Using AI to shop - but doing it securely with Mastercard

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I was gobsmacked. I spoke to you on the Tuesday.

Thursday afternoon this lovely courier man had me back door with a parcel for me.

All I know is, within 24 hours mate, you had it sorted after five weeks of herald, raising herald.

Mate, I can't thank you enough.

Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

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You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657.

G'day, g'day and welcome to the EFTM podcast. It's funny how things grow on us.

You were thinking, I don't know, what was it six months ago when we did the new intro?

I mean, that's weird and all the stings but we're all used to it now aren't we?

We're all used to it now aren't we? I think we are.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for downloading. Lovely to have you company. I appreciate it.

Bit to cover today. We have your calls. Everything from computer buying to some iPhone advice and security cameras.

Plus we're going to talk AI and shopping because I was lucky enough a couple of weekends ago to go to Melbourne as a guest of Mastercard.

And it was weird because they invited me in December and they said, we'd love you to come. I went, why?

They go, no coverage expectations. We just would love to see and that's kind of, that's, you know, it's catching up.

It's networking as they call it. But not the kind of thing I would normally do.

But, you know, what bucket list? Not a bad experience. So I thought I'll give it a crack.

And then like three days before the Australian Open Final, they announced this agentic AI payment system or integration.

So I was able to quickly have a chat with them there about that and understand it.

And I honestly, I said, we need to chat about it on the podcast so that people can understand this from your perspective.

So literally the reason we're having this chat today is because I felt I needed it explained to me.

And if I needed it explained to me, then I don't believe any amount of reading you could do at EFTM or otherwise

is going to truly help you understand something as kind of big as this.

So we will talk to Mastercard's head of consumer, Srin Fernando, a little bit later in the show

and hopefully unpack all that for you so that you fully understand it and you can talk about it around the water cooler

or the next barbecue, whatever it might be.

And genuinely, it was a very cool thing to be at the Australian Open Final and witness like I thought was an unbelievable match.

I'm not a massive tennis fan, but I would have watched anyway.

So that's the kind of I'm a fly by night sports fan.

I will watch the Super Bowl because it's the biggest sporting event of the day.

I will watch the Olympics when there's gold medals to be won or, you know, big moments.

I love that. I love the big moments. That's cool.

So, yeah, that's why I would never say no to an opportunity like that.

Would I go again next year? Probably not because I've seen one now.

I know how it works. Like, I don't know. Interesting.

It's a tough one. Also, my niece Gemma is filthy that I went.

She's a massive tennis fan and was disgusted that I didn't take her.

So unless I had two tickets, I probably wouldn't be allowed to go.

I'd be banished from the family. So that's all to come.

But we do. We've got a massive month ahead.

Hopefully there's a Samsung event at some point we still don't know about.

Then we've got the Formula One in Melbourne, which I can't wait for.

I'll be down in Melbourne for the entire week covering that for the Today Show

and in whatever capacity we can.

So, yeah, it's all happening, folks.

Also, if you're a podcast fan, listen to the latest episode of Tony Martin's,

the first episode of 2026 of Tony Martin's Sizzletown.

I became a Patreon-style supporter of the show.

And if you're a listener, you know what I'm about to talk about.

When you're a supporter, they name you,

and then they make Maddie Dower makes a sound effect montage of your name

using people saying the words in your name and whatnot.

It's very cool.

So I got a little excited when that happened this week.

I'm still a simple man. I still get excited by those kind of things.

So if you're a Sizzletown fan, enjoy episode one of 2026 when it comes out

because I'm a Patreon or whatever they call it, I get it early.

So that'll be out, I'm assuming, in the days ahead.

Or it might be out now, I'm sure it would be.

Anyway, let's ramp it up and get on with the show.

And you can be a part of the show as always.

Just go to eftm.com, click Ask Trev, or download the EFTM app and click Ask Trev.

Join the conversation.

Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Would love to have you on the show.

If you've got a tech question, I don't mind what it is.

If you want to brag about something you've bought or whatever is going on in your mind,

I'm happy to help.

0477657657 or download the EFTM app and click Ask Trev.

Matt's on the line today, Matt.

Hello, how are you?

Yeah, really good, mate. What can I do for you?

Desktop DC is at the end of its life, running Windows 10.

So I need to upgrade.

I'm wondering if I should go for a new desktop,

because they all seem to be sort of gaming driven,

or get a laptop and a dock to use my existing monitor and keyboard.

I was going to say, so you've got an existing monitor and keyboard.

Are you happy with those size-wise and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, they're new.

Mate, honestly, then you're right.

PCs these days are pretty much aimed almost entirely around gaming.

The non-gaming PCs are all pretty much all in ones.

HP, Lenovo, they all have an all-in-one,

which is where the computer is kind of in the screen,

and you don't need a screen.

So unless you're thinking of maybe going two screens and the like,

it's very hard to justify the price of desktops these days purely

because of the gaming kind of world really taking that over.

Unless you're contemplating going Mac,

in which case I would say a Mac Mini is among one of the greatest computers

you can buy.

Under a thousand bucks, a little tiny box will do everything.

Done.

Well, mate, a laptop it is.

Have you got a budget in mind?

You know, what have you been using?

So what are the applications that you would use on a regular basis, a daily basis?

Of course.

Yeah, mate, then you'll be totally, totally fine.

The good thing is that you can kind of get a real sense of laptops

simply by measuring price, you know, by going,

okay, well, I'm obviously excluding the...

We just did this exercise with my kids because they'd been using Chromebooks

for a year and a half and I made them kind of push through that

and then I went, okay, so now that you're coming into the later part of high school,

let's invest in your laptops and I gave them a budget

and it was fascinating to them to kind of see, you know,

what the difference between spending a thousand dollars and two thousand dollars was,

for example, and it really ramps up.

But when you narrow things and go, okay, if my budget is capped at this point,

you start to realize there's some great value out there.

Now, if you don't, do you use Adobe software or anything like that?

A little bit.

Like Premiere, Photoshop, that kind of stuff?

Not heavily, no.

So the reason I say that is because a lot of these new PCs are co-pilot plus,

they're using these new Snapdragon processors and all this stuff.

I just, I don't know yet whether they're fully compliant

with all those Adobe pieces of software.

So I would be a tiny bit cautious of the co-pilot plus range if you're an Adobe user.

But otherwise, anything running Intel, I can see, for example,

now that's a Chromebook, you want Windows, don't you?

Yeah, $900 to $1,000, Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, there's like,

I can see four in a row that are within $100 of each other.

The good thing is it really will come down to which one do you like to look,

the size and the feel of, because all of those big brands make great laptops.

And if they're in the same price point, you can very easily compare.

So for example, I'm looking at a 15-inch Asus Vivo book

and it's got a one terabyte storage compared to a HP that has similar processor

but only 256 gig of storage.

So just narrow your price and then compare a couple of the core features.

So storage and processor being, storage processor and screen size

and you'll find great value in one of those laptops there.

What would you recommend processor-wise, i7 or...

I think for what you've described, you'll be fine with an i5.

Yep.

But if you want to, you know, get a long longevity out of it,

if you can push through an i7, it'll definitely make a difference.

Just because you don't know what you're going to be doing in three and a half,

four years with this laptop and it might there,

it might need to lean on that at some point.

Yep, perfect.

Excellent.

Awesome, no worries.

Well, make good luck, happy shopping.

Thanks for your help, mate.

My pleasure, mate.

Anytime. Have a great day.

Yeah, I mean, it is harder than ever because there are so many more processors now.

So you've got AMD Ryzen, you've got Intel Core,

you've got these Snapdragon and the like.

But as I said, if you, what I like to do, and I did it just then with Matt,

was go to the JV website, for example, and just, okay,

so I've said no more than a thousand bucks, it's a laptop.

And then you find your price range.

So at this point, I'm looking at kind of 950 down at 900 and you find all those

and open them up on a single screen each or print them out and then go,

right, well, I'm going to rule out the Core i3 done.

So I'm staying in the 899 range.

I've got, I've got this Vivo book.

So I'm going to click on that because even the title,

it doesn't tell me what processor Intel Core 5.

Perfect, we're happy with that.

So Intel Core 5 versus another Intel Core i5 versus a Ryzen 3,

fine versus another Intel Core 5.

There's three with pretty much the same processor.

And that Vivo book has a one terabyte hard drive.

So a very hard sell to go up to the,

spending another 50 bucks and having a quarter of the storage.

So that's really all I do because I genuinely think that all the brands

make great laptops now.

There's a couple of advantages and disadvantages.

So for example, ASUS pretty much make OLEDs by default.

They're beautiful.

And you know, that you can,

you can have some brand reliability there.

Do they use a proprietary charger versus just USB-C?

Stuff like that can make a bit of a difference.

Happy shopping.

Tech, cars, lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with TreveLong.

You can text Treve now thanks to Vodafone on 0477657657.

Great to have you company.

Happy to help wherever I can.

Chris is on the line.

Go there, Chris.

Yeah, how you going, Treve?

Yeah, really good mate.

What can I do for you?

I'm looking to purchase some new security cameras.

The security cameras that I have now are just cheap eBay ones

and they're rubbish.

I'm just looking just...

But you know what they did?

Let's look at the positives.

What they did was teach you that you like having security cameras.

Yes, yes, yes.

So that's a win.

What are you looking at?

What's the plan?

So I'm looking at the UFI.

It's called an S4 with the NVR for the power over Ethernet.

So the POE ones.

Yep.

I just want to know, is it worth spending the money on those?

When they're not on sale, they're $2,000.

Yeah.

How big is the camera kit?

How many cameras?

It comes with four wall, but you can put it up to 16 cameras

with a switch and all that kind of stuff.

Sorry, it's the one with the little NVR.

So you can add cameras as you go.

Look, the good thing about an NVR is not many people make them anymore.

I think Swan still makes them, but I'm not sure how long

they're going to be around for.

UFIs, it doesn't look like they're going anywhere.

They're pushing hard in the market.

And yeah, there's not really many people that make the NVR.

The good thing about an NVR is you've got the footage at home.

You can hook up a HDMI to it so you can have a screen that shows the cameras.

If you want that kind of thing.

Also, there's no definitive cloud involved.

Look, there's a lot of great advantages to it.

Yeah, and just subscriptions.

There's no subscription or that stuff.

That's right.

UFI are very, very strong on that.

I think that's their number one life.

I would argue that UFI may well be currently number one in market.

You know, they're just selling in such good numbers because they have those.

They have a lot of the same features of others.

So they've got some little ones with solar panels that Swan have.

They've got some smarts that Arlo have.

They've got the form factor that Ring or Uniden have.

So they've really, mate, they're smashing the market.

Let's be frank.

Yeah, so like going back to the eBay cameras that I have.

I did have a wide one.

I've got a couple of solar ones.

They're always flat.

They miss everything.

The image quality is absolutely crap.

It's unusable or it misses the event.

And are you planning on running the UFI ones with PoE or some of them wireless?

I'll run the PoE because I've got the original eBay cameras there.

They've got the wires there, the holes drill.

I can just put them up in the exact same spot.

Yeah, right.

Well, mate, I don't think there's much argument about what you're planning there, mate.

Yeah, I suppose my main question was is it worth spending the money on them

or is there something that's just as good that I suppose is wireless

or because I can put them over the holes regardless anyway.

Mate, I think that given what you're looking for,

I feel like that's almost not the only solution, but it's the optimal solution.

If you were saying, oh, you know, you just want to wireless

and you have an Xtumble across the NVR.

Look, you know, the only thing I've suggested recently is, you know, using full power

and using like I've got an Arlo wide floodlight.

I think it's amazing.

And if you've got a Sparky, you can install it wireless internet, hard, hard wide power.

If you've got the ability to run the PoE cable, if you've got that all in place,

then the NVR is a great solution, mate.

Honestly, I think you're in a good spot.

The price wise, you know, that's a decent price.

You rarely, like JB's pretty much run that at $1,600, $1,700 all the time.

Yeah.

So, you know, they're really actually at two grand,

but they have some pretty impressive cameras.

They've got one of those ones that has like a two in one

where it kind of gets the wide shot and the tracking close up with the tilt and zoom.

Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty impressive stuff, mate.

Yeah.

No, that's what sort of like I've been searching for forever.

Just, I just, you know, obviously I want something quality

and that just sort of run past my screen and I was like, what's this?

And I see it's got camera to camera tracking, all that kind of stuff.

So I thought that was pretty cool in the built-in AI

where you can just search for a guy in a green shirt

and it'll just bring everything up with the guy with a green shirt.

I don't know.

Probably all cameras do that.

I'm not sure.

Well, most of them do it on a subscription.

So if it's doing that for you out of the box, in the box at home,

you're on a winner there, mate.

Yeah, excellent.

I want to know what it's like.

So let's get back in touch in a month or two when you've got them up and installed

and you give us a little review.

Yeah, no worries.

Yeah, definitely after talking today,

I think that's the way I'm going to be edited.

Good stuff.

And what are we protecting?

Is it just about having security?

Like you just got that kind of nervousness about protecting the home?

Well, I live on a bit of a rural property down in Victoria there

and we've had a few people snooping around

and rural properties are the target at the moment where I live

and you just can't be too sure.

I'd rather just have something on the truck driver

and I'm not home most of the time

and the misses is there on their own.

Yeah, 100% peace of mind, yep.

So just a bit of peace of mind

and just something the old quality that's not going to follow me

because I'm sick of those other cameras that are just rubbish.

They'll go straight in the bin.

Well, as I said, they taught you something that you wanted them.

A lot of people buy cameras and then don't see the point of them.

What you now know is you do

and you're now investing in a system that's going to give you that peace of mind

and look, the one thing I'll say about you

if you haven't really tried them myself

but I've never had anyone complain about the quality of their cameras.

That's for sure.

Yeah, yeah, no, excellent.

See, that's good, mate.

Yeah.

And also, on your one of your podcasts there

I did hear that you were talking to the guy

at Boost with the Simplans, the 12 month Simplans.

I went out and bought a $250 Simplans for 12 months

for me and the misses.

Haven't yet activated it yet.

I'm still waiting for my current plan to run out.

I'll activate that and I think we're on a winner

like we were spending 29 bucks a month.

Each.

And we're just, yeah, 500 bucks a year.

So I'll wait till next year when they're on sale again

and I'll buy another one.

Yeah, you saved yourself 400 bucks.

Boom.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I'm really glad to hear that, mate.

You won't look back.

It's a great telco.

It's got all the Telstra coverage.

You'll be flying.

You'll be telling everyone you know about it

because like it's gate keeping.

Yeah.

I already have.

And most of me, mate, they're going to look into it.

Oh, nice.

As a truckie, you want to stay in touch with the family

and the misses?

You'll be on the road with no issues.

No, that's right.

And because I was with Telstra before

and I need some good service.

I do notice it drops out in between towns.

I don't have good service in between like I used to.

Yeah.

The loss of the 3G network is felt most by truckies, I reckon.

Yeah, it is a pain, but we can deal with it.

Download your Spotify, download some playlists

and just tell people you'll call them back

when you get to town.

I mean, is it real?

I got a lot of complaints on the night shift on Triple M

when I was doing that with Luke Bonner

and it was people whinging it.

I get it.

It's annoying.

But the thing is it's not meant to be for Netflix streaming.

It's not meant to be for live streaming.

And you know what?

If an emergency happens, you'll get through

because most modern phones have satellite coverage

or some other random thing too.

So we're kind of at a point now where we don't need, weirdly,

as much phone coverage and the future is going to have

a whole range of different things, including satellite.

So I think in the wash in five years, we'll look back

and go, it was a pain in the ass, but we got through it.

But you've also saved a bunch of money.

So, mate, you've got something to do a Christmas time now.

Yeah, that's right.

Great to hear from you, Chris.

No worries.

Thanks for the chat.

Thanks, mate.

Any time.

Cheers, buddy.

We'll talk to you again after you've reviewed those cameras.

Awesome.

Good on you, buddy.

Thank you.

Cheers, mate.

Yeah, there you go.

A man who knows what he needs and wants

out of his potential security system.

And yeah, it's that balance with mobile coverage.

You're just not going to get it everywhere.

It's as simple as that, folks.

Sorry to say, but I think the telcos won't admit it,

but they know that why plug the gaps when satellites come.

This is the EFTM podcast.

Great to have you company and happy to hear from you.

If you've got a tech question, you can get in touch

and send me a text 0447657657.

Before we get back to your calls.

Mastercard did some interesting stuff last week,

and I wanted to have a bit of a chat about it

because it's a little bit future thinking,

but it's also absolutely in the present day.

So to unpack the world of AI shopping

and security in that sense.

Authentication, security of your personal details,

your personal payment details.

I'm joined by Sarin Fernando, who's Mastercard Australages,

Head of Customer Solutions Center.

Good day, Sarin.

How are you doing?

Really well, Trevor.

Thanks for having me.

Mate, first and most importantly,

thank you for having me at the Australian Open Final.

It was wonderful to be a guest of Mastercard

for a priceless experience.

I've played it all on perfectly in terms of brand there,

but it genuinely was, mate.

It was unbelievable.

That's a bucket list experience.

I appreciate that evening, mate.

It's our pleasure.

It was an incredible game.

You got to celebrate with the Australian Open

because you were able to release this agent pay concept.

Let's go back to the basics here

and talk about the problem that you're solving

with the integration of Mastercard payment solutions

within AI.

Yeah, Trevor.

So what we're really solving for is how consumers

are changing the way they shop, right?

And when we talked about the genteek

and we talked about agent pay,

what we're really talking about is a new way

consumers are having a digital experience.

You know, they often leverage their phone

or their mobile browser or their Naive app,

and then they started to do some social commas.

And if I think about my experience today

on how I do my search and discovery

and my purchases three years ago,

it would traditionally be on a search engine.

But today, a large amount of it is on an agent

or a large language model, right?

Such as something like OpenAI and ChatGPT, for example.

When we say agent for the average person,

we're literally talking about the little bar

or an app where you just ask questions

and you get answers.

The agent is someone that thinks about the question

and gives you information

as opposed to a traditional Google search,

which is just, here's where you might find the information.

That's exactly right.

It is largely a text-based prompt opportunity

where you can go into a desktop or a Naive app

or an experience that's in the form of an agent.

You actually ask what the experience is

and the experience that we were bringing to life

was I was searching for a movie ticket.

That movie ticket was curated exactly to the prompt

that I wanted to, which was to go and see

Disney Vitopia 2 at event cinemas at George Street.

It showed me the session times.

It showed me the availability.

It showed me the seat map.

I was able to simply tick my seats and then buy for me.

And it was literally as simple as that.

And so what we're really talking about

is a new form of digital commerce where an autonomous AI agent,

like we shared or like we talked about,

can actually shop and pay on your behalf.

And that's kind of the change on the discovery

of what we're thinking about

because the consumer traditionally would actually go into

a search engine, would have a series of tabs,

would have to like click multiple kind of different experiences.

But what we're saying is an in context simple prompt

that you can then do your search, your discovery,

and actually your purchase.

And that would be the first iteration of the experience.

And then what we're really talking about is allowing,

you know, with your consent,

an agent to actually go out there and do the browsing,

do the choosing and do the buying on your behalf.

Oh, wow.

And I think what people probably struggle to understand

who don't use this on a daily basis, let alone at all,

is that a genetic AI,

and I'll use chat epitese as an example because I used it

most in the first kind of couple of years of this space.

And so it's learned the most about me.

I teach it.

I tell it to remember things about me.

So I want it to know that I've got two kids who are celiacs.

I want it to know that I like comedy.

I want it to know things about me, right?

And so in the example you've just given, it's quite possible

and very real that you could say,

hey, I want to go see a movie.

And that's all you say.

And then it goes, oh, well, look, and he likes this kind of thing.

It could use the internet's vast information

and say, well, there's three new movies out.

It could know because of my location

that my local cinema is this brand.

And it could check the session times of this brand

against my calendar.

It could also use my seating preferences,

which it may have known by asking me or over time just learning.

And it could get to the point of literally saying to me,

OK, there's a 230 session tomorrow

with a great seat in the middle up the back for this movie,

which has just been released.

Here's the reviews.

Do you want to book it yes or no?

And then I might enter my information.

But the big challenge is, I think,

we don't want people handing their credit card information

over to these AIs so that it's stored somewhere in the system.

Because that's asking for trouble, really, isn't it, sir?

And that's one of the challenges here is

we've got to protect our payment details,

our personal details as much as possible in this future AI world.

You're spot on, Trevor.

So I'll start with the first part of your discovery.

That is exactly how consumers are going to interact.

They're going to have much more tailor-based,

personalised experience that are really based around

all their preferences.

It could be based around offers.

It could be based around in the future loyalty.

But it could be just based around things that you've prompted

that AI assistant or that conversational assistant agent

to actually do for you.

And then the second biggest piece is really around security,

safety and trust.

And really what we've been doing over the last number of years

is really instilling that same security and trust

into all our payment experiences.

And if I just give you two analogies,

I mean, the first one was we had a physical card.

That physical card would actually, you know,

typically grab a card and then you go and buy a coffee

and you'd simply tap it.

Now, what we did was we started to think,

well, how do we make that experience more secure?

And we leveraged capabilities like Face ID.

And what we did is we actually took that 16-digit card number

and we used capabilities called tokenisation,

which basically means that we encrypted that 16-digit card number.

So it could only be used for that one transaction

and your card number actively changes.

And so we're doing the same thing online, right?

So every time you make a transaction online now with your MasterCard,

you're leveraging the same technology and the confidence

that you do when you use a mobile digital wallet today, right?

And so as we move into this agentic world,

you're absolutely right.

We want to stay away from doing any type of manual card entry

and we want to really leverage, you know, this tokenisation capability

and also what we call the payment taskie capability,

which is really your Face ID to make sure that, one,

you know that that transaction is secure

and two, you're leveraging your face biometrics

to keep it absolutely confident.

And so essentially you're leveraging the existing technologies

that you've created for online shopping.

Click to pay and things like that that do take into account

all those security questions and the like.

But then you're adapting them for agentic AI.

My concern or question here from the AI perspective,

let me play Delve's advocate from the AI world's perspective,

they want people to be able to just be able to go by me.

It's sort my shopping list and it looks at my shopping list in notes.

It goes to Woolies because it knows that's my preferred.

And it just comes to my house.

What you're suggesting, which is, by the way, very, very right,

is that there should be an authentication involved,

which is my face authentication, my biometrics in some way.

How do you foresee that coming into the process

to make it still frictionless?

Because what we've talked about in a very futuristic way

is super exciting frictionless shopping.

Basically think it, buy it, get it.

At what point does my face recognition come in?

How does that occur?

Is it a pop-up on my phone while the AI is doing its thing?

Where does that verification come in?

Yeah, great question.

It's around what we call order intention.

And so what we mean by order intention is that

in your example for the movie tickets,

it's Trevor's order intention to buy these movie tickets.

At this cinema, hypothetically,

the event cinema experience that I did earlier this week,

for Zootopia 2, with these type of tickets,

one adult ticket, one child ticket for this session time.

And that order intention is actually bound,

and we actually leverage a cryptogram alongside your card credential,

which basically means that it's 100% secure.

And then what we do is we leverage your face ID

to make sure that we bind all of that together

to give us the most amount of confidence to say that

Trevor has ordered these tickets with his order intention,

he's leveraging the safest security from Mastercard,

and he's also leveraged his face ID as well.

Now, in the moment, what we're talking about

is more of a human-in-the-loop process

where you're actually facilitating a process or a transaction.

For future-dated transactions,

and we absolutely see those coming through as an example

when I'm looking to buy a flight,

or I'm looking to get some accommodation,

or I'm looking to get a new product that's about to be launched

as an example.

As I do those type of experiences,

my order intention is bound at the time

that I make that order intention,

and then the transaction in the future is facilitated.

I think the only other point, Trevor, that I'd make

is that we're turning the visibility on for everyone.

So your bank, that issues your bank account,

in this example, we leverage both Commonwealth Bank,

Stebit Card, and my Westpac Credit Card.

In those two examples, I'm giving visibility to those two banks

that I'm leveraging an authentic transaction,

and I've actually onboarded the main code,

large language model, and agent.

So they have clear visibility about it.

And then the process that processes that payment,

which is ipsy, in this case,

has that same confidence that they know

that it's an authentic transaction.

They know that Serene has made it with the main code,

and they know that the transaction needs to be facilitated

in exactly the conditions that I've articulated on my basket.

And think about the basket being fulfilled

as your order intention.

So whatever's in the basket, which could be

your airline ticket transaction,

or your favourite t-shirt that you want to buy,

or the next Lego drop that you're interested in buying,

that is really your order intention

that you put your face ID on,

and then you actually facilitate or allow the agent

to facilitate that payment on your behalf.

And to be clear, we've talked about the security

or authentication that exists here for the user,

the card holder, the safety there.

But this is huge for merchants as well,

and we're talking about, you know, hoists and things

and event cinemas, but let's be real,

people listening could be small business owners

who run an online store.

And one of the challenges with an online store,

especially if you're just at home, you know,

you're shipping orders and things,

and then you get these buybacks and these people that, you know,

log on and say, no, I didn't receive it,

and so you lose your money and then you've got to work.

It's a complicated thing.

What you're also doing is taking that intent,

that verified intent,

and saying to event cinemas, hoits, Woolworths,

or, you know, Jim's small business,

you know, we verified,

this is a real person making a real purchase

because it's quite possible some people

will block AI bots from shopping

because they don't have the trust or faith

in verifying that there was an intent there.

That's exactly right.

So that's why we verify the basket

with the intent data, with the customer,

against their chosen mastercard,

which means that it creates

a significant amount of confidence

and what we call a chain of trust, right,

and a chain of visibility

so that everyone across that chain, be it the retailer,

small business or large, mastercard,

the card issuer, in this case,

it was actually West Bank and ComBank,

Ipsy, who was the payment processor,

agent was main code,

and then the experience was with event cinemas and threadboat.

I mean, across that whole visibility,

it's a chain of trust.

The second point that you made is,

it is the next frontier of commerce.

It is absolutely one of the biggest opportunities

that we think that small businesses

could leverage and participate in

because consumers are demanding things

that are localized,

they're demanding on-demand delivery

or same-day delivery,

and they're demanding things that are coming

from their local area as well.

And so the opportunity for a business

to expose themselves to these agents

becomes incredibly valuable.

The piece that retailers are going to need to work on,

including small businesses,

is how they can give their exposure

to different agents,

or are they going to create their own agents?

And so this is the piece that I think

is one of the biggest opportunities

for Australian retail,

is for them to think about,

have they considered working with an agent,

are they building their own agent,

and how they're starting to think about

exposing their product catalogs

or their products across the board

so that it becomes discoverable,

because discoverability is going to be a big question

as we think about agentic commerce.

I mean, I cannot stop thinking about this

because I just was thinking out loud

in my mind about flights.

And I'll use brands and things as examples.

You have to address that.

But in terms of a simple thing,

and it's weird, but every year,

I go to CES in Las Vegas with a team of five people,

and I am super nerdy when it comes to my budget.

I hope the flights are a certain amount.

I always sit there and I refresh,

and I think, oh, I could be lower next week

because flights change every day, et cetera.

And I end up waiting until God knows September

when the flights are ridiculously expensive

and losing out.

So is it theoretically possible in your mind

through both agentic payments,

so agent pay through MasterCard as an example

to give me the confidence that it's safe,

and to give whoever I end up booking

with the authentication and safety and security as well,

whether it's a third party or direct airline.

Someone could build an agent that says, listen,

I log in and I go, I want five seats in economy

leaving on the 2nd of January,

returning on the 12th.

I only want to fly on these three airlines, no others.

It must be direct.

A few notes on the flight.

And then essentially, these agents could simply be going out

every day or every three hours,

checking the flights, checking the prices.

And I say, I'm willing to pay up to $2,000 per seat.

And I essentially at that point,

kind of verify and authenticate that cart

because I've said all the things I want.

And then I can leave it to an agent to find that for me.

And simply if it doesn't over time,

it might come back to me and say, mate,

you're going to need to spend more.

I mean, that's the future here, isn't it?

I mean, the future is absolutely here, Trevor.

I mean, this is not in the future.

It is absolutely happening right now.

And that's why it's incredibly exciting

because you're exactly right.

All of my travel is really being orchestrated.

It's been searched and it's been discovered

and actually being booked with my MasterCard now

in the way that I want it to be booked

because it's not only about the flight.

Sometimes it's about the availability.

It doesn't necessarily have to be only about price.

It could be about how can I navigate my itinerary

or my personalized itinerary that I've searched on an agent

to have the right experience

and make sure that I actually hit all the cities

or all the experiences.

So maybe just to bring that to life,

the simple answer is yes, it's happening today.

We think travel is up for absolute disruption

with this opportunity

because customers are wanting and demanding

more personalized travel itineraries.

They're going to think about their family holiday.

They've got savings goals or budget goals

that they need to address as well.

And so I saw an example yesterday

where one of my team members was actually thinking about,

I need to go to Japan.

I want to go over in two months' time.

This is my budget.

These are the places I want to book.

Please go out and do that for me.

And it's exactly the same example that you shared, Trevor.

And I think that's one of the most exciting things

because Australians love to travel.

They love to travel within their own means as well

and the opportunities here.

And you can link your loyalty.

You can link your preferences around your bedding,

around your seating.

And really you could actually have a series of things like

just to simply your price alert.

But beyond the price alert,

this agent could actually facilitate the whole itinerary.

Not only the flight.

It could do the accommodation.

It could be your transfers.

And it actually could do your activities as well.

So travel is absolutely up for disruption.

There's a huge amount of opportunity for both

online travel agencies, the airlines,

the accommodation providers to participate.

In the example that I shared last week,

I booked an experience with my mate Chris over at Threadbow.

And it was incredibly exciting, right?

I mean, so for me, it was around finding an apartment

that was close to the lift that was in ski season

and was within my price range as well.

And the whole agent was able to facilitate that

and make it happen.

And that's super exciting.

And I think about, do you think about travel,

but just think about your clothing.

Think about kind of all the things that you might be

desiring in your wish list.

And often what we do, we often desire this,

but we often miss the opportunity to pick it up.

And that could be for a new product launch

or if you're interested in going to a musical or ticketing.

This could be a huge opportunity,

particularly around things like concerts,

where you absolutely want to go and see your favourite artists.

And you want to see them at a particular location

on a particular date,

because you're happy to be in that city at a particular price.

And this is where the future of commerce and shopping

really is going, which is super exciting.

It is.

I mean, this is legit feels solidly beyond 2000 style to me

happening in the real time.

You may be too young to remember what I'm talking about,

but it feels like we're looking through a crystal ball at today.

And that's super exciting.

Let's end with though a little bit of caution to the wind here.

What are you worried about though,

with people hearing this excitement

and then like going out and trying these things?

Because there are, I've seen ticktocks

and people on threads and things saying I've done this

and it went away and it's subscribed to all this for me.

Basically, I think that the message right now

is be cautious if it's not using a payment provider

you're aware of,

or be cautious if it's asking for your payment details.

Yeah, the confidence that we want to instill

is that we're working with everyone across the payment,

a landscape in order to enable the commerce experience

to be safe.

It was the same experience as you might think

about leveraging your phone to make a payment

and instilling confidence and trust.

And so, agentic will flow through as that confidence

and that trust and that security continues to play out.

We're excited to work with partners like ComBank and Westpac,

partners like IBC,

and we have a number of new partners coming through.

And as those partners come through,

we'll start to share more publicly who those partners are,

including who the AI agents that we're bringing on board

or the large language models that we're bringing on board are.

And then as we go through that experience,

it'll just give confidence to different consumers

as they have this new experience around

how they want to do search, discoverability,

and ultimately allow the autonomous agent

to make the purchase for them on their behalf.

We're excited about that.

That's why we're leveraging all the same capabilities

that you know and trust from Mastercard.

And then we're leveraging that capability

to continue to move forward

and yet give customers choice,

give businesses, particularly small businesses,

an ability to be discoverable

and instill that safety, security,

and trust across the entire network.

And we'll continue to make announcements on who those partners are

and we want to give consumers confidence

that they can have an experience that might be

in their sunglasses today, on their phone tomorrow,

or with an agent, you know,

in any way they want to make a payment.

Hey, isn't it wild to you that we're talking about something

that didn't exist four years ago,

let alone probably even less?

We're literally having a conversation

that couldn't have existed three or four years ago.

It's unbelievable.

It's incredible.

One thing that I would say is that we run on a multi-horizon journey.

And so as we think about the product capabilities,

we're really thinking about the experiences

that are going to exist in three to five years' time.

And so, you know, three to four years ago,

we were investing in capabilities like EV

and enabling EV charging to happen seamlessly.

And, you know, now we're thinking about

how the wearable experience will happen

as you start to make more and more transactions,

you know, on your sunglasses or other wearable devices.

And then we're starting to think about,

well, actually your car and your home becomes completely autonomous.

And so we want to enable payments to happen in that experience.

So, Trevor, what I would say is that we've been building

for the next commas experience for a number of years

and we're going to consistently keep building capability

and allowing customer choice.

And that's what we believe in.

And we want customers to choose the form, the way,

and the commas experience or the shopping experience

that makes sense to them.

And some are going to be early adopters,

possibly like you and I.

And some will take time as they had

when we saw the adoption of mobile payments, right?

And in Australia now, 70% of our payments

happen on a mobile phone when they're in store.

And, you know, five years ago, it was literally zero.

So, I mean, the ability for things to scale

to your point is incredible.

And three years ago, we weren't using agents, right?

And, you know, if I think about my experience today,

I use multiple agents a day at work.

I have agents using my work email.

You know, we're leveraging co-pilot at Mastercard.

And then there's a series of agents that I have personally as well,

including my own travel agent, believe it or not.

That averages and works for my personal travel with, you know,

with kind of everything that I do for my family.

So, super exciting.

And, you know, and I think as we think about the next iteration,

I even got my little daughter prompting, you know,

what are the Lego sets that she wants to buy into her agent?

I mean, and she's only six,

so I kind of give you an understanding of this capability

is going to really grow up with the next generation.

And that's their expectation,

because, you know, they're very much used to a prompt-based

or a chat-based or a voice-based activity,

as you may have seen when they, you know,

they engage with their iPad or they engage with a phone

or an assistant voice agent.

And this is just going to accelerate that.

So, incredibly exciting.

The future's here.

We're doing live transactions,

and we're very excited, Trevor,

and we hope that, you know, the listeners and consumers

have that same confidence and encourage any retailers,

you know, to have a conversation

and really think about how that shopping experience

is going to change.

And that's literally, the shift is literally from, you know,

a retailer going, having a shopfront to moving online.

This is the same fundamental shift.

I mean, we're talking about that type of paradigm change.

Wow.

Where we're saying, you know, consumers are really changing

fundamentally the way that they do their search,

their discovery and their purchases

and allowing the agents to autonomously make those purchases

with the consumer's confidence and trust and intent as well.

Confidence is the key word, mate.

Congratulations.

Very cool.

And I've got no doubt we'll speak again soon.

Very exciting.

Thanks for having me, Trevor.

Great to have you company.

We'd love to hear from you if you want to get in touch.

You know how to do it?

0447657657.

Robbie's on the line today, Robbie.

G'day, Trevor.

How are you?

Really good, mate.

What can I do for you?

There's a lot of things you see advertised recently

about decluttering your smart phones, et cetera,

different apps that you can download

to help you clean up, remove duplicate photos, et cetera,

which I guess people like myself don't really think of

when you look at your data storage on your phone

and you're in excess of getting that, you know,

that red sort of zone and getting to the peak.

Is there an easy way of doing in particular

an iPhone device of how you can remove unwanted apps

or unused apps, duplicate photos, duplicate numbers, et cetera?

Mate, so don't worry about numbers

because people's contact details don't take up space.

There's no issue there.

The things that take up space are photos, videos,

and apps with large amounts of storage.

The best tip I can give you,

and I'm going to make a note right now

that I should do a little buddy TikTok on this

because it is probably one of those, you know, unknown things.

Deleted duplicates, iPhones.

Because sometimes I talk about these things

and then I think I should do other content on it.

But anyway, so if you open, if you've got an iPhone

and you open up the Photos app,

and in the modern iPhone it's under Collections,

you know, you've got these kind of albums and pin and memories,

but all the way down the bottom there's Utilities.

And under Utilities, there is an option for duplicates.

And in that option, you simply tap it, it says there's,

I just did it five minutes ago, it said there's 1800 duplicates

and you hit select, select all, merge,

and it merges all the duplicates.

Now, for me it was 1800, for you it might be 2 million or 100.

I don't know, but that's a good way of just going basic with your phone.

You have to say, get rid of duplicates.

The second thing you want to do with photos in iPhone

is make sure you're actually using the cloud.

And under Photos, the app in settings,

so you've got to go into Settings, App and Photos,

there should be an option to, it used to be called

Let iPhone or Let Apple Manage Storage.

And what that does is it says, listen,

if you're filling up your phone, we'll make sure all your photos

are fine in the cloud.

So it's called Optimize iPhone Storage.

And that means that all my photos are not on my phone.

Quite simply, they're not all here.

What there is is a little tiny thumbnail.

Every single photo is on my phone is a little tiny thumbnail

that takes up very little space.

And when I click on it, it might be a two month old photo

or a two year old photo.

When I click on it, it'll take a minute to download.

And it actually shows a little downloading icon

because it's downloading it from the cloud.

Because it's like saying, I'm not going to waste

all of your iPhone space with photos

when you don't have a lot of space.

So make sure that Optimize iPhone Storage

is turned on, on your iPhone under apps

and photos in the settings.

And the last thing you want to do is in the same place,

you want to be in Settings

and you want to go to General and iPhone Storage.

Because this gives you a real snapshot

of everything that's going on.

Obviously it tells you how much space you've got

and all those things.

But then there's a button there to just offload unused apps.

Now, my phone tells me that I could save 11 gigabytes

just by automatically offloading a bunch of apps

and data that I don't,

because basically I'm not using them.

It knows I haven't opened this app for donkeys.

Get rid of it.

It also shows me I can save a lot of space

on attachments, on my messages.

And then when you scroll down even further,

this is wild to me.

My email app is using 20 gigabytes of storage.

That's, I mean, I don't know why.

I don't need to keep any mail on my phone.

So I need to go in there and I need to clean that up.

WhatsApp is using 20 gigabytes of storage.

I've got to clean that up.

So, you know, basically you can take action

upon the data that you're seeing.

So worth going into the settings about an iPhone storage

and actually looking at what genuinely is using up your storage

to decide what you delete and what you don't.

Sounds fantastic, mate.

Your wealth of knowledge, as always.

Love the app.

Love the magazine.

And I have one last question.

If I was upgrading to iPhone,

would you select the new Air or the new 17 Pro Max?

Mate, they are two completely different phones.

Legitimately completely different phones.

I've been using the iPhone Air since it was announced.

Still using it today as my prime.

That's where my SIM card is.

It's where it's what I use in my pocket every day.

I think it's amazing.

Genuinely.

I think I love it.

It's so thin.

It's so light.

It does everything.

And if people tell you it's got a crap battery life,

here's what you do.

At the start of the day,

most of us go, what have I got on today?

And I go, it's four o'clock in the morning.

I'm not going to get home until seven o'clock tonight.

I've got a very busy day.

I put my phone in low power mode.

And I have never had an issue.

Never had an issue where I've run out of battery.

Never once because I think about it.

And if I get halfway through the day,

and it looks like it's going to be a crazy afternoon,

I put it in low power mode.

I should put in low power mode every day

just because it's a smart thing to do on any iPhone.

But that said,

when I was fortunate enough to go to the tennis in Melbourne,

I thought to myself,

I think I've got good seats.

I might take some good photos.

I don't have Zoom.

And I knew that I would be disappointed by that.

So I did.

I'm lucky.

I've got all the phones.

I took the iPhone 17 Pro Max in my other pocket.

And it was big and bulky and heavy,

but I got some absolutely cracker photos.

My God, it's unbelievable, right?

Now, is it worth spending the thousand or two more

for a phone that I'm going to use for photos now and then?

I don't think it is.

Like, I genuinely hand on hard go.

Also, I could have totally gone to the tennis

and just come out going,

I enjoyed that and got a photo that proved that I was there.

Did I need to take professional level photos

of, you know, the Carlos Alcaraz serving?

I don't know, maybe.

So we think we need it.

A lot of the time, we really don't.

That's the only downside to the iPhone Air is the camera.

You're a legend.

Thanks, mate.

Happy shopping.

And don't get into the comp every day in the app, mate.

Every day.

So, mate, how many people don't?

Oh, I'm on it.

Don't you worry.

All right, buddy, good luck.

Thanks, mate.

Cheers anytime.

No worries.

Yeah, the competitions are running.

What have we got on this week?

This week, we've got a quad lock pack.

So, full disclosure.

It was about $1,000 worth of quad lock gear.

So, I think there's six or seven different phone cases

to choose from.

And then, for whichever phone you choose,

just the accessories, the mounts, the everything.

What happened was,

I pitched this story to The Today Show that we would do

Aussie companies heading up to Australia Day.

Let's support Aussie tech companies.

And I had Rode, who make great microphones,

the roadcast and all those things.

I had Strapcicle, who make a really cool hand holder

for the Kindle.

I had TacoMats, who make awesome desk mats

for your gaming setup.

What else did we have?

We had Livid, the leather phone cases from Melbourne.

And there was something, oh, Laser.

There's a great little tech company, Kristen,

Ron the team, who make amazing tech

and bring it to Australia at great prices.

Big W on the places, like, excuse me, like that.

And then I thought, quad lock, big brand,

a big Aussie company.

So, I emailed them.

So, I'd love to do something.

I need a lot of gear though.

I need to make it look like it's, you know,

not just a phone case.

And I said, no worries.

Here's what we're sending, lots of stuff.

Segments on a Wednesday, I said,

I need to close a business Monday.

That's what I always say,

because I want to know that I've got it

and we're under control.

Monday, I'm not hearing about the delivery.

It's not looking good.

And they go, here's the tracking number.

Tracking number, the label's just been created.

I know what that means.

It hasn't been sent yet.

This thing's not coming by Monday,

let alone Tuesday.

So, Tuesday morning, I panic.

I go, I can't change the segment.

And if I delete quad lock from the segment,

it's not quite as good a segment.

So, I went to Super Cheap Auto at Castle Hill.

I said, where did you quad lock stuff?

He goes down the back.

So, I go down there and it's all locked

behind those little tags.

So, you've got to, someone's got to unlock the tags for you.

Excuse me.

So, I called Blake over and I go, man,

I need to unlock.

He goes, what do you want?

I went, one of everything.

He goes, what?

I went, it's a really long story,

but all this stuff will be on the television in the morning.

He goes, okay.

So, he unlocks.

We had a box of just everything.

$944 I spent at Super Cheap Auto,

just so that quad lock could be part of the segment

the next morning.

I'm thinking, oh, I'm an idiot,

but that's the kind of rubbish,

stupid things I do.

Anyway, next morning, Wednesday, great segment,

and the career arrived with all the quad lock stuff.

I emailed quad lock and I said, listen,

just so you know, segment wouldn't have happened

if I hadn't spent $944.

They went, oh my God, the segment was amazing.

We're really, really sorry.

And they sent me the $944 by PayPal.

So, massive respect to them and thank you to them

for sorting that out.

But then I've got the stuff still,

because they don't want it back.

So, I said, I'll do a giveaway.

So, there you go.

I got $944 worth of cool gear from quad lock.

It's a mix of what I bought and what they sent.

And I didn't know duplicates in there.

So, I've got a few leftovers.

But yeah, it's a good box of stuff.

If you know what quad lock is,

it's a cracking prize to win.

So, that's in the EFTM app right now.

Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years.

The EFTM podcast with Travelong.

15 years!

It's been a long time.

And we're coming up to the 15-year anniversary

of two-blade sorting tech as well, later this month.

And I'm really annoyed,

because I did get Stephen a present.

And he will not be listening to this show,

so I can say this.

I bought him a Star Wars watch.

I think it might be a Citizen or a Casio.

It's not a new one.

It's like a classic from, I don't know, a few years ago,

on like a watch traders website.

Anyway, I'd forgotten about it.

And then like two weeks ago,

I went, oh, what happened to that thing?

I looked it up.

I finally found it,

because I couldn't remember the name of the site or anything.

I thought I'd been scammed.

And then I found a tracking number.

And I found the tracking number,

and it's in Louisville, Kentucky,

at the UPS facility.

And you know what I went?

I went, oh, my God, it was on the plane that crashed.

But I looked at the dates of the plane crash

and the shipment, and they are weeks apart.

So I think my watch arrived at that facility

weeks after the crash.

So I just don't know where it is now.

So I've had to lodge a claim and a support claim.

And it turns out the money's in escrow, so I haven't lost it.

But anyway, I will be disappointed

because I put a lot of thought into that one.

I think you'll love it,

but I don't think I'm going to get it anymore.

So I don't think I've got any ideas for a last minute,

15th anniversary present for Stephen.

Why don't I do a watch?

Is that what the,

I think that might be what the 15th anniversary like wedding.

So let's look 15 year wedding anniversary.

Let's, I feel like that might be why I chose a watch

was because the traditional, no, that's crystal.

15th anniversary gifts from traditional and modern.

It's crystal.

You're not getting that, mate.

No way, Suri Bob must have come up somewhere.

No, Crystal and Ruby.

Okay, maybe I'm wrong.

But anyway, I thought a watch would be cool,

but no way it's going to happen now.

Cause if it's, if it's lost in Kentucky,

it's lost forever, I reckon.

Anyway, let me know what I should get Stephen

for our 15th anniversary of podcasting,

two blokes talking tech.

Okay.

Send me a text 0447657657.

I would love to know your thoughts

on what I get the great man.

That's coming up in a few weeks from now.

Until then.

Thank you so much for listening.

It's been absolutely wonderful.

And we'll do it all again next week.

Okay.

Bye.

Using AI to shop - but doing it securely with Mastercard

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