point out<\/a> that while the New Zealand Government has published a solid set of security protocols, including two-factor authentication, they are voluntary, with no repercussions for not following them.<\/p>\nOn an everyday level within companies, the leaders said \u201cshadow AI\u201d or people using unsanctioned tools had become a major security issue.<\/p>\n
2. Establishment of a national digital clearing house to vet global technology vendors<\/p>\n
When a new tech player comes on the scene, or a new product like Anthropic\u2019s Claude Mythos, to take a recent controversial example, Young sees a lot of replicated effort as various public and private organisations assess it \u2013 against the backdrop of a skills shortage in AI and other advanced tech areas, according to the survey leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re quite keen for Government to take the lead on a clearing shop, so understanding what some of these large vendors are doing … and if it\u2019s up to standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Government-led workforce development programmes to build AI capability<\/p>\n
The tech labour market has eased overall, but \u201corganisations are battling a severe shortage of specialised \u2018deep tech\u2019 talent, exacerbated by a continuous brain drain to Australia and an AI-driven \u2018expertise paradox\u2019,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
The expertise paradox is where Young\u2019s analysis that we\u2019re \u201coverusing AI in the wrong places\u201d comes in.<\/p>\n
Organisations have been favouring senior staff overseeing \u201cautomated outputs\u201d over hiring recruits to the workforce.<\/p>\n
The report says, \u201cTo combat this critical deficit, digital leaders should minimise offshore outsourcing and instead prioritise the recruitment and intensive training of young, local New Zealanders to sustainably rebuild the country\u2019s long-term digital capability.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the age of AI, organisations also have to value skills over credentials, the report says. That means a focus on continuous learning.<\/p>\n
On the Crown side, \u201cThere is an urgent need for government-led workforce development programmes to embed AI literacy in education and stem the \u2018brain drain\u2019 of talent to Australia,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
4. Accelerated progress on a secure national digital identity framework<\/p>\n
While the Government fulfilled its promise of releasing a \u201cGovt.nz\u201d app by Christmas last year, it\u2019s essentially a shop window for various existing web-based services.<\/p>\n
New features like a digital version of your driver\u2019s licence, or access to medical records (from the public system) are still in the works.<\/p>\n
A key element of underpinning technology is missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a strong demand for a formalised national digital identity framework,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders argue that a secure, centralised citizen identity service is crucial for building trust, preventing fraud, and driving massive efficiencies across both public and private sector transactions,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
5. Recognition of data platforms as critical national infrastructure<\/p>\n
One executive pointed out \u201cthe desperate need to replace localised, disconnected systems with single, unified data platforms \u2013 such as a single patient management system for the entire health sector \u2013 to truly leverage data for public good\u201d.<\/p>\n
As data becomes centralised and algorithms become more autonomous, the concepts of data sovereignty, security, and trust are emerging as critical board-level priorities, the report says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSovereign AI\u201d, or the ability of a nation or entity to control and deploy models using its own localised data and infrastructure, is rapidly becoming a source of geopolitical and competitive advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy treating data platforms as critical national assets and finalising a secure national digital identity framework, New Zealand can move beyond the current hype and deliver a high-productivity digital future,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
6. Clean the dirty data<\/p>\n
Young says another issue raised by nearly all interviewees was dirty data, or information that\u2019s scattered, inconsistent or otherwise not fit to be chewed over by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t fix the data, then we won\u2019t get the return from AI we want … AI is everywhere, but trying to get value out of it is really challenging, and that\u2019s why we\u2019ve started with data consolidation,\u201d Freightways chief information officer Matt Cocker said.<\/p>\n
What are Young\u2019s hopes in an election year?<\/p>\n
The Tuanz boss says, \u201cThere are two critical issues: cybersecurity and tech talent. Above all, whether it\u2019s AI or something else, tech leaders want an approach to digitisation from Government that\u2019s election-proof, collaborative and cross-party.\u201d<\/p>\n
Constant strategy shifts with successive Governments mean digital leaders have \u201cno idea what the vision is and where it\u2019s going\u201d, Young says.<\/p>\n
Postscript: Business leaders\u2019 top AI implementation tips<\/p>\n
The Digital Priorities report offers five practical tips, based on its interviews with NZ business leaders and \u201cinternational governance trends\u201d:<\/p>\n
1. Centralised AI governance. Organisations should establish an internal AI clearinghouse or cross-functional council to centrally review, prioritise, and approve all AI requests. This ensures alignment with business goals, manages vendor costs, and mitigates the risks of shadow AI by providing employees with safe, sanctioned alternatives.<\/p>\n
2. Securing agentic AI. Organisations must adopt a zero-trust approach to agentic AI. Cyber security architectures should be updated to treat autonomous AI agents as active network users, implementing strict identity verification, least-privilege access, and continuous logging for any tool interacting with corporate systems. High-impact operational technology should remain air-gapped where necessary.<\/p>\n
3. Pragmatic AI deployment. Businesses should focus exclusively on hyper-specific, measurable use cases utilising commodity and embedded AI. Rather than investing heavily in custom proprietary models, companies should exhaust the AI capabilities already present in their existing enterprise software suites. By targeting AI at specific, labour-centric bottlenecks, time and cost savings can be directly quantified to prove return on investment.<\/p>\n
4. Human-in-the-loop continuous training. Leaders must invest in continuous, human-in-the-loop education programs. Static IT policies are no longer sufficient. Organisations need rolling training initiatives that teach staff how to prompt effectively, recognise AI hallucinations, and maintain critical oversight, ensuring that final decisions affecting customers or core operations are always ratified by a human professional.<\/p>\n
Tuanz again collaborated with One NZ on its annual survey.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge is balancing transformation velocity with operational resilience \u2013 a tension that many digital leaders across New Zealand have felt,\u201d the telco\u2019s CIO, Adrian Albuqueque, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect transformation to be difficult: modernising core platforms, uplifting cyber maturity, and embedding AI into delivery … It forced us to do sharper prioritisation, accelerated technical debt reduction, and a much stronger focus on measurable outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young tells the Herald, \u201cWe\u2019re currently bouncing around the low 20s against 127 countries. We\u2019ve been pretty much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23568,365,95,3110,138,3937,6650,3938,114845,2082,14154,76,26477,10005,22638,4505,117,111,43,139,69,1118,208343,22399,29848,16654,312,145,4504,16742,49493,102,25152,4741,80],"class_list":["post-404309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-adoption","tag-ai","tag-and","tag-association","tag-business","tag-chief","tag-craig","tag-executive","tag-fixes","tag-for","tag-give","tag-issue","tag-leaders","tag-list","tag-marks","tag-moment","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-overuse","tag-places","tag-poor","tag-provide","tag-says","tag-technology","tag-theres","tag-users","tag-wish","tag-with","tag-wrong","tag-young","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}