↠↠ The velocity of learning has increased. ↠↠

Hello Reader,

As part of TechWeekNZ, I hosted the EPIC AI Conference in Christchurch on Thursday, 21 May, 2026. There were a dozen speakers and panelists, and lots of practical takeaways.

While we did record the sessions (big thanks to Daniel Panjaitan and Greg Dickson for volunteering!) it's a lot of material to digest. You can watch all the replays at this link:

​https://christchurch-ai.com/epic-ai-conference​

...or, you can use NotebookLM to quickly extract the best bits.

Here's how:

1. Go to https://notebooklm.google.com/​
2. Sign in in with a Google account
3. click Create New Notebook
4. Click on Websites (button with a YouTube logo)
5. Paste these links:
   https://christchurch-ai.com/epic-ai-conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlGFkmon9Ws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21T-7moxzAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PLNPkkHpXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rQBTSNulXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFaUrzKMx0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2XFmXw_OTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crwlTwgsiQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqhnIIsyprE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x7HQ51J78s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SerVNqYKHhA
6. Click the button that says Insert
7. Open the Studio sidebar on the right
8. Create an Audio Overview
9. Create a Mindmap
10. Ask questions about the event, the biggest insights, or topics you want to know more about today.

If that’s too difficult, you can use my NotebookLM, and have a play:

​https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/8fd27f90-1a5a-4dea-84c7-3691848abc96​

Big thanks to EPIC Innovation for hosting the event in their venue.

If you are in or near Christchurch, join 1800 other members in the Christchurch AI Meetup Group: https://www.meetup.com/christchurch-ai/​

📰 New AI News This Week

• Anthropic released Opus 4.8 (watch me compare it with 4.6 and 4.7 using Triple Tab Prompting)
• Zuckerberg's Biohub announced an AI engine to map, predict, and design proteins for specific use cases
• OpenAI committed $250 million in grants to helping workers navigate job disruption

4-Week Webinar Sprint - Starting 12 June

For intermediate-to-advanced AI operators. Topics covered include: Context Engineering, Agent Management, Vibe Coding, Agent Harnesses, Skill Creation, Testing & Tuning.

Fridays 9am NZ time, 7am AU time
Thursdays 2pm Pacific time, 5pm Eastern

AI Agent Accelerator 4-week sprint hosted on Zoom to create and manage AI agents using the SAGE framework. BuyNZ$400.00 NZD

Free Webinar in the AI Coaching Academy

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(use Google or LinkedIn single sign on, it takes only a moment)

Friday, June 19 at 1:00 PM GMT+12 Hermes vs OpenClaw AI is evolving beyond chatbots. The next wave is autonomous AI agents: systems that can remember, reason, operate tools, manage workflows, and act on your behalf. In this live AI Coaching Academy webinar, we’ll compare two of the most talked-about agent ecosystems in the open-source AI world: ⚚ Hermes by Nous Research — the self-improving... RSVP

Keep on growing!

- Caelan Huntress ​[email protected]​

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