Jobs, launches, events: Melbourne AI in one quick read
Your weekly dose of Australian AI startup wins, fresh ideas, AI breakthroughs, and community moves
🦄 Featured: Unicorn Graveyard
This WEDNESDAY (tomorrow!) MLAI is hosting Unicorn Graveyard: four founders sharing 5–10 minute, no-spin talks + Q&A on why they shut down or handed over. Come for the wins, wobbles, woes, and a healthier culture around endings (BECAUSE MOST STARTUPS MUST DIE) Tickets Here
🎉 Last Week in Motion
Stone & Chalk and MLAI put on the Cybersecurity & AI evening. Overall it was a fun event! We got mixed feedback, some really good and DEFINITELY a few places for improvement. We’ve changed up a few things for upcoming events based on feedback!
MLAI Crew checked out the Shanghai World AI Conference to try to understand who’s most likely to be the future leaders in AI. Will it be US or China? Find out more at the ‘AI: How Far Ahead Is China?’ event.
🚀 Launch List of the Week
New Arrivals:
Keep an eye out for Boxed logic 👀. Congratulations to Boxed Logic, a Melbourne-based AI startup that allows you to run smaller AI models on your own device using CPU (maintaining complete control and confidentiality over your sensitive data)
They specialise in document understanding and employ their own optimised models to enhance productivity, reduce third party data leaks and reduce cloud dependency. You can join their waitlist here:
Coming soon:
GPT-5? → I sleep.
An Australian ChatGPT → Real S**t!?
Maincode has unveiled Matilda, a sovereign Australian LLM trained on local data; early access is open now with a public debut at SXSW Sydney in October, starting with specialist models for Aussie use-cases (e.g., ATO/tax, legal) before a broader ChatGPT-style product. Backed by Stake.com’s Ed Craven and led by Dave Lemphers, Maincode plans an “AI model factory” and says it will track and pay for copyrighted training data—positioning itself as a trusted local alternative and future rival.
Aus AI Startup Deep-Dive: Allevico
Allevico came about as a result of the MLAI Pitch Competition earlier this year. It’s a bedside AI behaviour support solution designed to improve the lives of people living with moderate to advanced dementia both in the community and in residential aged care settings.
Allevico provides care staff with research backed real-time, personalised behavioural guidance based on unique needs, preferences, and life history. By focusing on the person, not just the patient’s condition, Allevico helps provide carers with suggested strategies to reduce agitation, anxiety, and distress, supporting a calm, respectful environment without relying on sedation or restraints.
Current Progress / Future plans: A working prototype has been developed which has undergone initial usability testing, and a live pilot is planned for later this year with a large community aged care provider. Allevico has been entirely bootstrapped to date by its founding team Paul, Paul and Paul (in no particular order), with no external capital raised. An advisory panel has also been formed which is made up of industry experts, and people with personal experience in caring for people with Dementia.
Want to know more? Follow Allevico on LinkedIn, check out our website, or email paul@allevico.com
🌏 Ecosystem Pulse
GPT-5 launch (Aug 7): OpenAI made GPT-5 the new default in ChatGPT with big claims on coding/reasoning; online reaction (driven by Reddit threads) skewed negative about a “robotic” tone, stricter limits, and the removal of GPT-4o—enough that OpenAI tweaked the rollout. For founders: great new primitives to build with, but manage model volatility and user expectations (offer model choices, log changes, and ship guardrails). Read more… And more…
EU AI Act kicks in for GPAI (Aug 2): The EU’s obligations for general-purpose AI models are now active, with guidelines and a voluntary Code of Practice clarifying documentation, transparency, and systemic-risk duties; chatter is mixed—clarity welcomed, burden feared. For founders: if you touch the EU, start a lightweight compliance stack now (training-data summary, evals, incident logging, EU rep), and use compliance as a sales differentiator. Read more…
China’s humanoid push (Robot Games + Robot Mall): Beijing hosted the first World Humanoid Robot Games and opened a “Robot Mall” selling 100+ robots—spectacle drew laughs (lots of tumbles) and real excitement about embodied AI’s pace. For founders: near-term wins favour focused, task-specific robots and China partnerships/pilots; consumer humanoids are coming, but durability and autonomy still limit immediate GTM. Read more… And here..
🎯 Find me a job in AI
Principal Data Scientists / Exec Leaders – GenAI & Agentic AI (CommBank) — senior/principal scope with bank-scale impact and leadership remit. Build and scale agentic/gen-AI solutions inside Business Banking (mix of strategic ownership + hands-on delivery).
Contract UX/UI Designer (iOS) – MuseAI (Sydney) — Comp: contract with potential equity. Design the MVP iOS app for an “AI second brain” for music creators (Apple HIG native feel, subtle interactions); backed by industry names (e.g., Timbaland, ex-Spotify).
Machine Learning Engineer – Mercor (Remote, part-time) — $140 USD/hr, ~20 hrs/week for 4–6 weeks (independent contractor; weekly pay via Stripe). Write NL plans and implement/validate ML solutions in Docker for reproducible benchmarking work.
Data Scientist (AI Training/Evals) – Mercor (Remote, part-time) — $70–$100 USD/hr + $20–$50/hr bonus potential; $180 paid onboarding; ~20 hrs/week for 5–6 weeks. Design prompts/rubrics and produce gold-standard EDA + Python outputs to train and evaluate advanced AI agents.
Growth Marketer (Experimentation & ROI) – SupportSorted (Melbourne-friendly, remote-flex). Own the full growth engine (instrument funnel, run ICE/PIE tests, scale SEO/partners/paid, ship CRO) for an Disability & Healthcare AI MatchMaker.
📅 Upcoming Events
Unicorn Graveyard: Can my startup make huge traction and still die? (Tomorrow)
NextGen AI hackathon– World Trade Centre, Docklands (Aug 23)
The AI Wave: How Far Ahead Is China? – Stone & Chalk (Aug 28, in-person)
Join MLAI as a volunteer
Help build Australia’s most hands-on AI community. We’re looking for do-ers (2–5 hrs/week, flexible) across content & video, events & ops, growth/partnerships, and dev/agentic AI.
Why join
Real projects, real impact (your work SHIPS)
Mentorship + portfolio credits
Backstage access to founders, researchers & partners
Pathways to paid, project-based roles at MLAI
💬 Want to be featured in this space next week? Reply to this email or tag #intros in MLAI Slack.
Together, we’re building to 1,000 startups by 2030, and every connection counts.