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Event
Exclusive Student Event Auckland | April 2026
You’re invited to our first student marketing event in Auckland, a relaxed, speed-networking-style session where you’ll meet real marketers, explore different career paths, and get honest answers to the questions you’ve been wondering about.
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Event
Brainy Breakfast 2026 / Auckland
A morning of bold ideas, brilliant speakers, and barista coffee
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Event
Brainy Breakfast 2026 / Christchurch
A morning of bold ideas, brilliant speakers, and coffee
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Speakers
Matt Bale
Senior Advisor AI
Together
Marketing When Machines Filter Reality
For 30 years, marketing has competed for attention. In the next decade, it will compete for inclusion.
As AI assistants, search agents and large language models increasingly mediate how people discover brands, the real competition is shifting to inclusion - whether machines decide your brand is worth mentioning at all.
In this session, Matt Bale explores the rise of the third gatekeeper: algorithms that filter reality before consumers ever see it.
Drawing on his experience across media, technology and AI, Matt will unpack how LLMs decide what’s trustworthy, why most brands are currently invisible to them, and why traditional performance marketing logic no longer applies in AI-mediated discovery.
What you'll learn:
- Why Algorithmic Availability matters
- How AI systems decide what information is trustworthy and worth including
- Why most brands are currently invisible to LLM-driven discovery
- The shift from ranking to inclusion in AI search environments
- Commercial implications – how to win when AI filters and mediates your market
About Matt
Matt Bale has spent his career at the intersection of media, marketing and technology.
After cutting his teeth at Saatchi & Saatchi, BLM, BBDO, Starcom and OMD, working in NZ, Australia and the UK market Matt co-founded MBM, which grew to be New Zealand’s largest locally owned media agency, before selling it to the Publicis Groupe and exiting his baby at the end of 2022.
Today, Matt works across several businesses, wearing a few hats.
He is Chair of Garage Project, the Wellington-based brewery.
He's a Senior Advisor to Youdooh.com, where he’s helping bring AI into digital outdoor advertising across Australia & NZ, and beyond.
He's the Senior Advisor on AI for Together, a leading independently owned media & technology agency with offices in Auckland & Wellington.
Matt studied artificial intelligence at Stanford University and is currently pursuing further postgraduate studies in Intelligence with Massey University.
Serge van Dam
Software Investor
Effectiveness and Reach: AI Use Cases from Kiwi Tech Companies
Serge will share how going-global Kiwi tech companies are leveraging AI tooling and workflows to drastically amplify their reach and effectiveness.
These real-world case studies will highlight to marketing professionals what is now possible and will inspire you to aim higher in your go-to-market endeavours.
Expect to be challenged and provoked.
About Serge
Serge van Dam is a hands-on Investor / Director of going-global Kiwi software / AI companies, such as: Re-Leased, Cogo and Tapi.
Originally an Organisational Psychologist, Serge is most interested in novel growth strategies, and has deep experience in going-global B2B marketing. He spent a decade as an acknowledged thought-leader in fintech, having been Chief Marketing Officer at M-Com - the world’s leading mobile banking and payments platform - which was acquired by Fortune 500 company Fiserv in 2011.
Serge is an Operating Partner at New Zealand’s most successful venture capital firm - Movac - has previously been named New Zealand’s Angel Investor of the Year, organises / anchors several tech events, and co-hosts New Zealand’s most prominent startup podcast; Startup Theatre.
Serge grew up in Argentina, and lives in Wellington. When not helping grow tech companies, you will find him in the great outdoors, arguing over politics, playing cards or with a novel in hand.
Lindsey Horne
Behavioural Insights Director
TRA
Your Host & MC
About Lindsey
With a background in neuroscience and applied behavioural science, Lindsey works across complex behaviour change challenges with a passion for transport, energy and climate change.
Her approach to behaviour change is holistic, from broader cultural and social change through to behavioural economics and nudges.
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