🗞️ Proactive

Good morning. Commonwealth Bank built an AI system that doesn't just detect scams - it writes the code to block them.

The system monitors 80 million transaction signals daily, identifies suspicious patterns and generates the detection rules to intercept them without waiting for a human to write a single line.

Scam losses are down 20% in the first half of 2026.

All the headlines and more below...

AUSTRALIANS SPENT $4.77B AT AMAZON LAST YEAR. LESS THAN HALF CAME FROM ACTUAL SHOPPING.

Amazon's Australian operation pulled in $4.77B in revenue across 2024, up 25% on the year before. Sales from the actual marketplace, amazon.com.au, only hit $2.33B. Less than half the total.

The fastest-growing part is ads, not products. Prime memberships brought in $633M, up 32%. Fees charged to third-party sellers hit $1.14B, up 36%. Amazon makes more from renting out shelf space and selling visibility than selling you things directly.

Amazon now reaches 60% of Australians and beats eBay's 51%. Both Coles and Woolworths CEOs named it as a competitive threat in a 2024 Senate inquiry. The company reported $21.8M profit in Australia, up from $3.6M, but received a $520M cash injection from the parent company and paid $606M in fees back to other Amazon entities.

You think you're shopping at a retailer. You're browsing an advertising platform that also sells things.

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

• Australian personal risk insurance premiums are surging as mental health claims rise sharply, with AustralianSuper TPD premiums jumping up to 40% and CareSuper increasing common cover by almost 30%. LINK

• 30% of Australian organisations were hit by ransomware in the past year and 33% of victims paid, yet 46% never recovered data. LINK

• Australian households are cutting back on driving, healthcare and other expenses as rising petrol prices linked to the Middle East conflict squeeze already strained living costs. LINK

• The RBA is expected to lift interest rates again as March quarter CPI data show headline and trimmed mean inflation already well above its 2.5% target. LINK

• Australian Taxation Office data shows that 30.6% of EV novated leases using the FBT exemption go to motorists earning over $190,000, highlighting a $1.4B subsidy skewed to higher incomes. LINK

• Australian wheat and vegetable growers are facing severe fertiliser shortages after the Strait of Hormuz closure, with modelling suggesting 10% to 40% yield losses. LINK

• Australians are expected to pay a record $178.9M in public holiday dining surcharges in April as hospitality venues pass on sharply higher wage and operating costs. LINK

• The Australian residential property sector is facing a confidence slump as the Middle East war, rising materials and labour costs and supply‑chain pressures hinder the conversion of approvals into completed homes. LINK

BUILDING COSTS UP 18% IN TWO YEARS. MIDDLE EAST WAR IS THE TRIGGER.

CBRE is forecasting construction cost inflation of 18% across 2026-27, driven by energy price spikes flowing through to raw materials, transport and plastics. The firm expects inflation to average 6.5% per year through to 2030.

Energy costs hit almost every input. Paint, cement, steel, bricks and glass are energy-intensive to produce. Plastic pipes are up 30-40%. Bitumen and asphalt up 30-50%. Reinforcing steel up 5-10%. Aluminium cladding and laminated timber both up around 10%. Concrete now carries surcharges. Fuel prices compound the problem through diesel equipment and logistics.

Mirvac flagged the conflict in its update this week, noting "a sharpened focus on protecting liquidity" and "selective capital deployment." Sales have slowed in some projects. The Property Council's latest sentiment survey showed a sharp drop in development expectations. Agents are describing a "freeze" in large-scale sales.

Higher build costs push up end prices for buyers. The government's 1.2M home target is looking further out of reach.

COMPANY NEWS

• Amazon has lifted its Australian revenue almost 50% to $11.9B in 2025 as AI-fuelled demand for data centres and surging retail and streaming sales deliver $22M profit. LINK

• Google and Meta have shifted almost US$11B in Australian revenue to offshore entities in the past year while paying just over $140M in local tax and facing looming media bargaining laws. LINK

• NAB has created a new AI science team to guide the bank’s expanding use of artificial intelligence as it prepares for major workforce shifts similar to past industrialisation. LINK

• Lion has nearly doubled the accuracy of its beer, wine and spirits demand forecasting by integrating specialised OpenAI tools that rapidly synthesise data and adjust market actions. LINK

• Amazon has launched an AI video tool in Australia that turns product images into up to 6 photorealistic ad videos, adding guardrails to avoid misleading “idealised synthetic” depictions. LINK

• Nike has sparked backlash and highlighted its deepening brand identity problems as a “Runners welcome, walkers tolerated” Boston Marathon ad clashed with its inclusive “Just Do It” message. LINK

• Coles and Woolworths are lifting prices on milk and other groceries as the Iran war pushes up food inflation, drawing scrutiny from politicians, consumers and investors. LINK

• The Magnum Ice Cream Company has used its 2025 demerger from Unilever to target faster growth in the US$3.5B indulgent ice cream tub segment, growing at 6.1% annually. LINK

• CBA has deployed an advanced agentic AI fraud detection system built on Snowflake’s data cloud that monitors over 80 million signals daily and has cut scam losses by 20%. LINK

META PAID ITSELF $1.5B TO RESELL ITS OWN ADS IN AUSTRALIA, THEN SENT $120M OFFSHORE

Meta's Australian arm collected $1.74B in gross ad revenue last year but handed $1.51B back to other Meta-owned entities overseas for the right to resell inventory on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Net revenue: $223.9M.

The structure: Facebook Australia sells an ad to a local business, then pays another Meta company abroad for the virtual space to display it. That offshore payment is classified as cost of sales, shrinking what's taxable here. After $81M in employee costs and $47.9M in tax, the local entity posted $61.2M profit. It then paid a $120M dividend to its Delaware-based parent, pulling from prior years' retained earnings.

The real Australian revenue is higher. Facebook Australia only handles "designated" customers. Others buy directly from offshore Meta entities, bypassing local books entirely. The company runs this with 128 staff, down nearly 20% since 2022 while revenue climbed by hundreds of millions.

New legislation expected this week forces platforms over $250M in local revenue to pay publishers 1.5% or face a 2.25% charge. Meta walked away from Australian news deals last year. This time there's no opt-out by blocking news.

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CHART OF THE DAY

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Editor’s Pick: Ranked: The world’s most spoken languages by total speakers.

Draft Pick: New Victorian state quick Harry Hoekstra on his ascension to rookie deal.

Odd Pick: According to research, monkeys are now eating soil to settle upset stomachs from junk food.

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