Trans-Tasman AI Skills Race

And, NZ Legal Tech: $28M Series A

Author

Mike Bayly
February 11, 2025

The AI Corner logo

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

It really is a sign of the times that AI is taking hold of the global psyche:

  1. Remember when crypto dominated the 2022 Super Bowl? AI took centre stage this year with OpenAI splashing out on its first major ad campaign during the 59th Super Bowl.

  2. And, we're witnessing history as companies are hiring for AI agents. The digital workforce isn't coming - it's already arrived.

Highlights from this week’s edition:

  • 🚀 NZ Legal-Tech Scores Big Money

  • ⚡ Beehive Buzzing With AI Tech

  • 📊 NZ and Aussie AI Skills Shortage

  • 🌍 Sam Altman Talks AI With Leaders in Paris

  • 🎓 Marketing’s Adoption of GenAI

  • 🎓 How Leaders Can Inject AI Into Their Business

Enjoy! ✌️

NZ GOVERNMENT

⚡ AI Powers Up Across NZ Government Services

Digitising government Minister Judith Collins told RNZ AI would deliver efficiency, speed and savings in government services. Photo: 123RF 📣

Photo: 123RF

📣 Word On The Street: 37 Kiwi public agencies are now working with AI, from speeding up ACC claims to spotting biosecurity risks at our borders.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • Health NZ clinicians are using AI to assess surgical risks, marking a shift towards data-driven healthcare decisions.

  • MPI's AI-powered 3D scanners at Auckland Airport are revolutionising how we catch biosecurity threats.

  • DOC's AI tool "Alita" is making wildlife monitoring 80-90% more efficient by filtering out empty trail camera shots.

🏘️ Our Take: This isn't just tech for tech's sake—it's about smarter healthcare and faster government services for all Kiwis. The new Public Service AI Framework demonstrates commitment to responsible implementation, but academics raise concerns about transparency and equity, driving calls for a public AI register to increase trust through openness. Positively speaking, there's a clear focus on putting Kiwis’ privacy first while delivering these improvements.

NZ AI ECOSYSTEM

🤖 Small But Mighty: NZ's AI Advantage Emerges

Dulani Jayasuriya, senior lecturer, University of Auckland Business School. Source: The University of Auckland.

📣 Word On The Street: DeepSeek's efficient AI breakthrough opens the door for NZ to become a global AI ethics leader. While larger nations and companies are fixated on AI's role in economic power struggles, another battleground on the horizon may be ethics, opening the door for NZ to build on the giants' innovations while shaping responsible AI rules—just as we did with climate action.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • DeepSeek trained their AI for $6M versus GPT-4's $100M, proving to smaller nations, like NZ, that large budgets aren’t needed to join the AI race.

  • Their open-source approach means we can build NZ-specific AI models for everything from farming to tourism, without starting from scratch.

  • By investing in skills and ethical AI now, we're positioning NZ to be a future AI powerhouse.

🏘️ Our Take: New Zealand's 2024 AI Bill puts smart guardrails in place - setting a standard for smaller nations looking to drive growth and inclusion through AI. With breakthroughs like DeepSeek proving we don't need massive budgets to compete, and our practical regulation approach, we're showing how smaller nations can build an AI ecosystem that works for everyone, not just the tech giants.

KIWIS ON THE WORLD STAGE

🚀 Kiwi Legal AI Startup Lands NZD $28M Series A

Ivo co-founders Jacob Duligall (CTO) and Min-Kyu Jung (CEO) founded the company in New Zealand but are now based in San Francisco. Image: Ivo

📣 Word On The Street: Former NZ lawyer's AI contract review platform Ivo just bagged NZD $28M (USD $16M) Series A funding, turning tedious contract reviews into 5-minute jobs.

🔍 Zooming In:

  • Ivo automates mind-numbing legal tasks - checking agreements against company rules, fixing clause conflicts, and crafting compromise language.

  • Costanoa Ventures led the round alongside Australian VC fund Blackbird, backing founders taking legal AI global.

  • Already trusted by household names and Fortune 500s - with Fonterra, Canva, WeightWatchers, and 150+ other global legal teams onboard.

🏘️ Our Take: Here's proof that Kiwi ingenuity in AI can attract serious global attention by solving everyday headaches. While Ivo now calls San Francisco home, its journey shows how turning a lawyer's daily frustration into an AI solution creates a blueprint for local founders.

🥝 Other Kiwi Bites

  • NZX halts Being AI trading. Trading stopped after NZX's watchdog caught Being AI operating without the required two independent directors. With a $35.6M loss in six months and their website now offline, this Kiwi tech venture shows our AI sector still needs training wheels. (2-min read)

  • Digital lifeguard joins the team. Selwyn Aquatic Centre is leading the pack in public safety innovation rolling out NZ's first AI drowning prevention system to monitor swimmer behaviour across multiple pools, sending instant alerts to lifeguards. (2-min read)

  • New framework for investing in AI. MinterEllisonRuddWatts is helping NZ investors cut through AI hype with a 10-point due diligence guide. It shows how to spot real AI innovation from marketing buzz. (4-min read)

  • AI skills shortage hits home. 7 out of 10 NZ employers are scratching their heads over finding AI talent, fresh data reveals. 75% of our workforce don't even know what an AI career looks like, according to Lumify Work's latest market pulse. Tech experts say pick one simple use case and grow from there. (5-min read)

🦘 From Across the Ditch

  • AI funding is flowing across the Tasman. Our Aussie cousins are having a moment in AI - Lorikeet's making customer service useful again (with $14.4M in backing), Lawpath's democratising legal help ($10M from Westpac), and Ovum's tackling women's health with $1.7M. (6-min read)

  • Leadership-employee AI divide widens. Only 45% of Aussie managers and staff trust their leaders to handle AI implementation properly. A timely reminder that even the shiniest AI strategy needs buy-in from the people actually using it. (2-min read)

  • $32M federal investment in medical AI. Showing Kiwi policymakers how government investment could keep our own AI innovators local while still enabling them to compete globally - just as Harrison.ai now serves over 1000 healthcare facilities worldwide. (4-min read)

  • Aussies boot DeepSeek from Govt. devices. Australia's ban on DeepSeek isn't just another TikTok-style crackdown - it's raising eyebrows in AI about how government agencies handle sensitive data. (5-min read)

🌍 The News from Global

🤖 OpenAI Drops o3-mini: The People's Reasoning Engine. (2-min read)

  • Think of it as an AI that explains its thinking process step-by-step.

  • It runs 24% faster and costs 63% less than previous models while matching technical performance.

  • First reasoning-focused model available to free ChatGPT users with adjustable thinking settings.

🗼 Paris AI Summit: OpenAI Chiefs Push Growth Over Fear. (3-min read)

  • A big week for world Leaders as Sam Altman's set to push world leaders to focus on AI opportunities, not just risks.

  • OpenAI's positioning for a U.S.-led democratic AI future, with plans to hold private sessions with heads of state to share country-specific insights.

  • Modi and Macron are co-chairing the summit, drawing VP Vance, Pichai, and China's Ding Xuexiang - while Elon and UK's Starmer sit this one out. NZ's Hon. Minister Collins is reportedly in Europe meeting EU Commission Members, but her summit attendance remains unconfirmed.

🌏 Global AI Rules: From Wild West to Iron-Clad. (3-min read)

  • 40+ countries (inc. NZ) are Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) members; only 7 of 193 UN nations are signed up to AI governance initiatives.

  • Major players split on regs: EU leads with comprehensive "AI Act", while US scraps AI oversight, and China develops rules aligned with state control.

  • UK and India take measured approach: Britain (3rd largest AI sector) favours "test before regulate", and India navigates existing laws.

📚️ Levelling up with AI

😇 Beginner: “I’ve heard of ChatGPT…”

Ever wonder why AI knows that when you write "the quick brown", it should reply with "fox jumps over the lazy dog"? It's not magic – it's maths.

Think of AI like a Pak'nSave self-checkout that's seen millions of shopping receipts. When it spots milk in your trolley, it knows bread often follows – not because it understands breakfast, but because these items are frequently purchased together.

The video explains it brilliantly: AI converts words into numbers (like "apple" becoming 35-37-9) and matches patterns. It's why your marketing team's AI writing assistant suggests "compelling" after you type "create a" – it's seen that pattern thousands of times before.

👉 Check out the video to learn why AI can analyse an x-ray but struggle to tell you how its day's going. (4-min watch)

🤓 Intermediate - Marketing Edition: “ClaudeAI runs a lot of my workflows!”

  • A recent study of 50+ CMOs and Marketing Leaders reveals a stark gap between AI’s future impact (9.0/10) and today’s internal readiness (4.9/10. External agencies are only slightly ahead in preparation.

  • Companies like Reckitt use AI for workflow streamlining, and AIA introduced AI Sonny for personalised customer onboarding - but these are just scratching the surface. Leaders like Coca-Cola and Group Bel push AI further—integrating it into product innovation, consumer engagement, and real-time decision-making.

  • The real opportunity lies in four key areas:

    • Strategic Advancement (better brand strategies / product testing).

    • Operational Efficiency (automating tedious reports).

    • Brand Elevation (spotting trends before they trend).

    • Automated Marketing (personalisation that actually feels personal).

  • Takeaway: most marketing teams are held back by limited understanding, ethics concerns, data security worries, and simple capability gaps. It's not about replacing marketers; it's about giving them superpowers—a big misconception across many professionals. The question isn't if marketing will transform with AI, but who'll transform with AI. 👉 Full 42 page report.

🎓 Leadership: "I'm using AI to transform my business..."

New research from Wiley and MIT reveals a crucial insight: success with AI isn't about replacement, but strategic placement. The findings show:

  • AI Only: Best for detecting fake reviews (73% accuracy) and forecasting demand.

  • Human Only: Excels in contextual tasks like specialised bird image classification (81% accuracy).

  • Sweet Spot: Human-AI collaboration on content creation reaches 90% accuracy.

Takeaway: While 63% cite lack of guidelines as the main barrier, the competitive advantage window is closing–move from experimental AI to systematic integration now, strategically placing AI in amongst team workflows.

🤝 Need a Hand getting started with AI?

From ChatGPT and low-code tools, to custom automation workflows, we help Kiwi businesses get started with AI systems. No massive budgets or tech teams needed - just smart tools and solid prompts.

📅 AI Events

  • Work Smarter with AI, 12 Feb - Dunedin: Ditch the admin slog with proven AI tools saving SMEs 10+ hours weekly. Westpac's shout at Hanover Hall.

  • HeyGen AI Workshop, 13 Feb - Invercargill: Ben Walker's teaching 20 lucky Southlanders how to build custom AI chatbots at 25 on Don. $190+gst for members.

  • Multicore World, 17-21 Feb - Christchurch: Aotearoa's five-day tech summit connects our corner with distinguished speakers from home, US, UK, Europe and beyond – tickets from $550.

  • AI in Accounting Summit, 20 Feb - Auckland: YouTuber Jason Staats joins Xero's finest for NZ's first AI accounting conference. Early birds $129.

  • 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.

💼  AI Roles around Aotearoa

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

🆕 New roles 🆕

🤦‍♂️ AI Fail of the Week

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

Label must be synonymous for bottle in AI lingo…

📌 To-Dos

📝 Want a Tutorial? Got an AI use case you're curious about? Drop us a line - whether it's fine-tuning LLMs or building your first chatbot. We'll create and share with the community a free step-by-step guide that actually makes sense.

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