Some 88% said AI had had a positive effect on their operations. Of those:

“So the benefits are there. They’re just not pervasive yet,” Datacom managing director Justin Gray told the Herald.

Gray said most businesses hadn’t deployed AI across the whole of their organisation because of what he calls a “maturity gap”.

High uptake is outpacing governance.

The top barriers range from lack of internal capability (32%) to data integration challenges (22%) and regulatory uncertainty (16%).

Uncertainty around governance, staff resistance and lack of internal buy-in were also cited.

As with any new technology, there’s an element of BYO chaos. Just over half (52%) of leaders identified “shadow AI” – the use of unapproved tools – as a problem in their organisation.

Another security concern for respondents was not knowing what implications AI might have (80%) and uncertainty around control, or loss of control, of AI (57%).

As New Zealand’s largest homegrown IT services firm, with more than 5000 staff, Gray said he was starting to see agentic AI in the market (that is, an AI that can make its own decisions, within defined parameters).

He said Datacom itself had integrated over 90 internal AI productivity tools, including an in-house-developed payroll assistant – which has passed a payroll exam and is now being sold to other companies.

But for now, in most places, AI is being used in a more meat-and-potatoes fashion.

The most common applications of AI are automation of repetitive tasks (68%), data analytics and reporting (54%), workflow optimisation (51%) and customer or employee experience enhancement (32%). Just 16% of organisations say they are using AI to transform a core aspect of their operations or services.

Skills constraint

Skills are becoming a constraint as companies look to move up the AI food chain.

“You don’t need everybody in your business to be an AI expert,” Gray said.

“But what you do need is leaders and people across the business to be AI-literate.

“They need to be able to spot the opportunities and where AI can be embedded for value and be working on those use cases – so you can rely on a centre of enablement or something like that to drive the adoption and drive the implementation of different AI tools.

“If you don’t adopt it relatively widely, you’ll be left behind.”

The Government’s recently released AI strategy identified a skills gap, but not how it would be addressed.

Venture capitalist Serge van Dam likened it to a travel itinerary that involved booking a flight “without knowing the destination, the airline, the time or the airport you’re flying from”.

Gray is more diplomatic, calling the strategy document, “a good starting point for a dialogue that has to continue”.

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.