AI Tackles NZ’s Forestry & Climate Goals

And, AI Summit Shows Global Tech Tensions

Author

Mike Bayly
February 17, 2025

Kia ora! Welcome to New Zealand’s weekly AI news round-up.

The 2024 Oxford Insights AI Readiness Index placed NZ at 40th globally.

AI Readiness: New Zealand's Strategic Crossroads. Source: Oxford Insights.

Despite the challenging ranking, the NZ Government took a landmark stride in June 2024 (before the Index was released) to set a clear strategic direction for AI adoption. Our strengths in governance and ethics provide a solid foundation, but with Australia ranked 10th and the UK at 5th, our zero rating on vision underscores the urgent need for more action. More concentrated efforts are required in three critical areas for NZ: a stronger vision, more investment, and comprehensive AI education programmes.

The Paris AI Summit last week revealed a deep global viewpoint division in AI, with nations struggling to balance ethics and innovation. New Zealand has an opportunity to carve a unique path in AI, but only if we're willing to think bigger and invest deeper.

Enjoy the read!

Here are the highlights from this week’s edition:

  • 🤖 ChatGPT Roasts NZ

  • 🌿 Indigenous AI Voice Breakthrough

  • 👩‍💻 AI for Her - by Erin Howard

  • 🌳 AI Transforming NZ Forestry

  • ⚖️ Aussie lawyer's ChatGPT Catastrophe

  • 🌐 Paris AI Summit Highlights

⚡ NZ Champions Indigenous Voice in Global AI Standard

📣 Word On The Street: The new Global AI Standard - ISO/IEC 42001 - just dropped, and NZ's been leading the charge to make sure AI respects indigenous knowledge.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • 60+ nations shaping global AI rules, NZ's ensuring AI systems understand cultural nuances and spiritual values, not just Western frameworks

  • Real-world benefits already emerging in agriculture and beyond, with AI systems now required to understand diverse ownership models and indigenous perspectives

  • Callaghan Innovation's delivering free, practical guides that translate complex AI governance into actionable steps for businesses

🏘️ Our Take: This isn't just another overseas standard we're adopting - it's one we helped create, ensuring it reflects our unique way of doing things - from how we hire people (e.g. ensuring consideration for skillsets, such as those who speak te reo) to how we run our farms. For businesses the guidelines help them innovate confidently while ensuring their AI systems work fairly for all New Zealanders. Watch this space in agriculture, health, and education, where the impacts will likely show up first.

🏫 Singapore Shows NZ Schools The AI Way Forward

A child uses the Ministry-run Student Learning Space online platform in a Singapore maths class. Source: 1News.

📣 Word On The Street: Ministry of Education (MOE) NZ is gearing up for AI integration in schools, taking cues from Singapore's success while developing safeguards for privacy, cultural considerations, and teacher support.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • 500 educators have joined AI Forum NZ's community practice group, with current research showing teachers already use AI for planning and admin

  • All schools must implement new tech curriculum with AI-related content by 2027, with MOE actively monitoring OECD and UNESCO AI guidance

  • Safer Technologies for Schools (ST4S) initiative introduces first AI assessment criteria, while Singapore's success shows AI tools boost teacher efficiency (think tasks like instant spelling and grammar feedback)

🏘️ Our Take: AI in education means our next generation will be better equipped for an AI-powered workforce, with teachers using tools to personalise learning and spot struggling students earlier. It's about enhancing, not replacing - giving teachers more time for what matters most while putting NZ in step with global education leaders. All tools are properly vetted through ST4S for privacy and cultural considerations, including Māori data sovereignty.

🌲 Kiwi Forests Get Smart with AI Mapping

Tree Planter Bag with Radiata Seedlings. Source: Inside Government.

📣 Word On The Street: Flinders University and NZ experts have revolutionised forest management by deploying AI and 3D laser scanning to map 1.8 million hectares of radiata pine forests across the North Island.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • This national collaboration, spans researchers from Rotorua, Christchurch, and Auckland

  • The system integrates satellite tracking, digital photogrammetry, and deep learning to continuously update 1.8 million hectares of radiata pine to capture everything from vast estates to small woodlots, creating a forest digital twin

  • With real-time monitoring capabilities, it enables faster responses to environmental challenges and more efficient harvest planning

🏘️ Our Take: AI-powered forest mapping will transform how we protect and profit from our forestry sector. It's not just about supporting our $7B timber exports - it's strengthening our climate resilience through the emissions trading scheme and our path to net-zero by 2050. After Cyclone Gabrielle's impact on Gisborne in 2023, AI proves invaluable for disaster prevention and recovery planning.

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

  • AI Roasts Kiwis. When local travel creator Liam Daly (@getlostwithliam) asked ChatGPT to roast New Zealand, he didn't expect 700k Instagram views of brutal accuracy about our housing crisis. The AI's unfiltered takes on our "clean, green" image hit surprisingly close to home! (3-min read)

  • Gisborne's AI Tackles Debris. The District Council has used AI to detect wood debris locations across the region, transforming a manual process into a streamlined operation for faster response and planning. (2-min read)

  • AI to Hit NZ Mainstream. Nearly 50% of businesses use AI, with employers expecting a 49% productivity boost. NewZealand.AI founder Justin Flitter says AI will become essential over the next 18 months. (3-min read)

🦘 From Across the Ditch

  • Aussie startup tackles pay gaps with AI. The AUD $500k investment in EvenBetter.ai will help solve gender pay gaps. The platform launches next month, giving execs a data-driven way to close pay gaps. (2-min read)

  • Lawyer caught using ChatGPT fabricated cases. 9% of Aussie lawyers are already using AI daily, but one lawyer got busted citing 17 non-existent cases generated by ChatGPT. The NSW Supreme Court's now drawing lines in the sand, banning AI for affidavits and witness statements. (4-min read)

  • Great Barrier Reef's AI guardian. Australian researchers have deployed an AI system that monitors the world's largest reef in real-time through satellite imagery and ocean sensors. The platform tracks everything from bleaching rates to starfish populations, addressing critical challenges as 75% of global coral reefs face extreme heat stress. (2-min read)

🌍 The News from Global

🗼 Highlights from Global AI Summit in Paris.

  • The US and UK refused to sign a major international AI declaration - citing security concerns and favouring less regulation - highlighting a growing divide between nations advocating for strict AI oversight (60 countries backed the agreement, inc. NZ) versus rapid development. (3-min read)

  • Canadian PM Trudeau warns of AI's growing energy demands and wealth concentration risks, advocates for nuclear power to prevent coal-powered AI development. (2-min read)

  • France and UAE announce massive AI infrastructure investments (€109B and $50B respectively), aiming to establish Europe as a third global AI power alongside US and China by leveraging France's nuclear-powered data centres and positioning Paris as an AI hub. (2-min read)

🎭 Altman Snubs Musk's $97.4B Bid With Cheeky Twitter Jab. (2-min read)

  • Musk-led investor group offers record-breaking USD $97.4B to take control of maker OpenAI in a bid to revert OpenAI to nonprofit status

  • Sam Altman responded with witty USD $9.74B counter-offer to buy Twitter/X (exactly 1/10th of Musk's bid and far below the $44B Musk paid), highlighting growing tension between tech titans (background story here)

🌏 Tech Updates You Should Know

  • OpenAI: Pulled the plug on GPT-o3, pivoting to a simplified GPT-5 roadmap while GPT-4.5 (Orion) quietly approaches with underwhelming whispers

  • Google: Gemini Advanced subscribers get a memory upgrade, allowing the AI to remember past conversations across multiple chats

  • Anthropic: A new "hybrid" model drops in weeks for Claude, promising to toggle between deep reasoning and quick responses

📚️ Levelling Up With AI

👩 AI for Her - by guest writer, Erin Howard:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and honestly, I wouldn’t blame you), you’ve probably noticed the growing backlash against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, with critics arguing it’s divisive and undermines merit-based systems. I’m not here to get political, but I am concerned.

DEI isn’t just a corporate buzzword—it’s a business imperative. Harvard research suggests that companies that prioritise gender diversity make better decisions, build more innovative products, and are 15% more likely to achieve above-average profitability. When DEI is ignored, workplaces become less inclusive, talent retention suffers, and innovation stalls.

Nowhere is this more critical than in AI. A lack of gender diversity in AI development leads to biased systems that reinforce existing inequalities. A 2022 study by University College London found that AI models designed to detect liver disease from blood tests were twice as likely to miss the disease in women compared to men. Further to this, a study in 2024 found that ‘nearly 40% of AI-driven job rejections showed signs of algorithmic bias, disproportionately affecting women and marginalized groups’ (Economic Times, 2025).

The problem? These AI models weren’t adequately trained on diverse data. This is just one example of how AI—when built without diverse perspectives—can amplify bias in hiring, healthcare, and finance, to name a few. From job screening algorithms that favour male candidates to healthcare AI that overlooks women’s symptoms, unchecked bias has real and harmful consequences.

So, how do we fix it? Businesses can take practical steps to make AI more inclusive. My take: Start to train models on diverse data and build diverse teams to develop them.

Here are five recommendations from the UN: How AI Reinforces Gender Bias and What We Can Do About It (10-min read)

🤓 Intermediate - What truly is an AI Agent?: “ClaudeAI runs my workflows!”

  • An agent is a sophisticated piece of software that uses AI to accomplish complex tasks through a continuous, intelligent cycle. As Armand Ruiz, VP of Product at IBM, and Dharmesh Shah, Founder of Hubspot, brilliantly explain, agents are dynamic problem-solving systems.

  • The ongoing debate in tech circles continues to spark intense discussions: What exactly constitutes an agent? Is it about complete autonomy, or is agency itself a spectrum?

  • Ruiz breaks down the agent's core functionality into a four-step cycle:

    1. Think: Process available data and context

    2. Plan: Develop a strategy to achieve a goal

    3. Act: Execute the chosen plan

    4. Reflect: Evaluate outcomes and adapt for future iterations

  • Shah defines agents as: "Software that uses AI to accomplish a goal requiring multiple predetermined or AI-generated steps" - existing on a spectrum of intelligence and capability. Agents come in various forms:

    1. Conversational Agents: Customer service chatbots

    2. Workflow Agents: Task-specific AI executors

    3. Hybrid Agents: Complex tools blending conversational and traditional interfaces

  • Example typical AI agent workflow: begins when it receives a request, then uses internal reasoning to interpret and plan the approach. It gathers information through APIs, processes the collected data to formulate a response, executes the necessary actions or generates an output, and finally logs and monitors its performance to continuously improve.

Our Take: The real revolution is in verticalisation - creating purpose-built agents that solve specific real-world challenges, for specific industries. As infrastructure becomes a commodity, with compute costs plummeting 50-70% annually, the game is no longer about the most powerful Large Language Model (LLM), but the most intelligent, targeted solution.

📅 AI Events

  • All about AI, 20 Feb (6:00-8:00 PM) - Auckland: VUW lecturer, Simon McCallum, reveals AI's policy landscape deep-dive for business strategists and tech enthusiasts. No cost.

  • AI for Leaders Workshop, 24 Feb - Auckland: AI Forum chair Matt Ensor shows how to blend tech smarts with human leadership - includes drinks and networking. No cost.

  • The Future of No Work, 26 Feb - Auckland: Burger King's AI whiz and European automation guru share real workplace wins at Grid AKL. $51.75 pp.

  • 1st AI Engineer Meetup 2025, 27 Feb - Wellington: Two tech leaders, live coding demos, and pizza at Vic's Pipitea campus - perfect for hands-on engineers. Free session.

  • International Conference on Law and Artificial Intelligence (ICLAAI-25), 5-6 Mar - Auckland: Global experts unpack AI's legal landscape through keynotes, panels, and interactive workshops. Hybrid event, pricing varies.

  • Introducing Gemini AI in Education, 11 Mar (1:00-4:00 PM) - Christchurch: Practical AI workshop for educators, unpacking Gemini's classroom potential with zero tech experience needed. No cost.

  • AI ROI Workshop, 13 Mar (12:30-4:00 PM) - Whangārei: SupaHuman's hands-on AI masterclass reveals how businesses can unlock generative AI's game-changing potential. No cost.

  • Designing for the future: Activating an AI world, 17 Mar (5:30-7:30 PM) - Hamilton: Datacom unpacks AI's transformative potential for forward-thinking professionals. Members free, Non-members $25.

  • IoD Governing AI Forum 2025, 19 Mar (8:00 AM-5:00 PM) - Auckland: One-day intensive reveals AI governance strategies for boards . Members $545, Non-members $1,095.

💼  AI Roles around Aotearoa

Our picklist of 🌶️ HOT🌶️ roles in AI, to support the growing industry.

🆕 New Roles We’ve Found 🆕

🤦‍♂️ AI Fail of the Week

We all love AI, but, we all know it’s far from perfect…

Reminds me of when a New Yorker asked if there was a bridge between Australia and New Zealand!

📌 To-Dos

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