It only draws on “trusted, medical sources”. Evidence links to the source of every line of advice or information.

It also presents no advertising – something that’s recently become a point of controversy in the AI industry after Claude maker Anthropic ran a Super Bowl commercial mocking OpenAI’s recent decision to run ads with some ChatGPT responses.

Paid tiers for clinicians include integration with Heidi’s Scribe tool and the ability to apply evidence during live consultations, along with source control at an individual or organisation-wide level, Kelly says.

Medical knowledge now doubles every 73 days, making it impossible for clinicians to stay updated with new methods and research, Kelly says, but not all clinicians have the resources to keep up.

“Heidi Evidence is free for individual clinicians, ensuring high-quality medical knowledge isn’t a privilege of wealth,” Kelly says.

“While consumer AI monetises via ads and data, Heidi uses enterprise revenue to subsidise access for practitioners in resource-constrained or fragmented markets. This provides a professional, bias-free alternative to ad-supported search engines that prioritise profit over clinical accuracy.”

Kelly says doctors will always ultimately make their own decisions, but Evidence will give them the latest information and “maybe let mid-level providers operate at the top of their license, and maybe where a doctor isn’t available, a nurse can make a better decision on the edge.”

What about privacy and security?

The ManageMyHealth, Canopy Healthcare and now MediMap breaches have put a sharp focus on privacy and security issues.

Evidence does not require members of the public to log in, maintaining anonymity. Kelly says all the data is encrypted and that there is a closed loop, with all data stored within Australasia and never shared with third parties.

A patient file can be shared with Heidi’s support staff if there’s a support issue that needs to be analysed, but the firm says identifying details including a patient’s name and NHI number are stripped out first.

UK buy

Heidi – founded in 2019 by Melbourne-based vascular surgeon Kelly –raised $110 million in venture capital last October on the back of becoming Australasia’s most-used AI scribe.

Earlier this week, it bought US-based AI start-up AutoMedica, a maker of healthcare workflow systems and “clinical reasoning” tools that use blow-by-blow citation to counter AI’s tendency to hallucinate.

Kelly said a key reason beyond the purchase – for an undisclosed sum – was to AutoMedica’s close relationship with UK regulators and its participation in the well-regarded Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) “AI Airlock”, a wall-off “regulatory sandbox” where new artificial intelligence products can be tested.

AI vs waitlist

This week, Kelly’s company also released Heidi Comms, an AI that can automate calls, bookings, reminders, chats and follow-ups.

Many systems offer reminder functions.

Heidi’s AI can also call a patient and gather basic data about their condition to speed the process of juggling and prioritising bookings.

ED rollout continues

Heidi’s AI Scribe is currently being rolled out New Zealand’s 16 largest emergency departments following a Hawke’s Bay trial that found productivity improvements, allowing more patients to be seen during a shift. The AI can take notes, which it can also summarise, add to a patient’s electronic health file or format into a template for a letter to the patient’s GP.

In November, Health Minister Simeon Brown said the Government had bought “an initial” Heidi AI Scribe licences for 1000 doctors and nurse practitioners in EDs.

“It’s probably the most advanced sovereign rollout in the world,” Kelly said.

“We’re pleased with the positive feedback provided by clinicians involved in the early use of the AI scribe across emergency departments,” Health NZ of digital innovation and AI Sonny Taite told the Herald earlier this week.

“Clinicians have consistently reported that the use of the AI Scribe reduces the time and cognitive load associated with clinical documentation, allowing them to focus more on patient care.

“Early qualitative feedback from senior medical officers indicates this has helped ease documentation pressure during busy shifts, and there has been no reported resistance from patients to its use in emergency settings.”

All notes taken by the AI have to be reviewed, but there is a net gain in time.

“We are continuing with the rollout of Heidi across our EDs, and we expect to provide a further update towards the end of the month,” Taite said.

Taite said Health NZ has yet to fully evaluate Heidi’s new Evidence and Comms products.

Fintech Emerge has chalked up two key wins this week.

The months of intense work behind the scenes, the “neobank” became the first non-bank player to go live with support for “confirmation of payee”, the new anti-scam protection launched by the major banks last year to match account names and numbers when you execute a transaction.

It’s also raised $4.5m in an extension to its October 2025 $12m Series A round, with existing investor Greg Kidd tipping in more funds via his “Hard Yaka” investment vehicle.

Kidd, an American, with an estimated net worth of US$1.1b, was an early backer of companies like Twitter, Square, Coinbase, Ripple and Robinhood.

He’s recently been investing in a new wave of fintechs in the US and beyond and participating in US politics. The one-time “Reagan Republican (66) unsuccessfully stood for Congress in Nevada as an independent in 2024, spending US$9m of his own money has he won 36% of the vote. This year, he’s trying again, this time as a Democrat, running on ”affordability crisis” issues.

This week saw Kidd in New Zealand, cycling from Cape Reinga to Auckland with Emerge cofounder Pavlicevic.

“What stands out to us about Emerge is more than just a brilliant feature set – it’s the depth of the infrastructure they’ve built,” Kidd said.

“They’ve taken the harder path of building bank-parity infrastructure from the ground up. That creates resilience, regulatory credibility, and long-term optionality that you simply don’t get from bolted-together systems.”

The additional capital will be used to continue strengthening the platform that supports Emerge’s accounts and card products for businesses, families, and young people, alongside its expanding personal and sole trader offerings, the firm says.

Co-founders Jamie Jermain and Jovan Pavlicevic, who have five kids between them, started SquareOne in 2021. They saw a market gap for an app that provided parents with tools to help kids learn about money and savings – and provided them with a MasterCard-backed debit card, with a $5 per month fee. It quickly gained 250,000 users.

In early 2024, they expanded to launch Emerge, which Pavlicevic pitches as “the future of business banking”. (The company is not a registered bank, but aims to be; ANZ is its trustee partner.)

Emerge now has around 3000 small business customers, and is also signing up individual accounts. The idea is to scoop up a lot of those 250,000 SquareOne users as they age-out of the youth app and “need a bank without training wheels.”

Spark to block 300 phones that can’t make emergency calls after 3G shutdown

Spark says it will block around 300 mobile phones that can make standard calls, send texts, and access data over 4G, but will be unable to make emergency 111 calls once its 3G network shuts down on 31 March 31.

“These mobile phones are unique in how they are impacted by the 3G shutdown. They can send texts, make regular calls, and access data, but they have not been correctly configured by the device manufacturers to connect to emergency calling over 4G,” says Spark chief customer officer Greg Clark.

The affected customers have all been contacted in advance.

All of the affected phones are made by ASUS and on Spark or Skinny accounts. Some have a software update available theat could fix the problem if an owner updates their phones. Others have no update that could solve the issue.

Phoness with no software update available that will be blocked from March 31.

Devices with software update available (will be blocked if this is not actioned before March 31):

The episode has shades of the Xiaomi controversy last year, when it was revealed that “4G” models from the Chinese firm (parallel-imported by Mighty Ape, PB Tech and others) did not support the VoLTE technology that Spark, One NZ and 2degrees use for post-3G calling. Xiaomi eventually offered a fix, if only after the Commerce Commission had received 10 complaints and the regulator made rumbles about possible Consumer Guarantees Act breaches.

2degrees has already closed its 3G network.

One NZ is in the midst of a rolling shutdown with three main centres to go: Christchurch on March 3, Auckland on March 10 and Wellington on March 17.

A One NZ spokesman said, “We’ve been in regular contact with our customers over the past 18 months to help them prepare for our 3G switch off, including those using parallel imported phones that can send texts, make regular calls, and use data over 4G but will be unable to call emergency services when the 3G network is switched off.

“We strongly recommend that any customers still using one of these phones makes the switch to a fully compatible 4G phone.

“Any customers that are unsure can free text ‘3G’ to 550 to check.

“Customers who choose to use these phones will continue to receive pre-call announcement warnings and regular text messages to make them aware of this issue. We’ll consider further steps to ensure public safety, including blocking devices, if we judge this necessary.”

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.