Melbourne startup Maincode announces widespread access of Matilda artificial intelligence coding agent

“Australia, it’s time to code with Matilda,” according to Maincode co-founder and chief executive officer Dave Lemphers.

“I’m so excited to announce that today we’re opening Matilda Code for Beta use, just another massive milestone for Australian-made AI and for Australia.

“Download it and get coding, and most of all, send us your feedback. We want to know how we can make it better, faster, smarter.

“And don't stress, it's all running in Melbourne with love from Maincode, safe and sound”

The company envisons Matilda as an end-to-end Australian AI system deployed on Australian infrastructure, adapted for Australian contexts, governed by Australian safety expectations and evaluated against Australian product standards.

“Matilda is still in beta, and that means two things,” according to the company.

VIEW ALL

“First, it is already useful for a range of everyday work: drafting, rewriting, summarising, exploring ideas, working with files, preparing communications, and helping turn rough thoughts into clearer outputs.

“Second, it is still learning from real use. Some parts will feel polished. Others will need improvement. There will be moments where Matilda is too cautious, not contextual enough, or not yet as smooth as we want it to be.

“That is exactly why we are opening the beta. We are especially interested in feedback on the moments that matter for trust: when Matilda is helpful, when it gets something wrong, when it should ask before answering, when it should be more direct, and when its behaviour feels different from what you expect from an AI assistant.

“The beta gives us a way to learn what reliability looks like in practice, across real users, real tasks, and real expectations.”

Matilda is available at matilda.maincode.com and on the Apple App Store.

Silicon Valley comes down under

Matilda is not brand new, having first been conceptually announced in August last year before being first demonstrated at SXSW in October, with this month being the first time it has been publicly available in beta.

Last year, Australian AI venture Sovereign Australia AI also launched their Ginan AI research model, a free and open-source 8-billion parameter language model.

The model was developed on Meta’s Llama 3.1 architecture, trained on roughly 2 billion tokens of Australian data, such as historical literature and Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) resources.

While Australia has a much more limited number of AI models due to the massive cost required to develop a foundational large language model, more organisations are building their own AI tools and applications as demand for the technology and its outcomes grow locally.

Major Australian firm Canva has launched Canva AI, which features text-to-image generators, layout automation and other tools, while Atlassian has developed Rovo, an AI teammate, as well as a number of custom agents.

AI is set to be a big deal in the Australian economy, just like the rest of the world, with the Tech Council of Australia saying that AI is increasing GDP by $21 billion annually, and by 2030, could reach $142 billion.

Adoption is also growing with AI adoption at 68 percent according to the CSIRO. This isn’t just large companies adopting AI either, with the National AI Centre’s monthly survey of 400 SMEs showing an adoption rate of 37 per cent, while MYOB’s bi-annual survey puts the figure at 29 per cent, up from 23 per cent 6 months prior.

The argument for sovereign AI

While discussions on whether Australia should be developing its own sovereign AI are mixed, the main argument supporting the idea is increased national security and a decreased reliance on overseas technologies.

The CSIRO’s DIgital, National Facilities & Collections executive director Professor Elanor Huntington argues that relying of foreign AI models can present reliability and security concerns for Australians.

“It may also result in tools that aren’t culturally appropriate in an Australian context or that don’t realise the benefits for our workers that we want to see,” adding that non sovereign AI is harder to control the use of in Australia.

However, Research Professor at George Washington University and co-principal investigator with the NSF-NIST Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS) Susan Ariel Aaronson wrote on the United States Studies Center that Australia should not pursue sovereign AI.

She says that as Australia has not yet developed these technologies, it would be an “expensive, difficult, and risky” move to develop.

“Australia lacks the data economies of scale and scope. Moreover, taxpayers may be reluctant to provide the extremely large sums of capital and the very fast computing infrastructure required to produce world-class foundational AI,” she added, citing that the US government investment into AI research and development grew from US$2.4 billion in 2021 to an estimated US$3.1 billion in 2024.

“Australia should think long and hard about overinvesting in the current iteration of AI. Instead, Australia could develop a data sharing strategy that encourages multi-sectoral data sharing in a trustworthy manner to unlock the potential of data to solve wicked problems. Australia could also consider beefing up the incentives for individuals to work, live and study in Australia.”