microsoft Build 2026 drops Scout assistant, in-house reasoning model and an agent-first OS
Uber blows its AI budget in four months, caps employee spending
Australia's AI Safety Institute criticised as underfunded in Senate Estimates
Brisbane's DataMasque raises $5.6M to help enterprises safely train AI on sensitive data

AI · Worldwide

Microsoft Build 2026: Scout assistant, reasoning model and agent OS

Microsoft's developer conference delivered a wave of launches including Scout, an always-on personal assistant built on OpenClaw that lives across M365; MAI-Thinking-1, the company's first in-house reasoning model matching leading benchmarks; and Project Solara, an Android-based OS built for AI agent gadgets rather than traditional apps.

Uber caps employee AI tool spending after burning through annual budget in four months

After actively encouraging staff to lean into AI tools, Uber has had to walk things back and cap per-employee AI spend. It's a cautionary tale for any org running an uncapped "use AI for everything" policy.

OpenAI launches six Codex plug-ins for white-collar work

New plug-ins target data analytics, creative production, sales, product design and finance roles. Each bundles integrations and context so Codex can approximate a specific job function out of the box.

Australian Tech

AI Safety Institute slammed as underfunded in Senate Estimates

Senator grilling in Estimates revealed the overdue Australian AI Safety Institute remains under-resourced, with accusations the government's AI policy has fallen "out of step" with voter expectations. Minister Ayres also appeared blindsided by separate startup consultation efforts run without his knowledge.

DataMasque raises $5.6M for enterprise AI data privacy

The Australian startup helps enterprises safely mask and use sensitive customer data for AI training, testing and analytics. The raise positions it to tackle one of the biggest blockers to enterprise AI adoption.