But the organisations they work for haven’t yet developed their own custom AI solutions. This has resulted in a “BYO AI” situation where employees are using a range of tools that aren’t working together to optimise productivity, the report says.

It quotes the Treasury, which noted in its own recent analysis that New Zealand has been slower than many other nations to adopt generative AI at a business level, and lacks a cohesive AI policy similar to those already introduced by Australia and the EU.

Technology Minister Judith Collins presented a paper to Cabinet called Approach to Work on Artificial Intelligence on June 26.

It said: “New Zealanders are often early adopters of new technology but businesses are slow to adopt AI, due in part to uncertainty about the future regulatory environment. Other countries are actively seeking to harness AI’s economic potential. We must take action to unlock the potential of AI to help deliver better outcomes for New Zealanders through greater innovation, productivity, and export opportunities.”

The paper also said: “We will take a light-touch, proportionate and risk-based approach to AI. We already have laws that provide some guardrails; further regulatory intervention should only be considered to unlock innovation or address acute risks.” Collins has asked MBIE to create AI guidelines for the public and private sectors. (Read the full document here.)

So far, New Zealand has not matched Australia’s more than A$100 million ($110m) in Federal funding to boost business adoption of AI

Is our Government doing enough to foster AI?

Victoria University AI specialist Dr Andrew Lensen found Collins’ approach too hands-off.

Microsoft chief technology officer Sarah Carney told the Herald: “New Zealand’s started to take steps really nicely. That paper Minister Collins put out is such a great line in the sand – ‘We want to do AI, we want to step into this and this is how we’re going to think about it’.”

In an optimistic scenario, generative AI could add up to $102b to GDP per year by 2038

What’s Carney’s message for white-collar workers who fear they’ll be jobless in the AI economy?

“A large proportion of this is augmentation rather than automation and you still have to have a person doing a majority of these tasks,” the Microsoft CTO says.

“In fact, one of my new favourite use cases is actually a New Zealand one called Vista.

“They’ve created a podcast for their cinema owners and operators using generative AI.

“So instead of me having to walk into the office and search through all of the reports about what happened last night, I now get this personalised podcast delivered to me. That means I can do different things and more productive things rather than looking through reports to see how many people came in last night, how much popcorn did I sell, where are the margins sitting, do I have enough staff – all of that is being surfaced and personalised for me.”

Earlier this month, Vista reported its half-year result, with the Auckland-based maker of cinema management and movie promotion software continuing its post-pandemic comeback. On a conference call with analysts, who would later respond with bullish research notes, Vista’s leadership gave a lot of credit to the technology created by Carney’s firm and said it had reduced its expenses overall – although at one point chief financial officer Matt Cawte quipped: “Our friends at Microsoft are very adept at making money.”

Looking at the broader picture, Carney says: “For white-collar workers, there are things nobody wants to do. Do you want to spend time in your email working out what the next highest priority task is? No. Do you want to write minutes in a meeting? Probably not.

“So if we can use these tools to participate differently, it frees us up to do different things; better things. Organisations that are doing well are telling employees what those better things should be, where you should spend this new time that you have.”

To get to its headline NZ productivity and GDP predictions, Accenture examined more than 19,000 tasks performed across 400 occupations to model how their productivity might be improved by generative AI.

This analysis found nearly a quarter of tasks could be augmented by using generative AI as a copilot to boost workers’ capabilities, and 14% of tasks could be automated, freeing employees to carry out higher-value work. Workers would save an hour per day on average, adding up to 275 hours each year. This is projected to add $76b to New Zealand’s GDP by 2038, which Accenture frames as “a share equivalent to twice the size of the current construction sector, while almost doubling the current rate of productivity”.

Accenture also presented a best-case scenario that delivered a $102b boost.

“Higher investment in skills, trust, policy and enterprise-level AI adoption is critical for New Zealand to fully realise the potential benefits,” its report says.

The report also recommends a “less haste, more speed” approach that “ensures workers are well supported to transition to higher-value work – focusing on augmentation and leveraging generative AI as a training tool to enhance workers’ capabilities rather than replace roles or cut costs.”

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.