Carbon Tops, Metacognition Raises

By the Orchestra editors · 4 min read

TL;DR

Google drops Gemini 4 Carbon two weeks after Argon, claiming top benchmark spot with a cybersecurity focus
Aussie AI startup Metacognition banks another $5M from Airtree on top of $10M Main Sequence pre-seed
Nvidia open-sources Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe for multilingual speech-to-text with prompting
Australia moves to ban AI chatbots that build emotional intimacy with children

AI · Worldwide

Google releases Gemini 4 Carbon with cybersecurity focus

Two weeks after Argon, Google DeepMind has shipped Gemini 4 Carbon, which tops the new Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5 with gains in coding, agentic tasks and cyber defence. Access is limited to selected security partners for now, with broader rollout planned through Google's Fairwind Program.

Nvidia open-sources Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe

Nvidia released Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe, an open speech recognition model that handles transcription, speaker diarisation and translation across 40 languages via text prompts. It uses about a sixth of the active parameters of its closest open rival and ships with an 800,000-hour speech dataset and fine-tuning tools.

Google opens Android Studio to third-party AI agents

Android Studio now supports over 40 external coding agents including Claude Agent and OpenAI Codex through a new "Bring Your Own Agent" feature. Google says new terminal tooling lets agents complete UI tasks 77% faster while using up to three times fewer tokens.

Anthropic launches enterprise spend transparency tools ahead of IPO

Anthropic released new dashboards and analytics that show companies exactly how their Claude API spending maps to business outcomes. The move comes as the company prepares for a blockbuster public listing.

Australian Tech

Metacognition banks another $5M from Airtree

Weeks after a record $10M pre-seed from Main Sequence, AI robotics startup Metacognition has added $5M from Airtree. The back-to-back raises are record-breaking for an embryonic Australian startup, founded by former AIML director Anton van den Hengel.

Australia to ban AI chatbots that seek emotional intimacy with children

The federal government's new online safety standards bill, which passed the lower house, would prohibit AI chatbots designed to create emotional bonds with minors. PM Albanese raised concerns about children treating AI agents as their "best friend", and Labor faces pressure to empower the telco ombudsman as a social media watchdog.