Protecting Māori & NZ data in the AI age

Kia ora! Welcome to New Zealand’s weekly roundup of AI news, events, jobs and education.

We hope you had a great Easter weekend and are enjoying the short working weeks.

If you only read two stories this week, take a look at:

• Dr Karaitiana Taiuru's interview (see first story) on how to protect Māori & NZ knowledge in the AI age.

• Justin Flitter's report (under Other Kiwi Bites) reveals how different sized businesses in Aotearoa experience AI's impact - from startups to corporates, the technological transformation is real and varied.

In a new fitness challenge, twenty-one robots raced humans at a half marathon in Beijing on Saturday. Some robots completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. The race had been billed as the world's first robot half marathon.

Happy reading. 🥚

This week’s highlights:

🛡️ Māori data sovereignty takes centre stage
🤖 Public Service AI takes off without training wheels
🔌 Green data centres: NZ's untapped AI goldmine
🎖️ Veterans get AI support boost
🏆 Aussies hunting AI whiz kids in National Olympiad
🧠 AI impacts differentiate based on business size
🔬 Science edges closer to dolphin dialogue
🌞 AI breathes new life into solar observations

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MAORI AND AI

🛡️ Protecting Māori & NZ knowledge in the AI age

📣 Word On The Street: Māori leaders warn of cultural data risks as AI systems trained on Western datasets fail to properly represent indigenous knowledge with only 8% of the digital workforce comprising Māori, yet making up 19% of the population.

🔍 Zooming In:

• Building a sovereign NZ AI model would cost approximately $40 million according to recent quotes.

• Cultural experts recommend community input throughout the full development lifecycle of AI systems.

• Iwi organisations are reportedly exploring in-house sovereign AI solutions using open-source technologies like DeepSeek.

🏘️ Our Take: Our cultural heritage is quietly being fed into foreign AI systems without proper consent, returning to us mistranslated and distorted approximations of Māori creation stories using King James Bible text with American views. From mispronounced names at the bank to misrepresented cultural stories online, these AI failures reflect a system where Kiwis consume rather than create technology. Developing sovereign AI infrastructure built on te Tiriti principles could transform Aotearoa from tech consumers into creators, generating new jobs while preserving cultural integrity in our increasingly digital lives.

PUBLIC SECTOR

🤖 Survey shows Public Sector AI use takes off without training wheels

📣 Word On The Street: PSA survey reveals widespread AI adoption across public services with 55% of workplaces using AI tools, yet only 12% of staff receiving proper training.

🔍 Zooming In:

• An eye-opening 94% of public sector AI users adopted the technology by personal choice, not workplace requirement.

• ChatGPT leads the charge as the tool of choice for 41% of public servants using AI in their daily work.

• Despite enthusiasm, 68% worry AI could discriminate in hiring and promotion decisions.

🏘️ Our Take: Kiwi public servants are quietly revolutionising their workflow with AI tools, creating a grassroots digital transformation without waiting for official direction. While workers see clear potential to streamline services and improve outcomes for the public, the lack of training and organisational policies creates significant risks. The government's upcoming AI strategy needs proper consultation with workers, iwi Māori, and community stakeholders to establish guardrails that protect both workers and the public they serve.

DATA CENTRES

🔌 Green data centres: NZ's untapped AI goldmine

📣 Word On The Street: New Zealand has all the ingredients to become a global sustainable AI data centre hub, if only we can overcome our national tech scepticism.

🔍 Zooming In:

• We're uniquely equipped with dispatchable hydro and geothermal for consistent clean power, with direct data connectivity to Australia and the US is already in place, and a new Asia cable in 2026.

• Foreign investors are watching closely, waiting for the right conditions to invest.

• 85% of Kiwis distrust how organisations will manage AI and personal data.

🏘️ Our Take: New Zealand has the resources and infrastructure to lead the green AI revolution. This could create thousands of skilled jobs and put us at the forefront of sustainable AI. But Kiwis are among the most AI-sceptical people in the world. To shift that, we need education, smart regulation, and a clear national strategy. If we get it right, we unlock major economic gains: jobs, investment, and global influence. If we don’t, we risk missing the sustainable computing boom while others seize the opportunity.

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

🎖️ Veterans get AI support boost. No Duff Charitable Trust has developed an AI therapy chatbot for veterans facing 12-month Veteran's Affairs wait times, after four veteran suicides in February-March alone. The system uses custom data from nine years of veteran conversations while maintaining human clinical oversight.
3-min read.

📊 ANZ leads global AI investment. Local organisations are directing more tech budget to AI than global peers (32% vs 25%), while focusing on customer experience improvements (53% vs 43%). Despite achieving 44% ROI, unexpected staffing costs and data challenges are hampering full adoption.
2-min read.

🧠 AI impacts differentiate based on business size. While 95% of Kiwi SMBs report revenue gains from AI adoption, larger NZ enterprises face significant restructuring challenges as automation targets standardised processes, according to Justin Flitter’s research.
7-min read.

🔍 Matchmaking for jobs. Employment Hero's AI recruitment tool connects employers with pre-qualified candidates instantly, helping NZ businesses skip the two-week wait for job board responses, including one local HR manager saving 5 hours weekly during peak hiring periods.
3-min read.

🔑 Local locksmith family business unlocks AI potential. Western Lock Services has implemented an AI chatbot since November, allowing Auckland customers to book services instantly and video call the director directly. This family business demonstrates how Kiwi trades can blend personal service with digital tools.
4-min read.

🛍️ What’s Left On The Shelf

• Boards navigating AI need this critical first step.
  4-min read.

• NZCTU unveils essential AI guide for Kiwi unions.
  23-page guide.

• Act Party under fire for using "Happy Māori" AI image in campaign.
  3-min read.

• Tertiary Education Union calling for AI conference volunteers.
  Link to landing page.

• AI deepfakes hit NZ jobs: Microsoft warns of high-tech interview scams.
  3-min read.

• Spark taps Infosys for $140M tech transformation targeting AI growth.
  2-min read.

• NZ Herald ‘caught out’ using AI to report the news.
  2-min read.

🦘 From Across the Ditch

🏆 Aussies hunting AI whiz kids. Nearly 500 Australian secondary school students competed in Round 1 of their National Olympiad in AI this year—a 30-fold increase from 2024. The competition will select around 20 students for a training camp, with the best representing Australia at the International Olympiad in Beijing this August.
3-min read.

🚀 AI dominates startup funding landscape. Australian startups are riding the AI wave, with 62% of Q1 2025 deals referencing AI product benefits. The problem is a percentage are just sprinkling AI buzzwords.
3-min read.

🌐 China's AI influence threatens Australia. With Chinese platforms embedded across cloud services and academic partnerships, Australia must invest in trusted AI alternatives through partnerships like AUKUS and the Quad.
3-min read.

🚀 AI super app transforms Aussie small business finance. ANNA Money and Shaype have launched Australia's first AI-powered business finance app targeting Pty Ltd companies. The platform consolidates banking, tax, and expense management into a single intelligent interface.
3-min read.

🌍 The News from Global

📋 Federal AI gets streamlined governance. New US White House guidelines require federal agencies to foster AI innovation while maintaining responsible use, with a unified approach to managing high-risk AI systems. Agencies must publish AI strategies and enhance procurement standards by October 2025.
4-min read.

🔬 Science edges closer to dolphin dialogue. Researchers using Google DeepMind's technology are mapping dolphin communication, discovering that these marine mammals have regional accents and signature whistles. The AI model aims to uncover hidden structures in dolphin sounds, potentially enabling inter-species communication.
2-min read.

🤝 AI Colleagues join Danish beer team. Royal Unibrew has introduced five virtual AI team members with names, faces, and unique specialties. These digital colleagues help employees tackle routine tasks, boosting productivity and engagement.
2-min read.

🎓 Student AI concerns outpace educators. A groundbreaking Turnitin survey reveals 64% of students worry about AI's impact in education, with 95% believing AI is being misused in academic settings.
4-min read.

🌞 AI breathes new life into solar observations. Scientists have developed a groundbreaking AI framework that transforms decades-old solar images into high-resolution data. By using generative adversarial networks, researchers can now compare solar observations across 24 years, uncovering hidden patterns in our star's evolution.
3-min read.

🌏 Tech Updates You Should Know

• OpenAI: Launches GPT-4.1, 4.1 mini, and nano — cheaper, faster, and built for devs with 1M-token context. o3 and o4-mini now live: o3 nails visual reasoning and tough maths. ChatGPT adds image libraries and tests a social feed. Windsurf acquisition talks heat up at $3B.

• Google: Drops Gemini 2.5 Flash with a ‘thinking budget’ for smart trade-offs. Veo 2 rolls out for cinematic video gen, with Japan Airlines already on board.

• Meta: Launches Llama 4 series — multimodal and massive (up to 2T params). Tools like Meta Locate 3D push robotics further. Restarts EU data training with opt-outs available.

• Anthropic: Claude 3.7 slips behind rivals on benchmarks, shines in writing. Rolls out a new autonomous research feature and deepens MCP ties with Google and OpenAI for agent-tool interoperability.

• Netflix: Trials emotional AI search with OpenAI tech. Limited beta on iOS for AU and NZ users, wider rollout in sight.

• Microsoft: Expands Copilot with GUI control: agents now click, type, and navigate on your behalf. Data centre builds slow, but $80B AI investment still locked in for 2025.

• Nvidia: Kicks off U.S. AI supercomputer production in Arizona and Texas. Faces tighter U.S. chip export limits to China, raising supply chain tension.

• DeepSeek: Under scrutiny as Trump weighs an outright ban. But momentum grows: DeepSeek-V3 impresses on performance, and R2 model in development with Tsinghua Uni.

📅 AI Events in New Zealand

As expected, a quiet week this week with just four events taking place across our cities and online.

This week’s featured event:

• Christchurch - Beginners AI Skills Workshop, 24 Apr: Power-packed AI learning sessions for curious professionals to fast-track their tech skills at EPIC Innovation. Free entry.

💼  AI Roles Around Aotearoa

Picklist of 🌶️ HOT 🌶️ roles in AI.

• AI Engineer - McCrae Tech, Auckland

• Data & AI Manager - Toyota, Palmerston North

• Technical Co-Founder, AI x Payments, Remote

🤦‍♂️ AI Fail Of The Week

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

That’s all for this week!

Email me here (or hit reply!) if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about a news story, event you’re hosting, or job you’re advertising.

Until next week,

👋 Mike