News In Brief

Welcome to our ‘News In Brief’ column in which we digest all the news releases for you in no more than five paragraphs.
Below are snippets of all the media releases we received from July 21 till the end of the week.
This article updates throughout the week.

AI Finance Use Grows, Trust Doesn’t

Perth, July 21: Nearly one in five Australians (17%) are now using AI tools to help with financial decisions, according to new research from AustralianSuper — a figure that jumps to 28% among 18-to-29-year-olds, compared with just 6% of those aged 60 and over.
The research found AI is mostly being used as a research tool rather than a decision-maker: about half of users turn to it to explore investment options, while more than 40% use it to compare financial products, understand their superannuation, or estimate retirement needs.
Despite the uptake, caution persists. More than a third of Australians (37%) say they don’t trust AI-generated financial information, largely over concerns about where the information comes from. Still, most users are checking before acting — 54% cross-check AI output against other sources, and 32% consult a financial professional. Only one in four act on AI advice without verifying it elsewhere.
Younger Australians appear especially open to a bigger AI role if the right safeguards exist: 57% of 18-to-29-year-olds said they’d welcome AI-powered financial guidance if it were securely personalised to their circumstances, versus 34% across all age groups.
AustralianSuper’s Head of Guidance and Advice, Ross Ackland, said the findings reflect people’s growing curiosity about AI for financial questions, while noting that “trust is still a critical factor in how people act on the information they receive.” He added that the fund encourages people to seek professional financial advice tailored to their own circumstances before making major decisions.

Logitech Cuts Scope 3 Emissions 33%

Perth, July 21: Logitech has released its Fiscal Year 2026 Impact Highlights Report, revealing a 49% reduction in Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions and a 33% reduction in Scope 3 emissions compared to baseline years.
The progress is driven by the company’s Design for Sustainability (DfS) approach, which embeds sustainability across its values, supply chain, products and processes. Key results include more than 200,000 tCO2e in avoided carbon emissions, and third-party reviewed Product Carbon Footprint studies now available for 100% of target products.
On circular materials, 81% of Logitech products are now manufactured with post-consumer recycled plastics. The company has also expanded its repairability partnership with iFixit to 69 product lines — triple the number supported two years ago — and removed 2,500 tonnes of packaging material over the past three years. PVC-free product lines now make up 55% of shipments, up from 44% the prior year.
Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber said, “Over the past two decades, Logitech has increasingly placed sustainability at the heart of our business. And today, that long-term commitment is yielding significant results. We embed our Design for Sustainability practices into every aspect of our business, from our values to our global supply chain, because doing good for people and the planet, is good for business.”
Chief People & Sustainability Officer Elaine Laird said, “We work to deeply understand our impact through lifecycle analyses that provide data and insights for both Logitech and the industry. We apply these insights at scale to innovate and reduce the environmental impact of our product portfolio. We endeavour to do this with transparency and accountability, to build trust among our stakeholders and to drive meaningful progress.”
The report follows Logitech’s recent recognition in TIME Magazine’s top 50 World’s Most Sustainable Companies, the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index, and Newsweek’s World’s Greenest Companies list.

Australians Reveal The Cutoff For Living At Home

Perth, July 22: New research from comparison site Finder has found the average Australian believes 31 is the cut-off age for still living with parents.
Gen Z and baby boomers were the harshest critics, both nagging that 30 is too old to still be at home, while millennials and gen X gave a little more leeway at 32. Parents of under-18s were also stricter (30) than those without kids (32).
Finder personal finance expert Sarah Megginson said the housing crisis has pushed back traditional adulthood milestones: “The idea that everyone should be out of home by their early 30s doesn’t reflect the financial reality facing many Australians. The housing crisis has changed the timeline of adulthood for an entire generation. The traditional milestones of adulthood are being pushed further back, with many people delaying moving out, buying a home and starting a family.”
Separately, Finder’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker found more than 1 in 3 (36%) Australians who don’t own property don’t believe they’ll ever be able to afford a home. ABS data from 2021 showed 51% of men aged 20–24 were still living with parents, compared with 43% of women in the same age group.
Megginson noted staying home longer isn’t necessarily a bad thing: “Living with your parents at 31 may raise eyebrows, but struggling to afford rent is becoming the norm. Living at home longer can be a smart financial move, allowing young adults to save a deposit faster and avoid the pressure of soaring rents.” She added: “If you’re staying at home to save, make sure you’re actually making the most of it.”

Canva Now Connects Directly To Fusion Signage

Perth, July 22: Brisbane-based digital signage software Fusion Signage has launched an integration with Canva, letting users design content in Canva and publish it straight to screens without exporting, downloading or re-uploading files.
Connecting the two platforms takes two steps: users log into Fusion Signage, go to Manage, click Add then Canva, and are taken to their Canva account. Once a design is finished, clicking “Return to Fusion Signage” brings the asset in as a media item that can be scheduled and deployed to any number of screens.
David Brummell, operations director at Fusion Signage partner Complete AV, said, “I was surprised how simple and straightforward this integration makes it to create and publish content. Bringing the two platforms together is genius.”
Rebecca Filling, administration manager at Adventure Park Geelong, said, “What I love most is how easy this makes things for us. We used to design templates in Canva, download them and then have to recreate editable versions in Fusion Signage. Now our team can edit directly in Canva as it is incredibly easy to connect Canva to Fusion Signage. We are and will definitely be using this integration in our workflow moving forward.”
Fusion Signage MD James Ingram said the integration was built to feel effortless: “That strength is underpinned by our highly capable development team, who have built the experience to be intuitive, efficient and reliable. From the user’s perspective, however, the key point is much simpler: the integration works the way businesses expect it to work. It fits naturally into existing content habits rather than forcing users to change them.”
He added, “The result is a faster, simpler and more efficient digital signage workflow that helps organisations create better content and get it onto screens with less effort. In a category where speed, relevance and visual impact matter, the Canva and Fusion Signage integration gives users a practical new advantage that adds real and tangible value to their business.”
Fusion Signage currently runs on more than 20,000 screens across Australia and New Zealand, and the integration is now available to all existing users.

11:11 Systems Partners with Cato Networks

Perth, July 22: 11:11 Systems has announced the global availability of its Managed Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution, built on a new strategic partnership with Cato Networks.
The offering runs on Cato Networks’ cloud-native SASE platform and combines intelligent SD-WAN, cloud-delivered security and global connectivity into a single managed service. It brings together zero trust network access, firewall as a service, secure web gateway, cloud access security broker and advanced threat protection, backed by 11:11’s round-the-clock monitoring and support.
The solution is aimed at distributed enterprises, multi-site organisations and businesses managing hybrid workforces, SD-WAN refreshes or security modernisation with limited IT resources. It builds on 11:11’s existing networking, cloud and cyber resilience portfolio, and expands its Network as a Service offering.
Justin Giardina, CTO of 11:11 Systems, said, “Enterprises are under pressure to support users, applications and locations that are more distributed than ever, while limiting complexity and improving security. Our Managed SASE solution provides customers with a unified approach to modernising networking and security, along with the visibility, support and flexibility they need to thrive in a rapidly changing environment.”
Karl Soderlund, global channel chief at Cato Networks, said, “As enterprises move beyond fragmented legacy networking and security stacks, they need a simpler way to gain visibility, context and control across hybrid work environments and reduce the operational burden on IT. Through our partnership, we can address these challenges head on and deliver end-to-end visibility and protection in a single service built for the reality of modern work.”
The announcement follows 11:11 Systems’ inclusion in Forrester’s “The Secure Access Service Edge Services Landscape, Q1 2026” report.

Adobe Brings Acrobat PDFs To WhatsApp

Perth, July 23: Adobe and WhatsApp have integrated Acrobat-powered PDF tools directly into WhatsApp Web and Windows, letting users open, review and edit documents without downloading files or switching apps.
The update lets PDFs shared in a chat open instantly in full-screen view, including password-protected files, with layout and formatting preserved and end-to-end encryption maintained. Users can also mark up documents in-chat — highlighting, underlining or striking through text — without leaving the conversation.
For more advanced edits, an “Edit in Acrobat” option unlocks tools to edit, organise, sign and password-protect files, plus an AI Assistant that can summarise documents and answer questions. These advanced features require an Acrobat subscription. Updated files can then be shared straight back into the same WhatsApp thread.
Adobe’s senior vice president of Creativity & Productivity Business, Abhigyan Modi, said the move extends Acrobat’s document workflows into one of the world’s most-used communication platforms.
The feature is now available globally on WhatsApp Web and Windows.

Unemployment Holds Steady At 4.4% In June

Perth, July 23: Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 4.4 per cent in June, according to the latest ABS Labour Force figures. Employment rose by 76,000 people, driven largely by a 47,000 increase in part-time work, with ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick noting some of this growth came from people who had been waiting to start jobs in May — a stronger-than-usual June result.
The number of unemployed people also rose, by 13,000, pushing the participation rate up 0.3 percentage points to 67.0 per cent. The underemployment rate climbed 0.2 percentage points to 6.5 per cent. Workers aged 55 to 64 recorded the largest annual rise in participation, up 0.8 percentage points to 70.6 per cent.
Part-time hours worked grew 1.2 per cent over the month, while full-time hours held flat. Annually, employment is up 1.7 per cent and hours worked up 1.8 per cent since June 2025. On a trend basis, unemployment also sat at 4.4 per cent, with both underemployment and underutilisation rates ticking up slightly.
The ABS noted it is modernising its Labour Force Survey systems, and reminded households that some will be asked to complete both the Monthly Population Survey and the 2026 Census, with Census night falling on Tuesday, 11 August.
Commenting on the figures, HiBob APJ’s Head of People, Anna Volkova, said the rise in jobseekers is prompting employers to prioritise AI-related skills over traditional hiring criteria, pointing to research showing AI proficiency is increasingly tied to promotion, performance and pay decisions — while relatively few workers currently receive structured AI training from employers.

Young Aussies Back Esports At Olympics

Perth, July 23: A new global study by Logitech G has found a stark generational divide over whether esports belong in the Olympic Games. Among 1,500 Australians surveyed, 59% of those aged 18-24 believe esports should be included, but support drops sharply with age — falling to 22% overall, 19% among 45-54-year-olds, and just 4.6% among those 55 and over.
Daniel Hall, Senior Category Manager at Logitech G ANZ, said the results point to a shifting definition of sport, arguing that professional gamers face physical and mental demands comparable to traditional athletes, and that the boundary between “sport” and “entertainment” is narrowing with each generation.
The findings are part of a broader global study of 18,000 participants, which found young Australians are running roughly 10 percentage points ahead of their international peers on the issue — despite Australia’s outdoor sporting culture. Hall said this reflects the country’s competitive sporting spirit extending into gaming rather than replacing it.

Aussies Want AI Oversight, Study Finds

Perth, July 23: New global research from TeamViewer has found a “confidence gap” is holding back workplace AI adoption in Australia, even as usage climbs. While 80% of Australian employees use AI daily — among the highest rates globally — 64% still want human oversight before AI takes independent action.
The study, “Path to the Autonomous Workplace,” found IT departments are furthest along the autonomy curve: 32% of IT leaders already describe their teams as at least partially autonomous, and all IT leaders surveyed said they’d be comfortable delegating at least one task to AI, most commonly system updates and device fixes. IT leaders expect autonomous systems to handle 45% of Australia’s digital workplace services by 2030.
Trust remains conditional. Most respondents said they’d accept AI acting more independently only within defined limits, with guardrails such as strong security protections, notifications before major changes, and rollback options cited as key to building confidence. The verification burden is already significant — 65% of respondents regularly check AI outputs before relying on them, spending an average of 2.34 hours a week doing so.
TeamViewer’s Vice President of Global Digital Employee Experience, Matthew Percy, said employees aren’t rejecting AI or autonomy outright, but are asking organisations to build the transparency and control needed to earn their trust. Chief Product and Technology Officer Mei Dent added that scaling autonomy will depend on proving it works in specific, trusted use cases before expanding further.

Noise Tops List Of Neighbour Gripes

Perth, July 23: New research from Youi Insurance has found noise is Australians’ biggest neighbourhood bugbear, with 63% of more than 2,000 respondents naming “keeping noise down after certain hours” as an unwritten rule of neighbourhood life. Loud power tools at odd hours (48%) ranked closely behind, and noise or parties were behind 21% of Australians’ worst neighbour experiences.
Quiet hours are fairly clearly defined: 66% of Australians expect quiet by 10pm on weekdays, with slightly more tolerance on weekends, where 64% are fine with noise continuing past 10pm. Noise was also the behaviour Australians were most likely to speak up about, at 52%.
The survey — part of Youi’s “Unofficial Series,” following its 2024 driving etiquette report — distilled the results into an “Australian Unofficial Neighbourhood Etiquette Act,” covering noise, parking, greetings, pets and privacy. More than half of Australians (54%) agreed their neighbourhood runs on unwritten rules, while 58% said they prefer neighbours who are friendly but keep their distance.
Youi’s Chief Customer Officer, Anthony Antonucci, said the findings reflect a uniquely Australian balance between friendliness and personal space, noting that younger Australians are more likely to believe in these unwritten rules but less likely to follow them, while Baby Boomers are the most consistent rule-followers. Social researcher and futurist Ashley Fell said the results reflect how Australians are redefining community on their own terms, adding that simple gestures — saying hello, minding noise, respecting boundaries — still go a long way, with 53% of Australians saying having neighbours nearby makes them feel safer and more supported.