Research reveals how NZ is faring with adopting AI
Few New Zealand organisations are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to its full extent, but for those that are, and workers competent in AI, the benefits can be significant, new research says.
New Zealand organisations were found to be willing to pay staff competent in generative AI between 30 to 40% more in salaries, depending on their specialisation, according to new research commissioned by Amazon’s cloud computing business AWS, which surveyed more than 1600 workers and 500 employers in this country.
The research and report, Accelerating AI Skills: Preparing the Workforce in New Zealand for Jobs of the Future, said AI was expected to “significantly change how business is done in New Zealand”, with almost all organisations said to expect to be using generative AI in the workplace by 2028, as a way to boost productivity.
AI is a simulation of human intelligence by computer systems designed to recognise patterns and make predictions, whereas generative AI is capable of creating ideas and content such as text, images and video.
Employers surveyed said they believed generative AI could boost productivity by 49%, and workers believed it could make tasks 46% more efficient.
About 90% of employers said they expected to roll out AI tools such as chat bots and speech recognition within their organisations over the next four years, with information technology, sales, marketing and finance, legal and human resources departments expected to benefit the most from the adoption of AI.
About 55% of tech workers said they expected to use generative AI significantly in their work in years ahead, along with 25% of non-tech workers and 40% in roles tech-adjacent.
“We often hear this perception that for some types of jobs, AI won’t be relevant, and it will just be for technology specialist jobs, but our research challenges that, and suggests that it is going to touch every type of worker,” said Fraser Thompson, head of economics and strategy at Access Partnership, which conducted the research on behalf of AWS.
Thompson said he believed there would be minimal job losses as a result of widespread adoption of AI, and instead more new job categories created because of it.
“In very rare cases, is it going to replace the entire job. In most cases, it will replace a portion of the job. That will allow workers to focus on other activities.”
New Zealand workers were found to be just as keen as employers to use AI in the workplaces, but the research outlined that there was an AI skills gap holding back higher adoption rates.
Hiring AI-skilled talent was noted as a priority for nearly two in every three employers surveyed. However, 70% said they could not find the talent that they needed.
And, despite being interested in the application of AI, almost 80% of employers surveyed said they did not know how to implement an AI workforce training programme.
AWS head of strategy in New Zealand Pip Gilbert said AI skills were imperative for the future workforce and the continued growth of Aotearoa.
She said AWS was working with a number of New Zealand businesses to adopt AI and generative AI, including One NZ in its contact centres, and mental health support provider Clearhead to triage people seeking help, but more training and education was needed.
“From financial services to construction, retail and utilities, industries are embracing AI at pace, which is why an AI-skilled workforce is essential to supporting our Kiwi can-do culture of innovation, and driving productivity,” said Gilbert.
“What’s blocking [adoption] moving even faster is the skills that we need in our workforce.”
Kiwibank has begun dipping its toes into introducing AI to its workforce. It recently held an “AI hackathon” looking at how AI could be used to create better outcomes for its staff and customers. It would not share further details.
Kiwibank general manager of tech risk, security, data governance and architecture, Tim Gardner, said the organisation believed AI would enable its workforce to do parts of their jobs faster and more effectively.
“By leveraging data and AI, we can extend traditional banking services and technology, making banking easier and simpler for our customers. That’s why we’re investing in upskilling our people in modern technologies, including AI and cloud.”
Datacom managing director Justin Gray said AI would be more impactful and disruptive than many companies were anticipating.
He likened it to how businesses had to learn about and adopt cybersecurity learning a few years ago.
“AI has come from being relatively in the background to there being a whole lot of awareness, but we’ve still got a fair way to go on it on our learning curve.
“We talk a lot about generative AI, because that is what’s right in front of us, but actually the implications of AI are much more broader,” said Gray.
“Yes, it can do cool stuff like large language models can generate text and images, but also what it’s good at is dealing with large data sets to solve more complicated problems. It can drive automation of business processes, even looking at various of policy outcomes.
“What that means is the opportunities range for a New Zealand business to a large government agency and can [help with] how to serve and create experiences for your customer to how you make decisions around your business and how you build strategy and policy – and in operations, how you run the business, automate and drive efficiency.”
Gray said AI was increasingly augmenting humans in decision-making, and it could drive much-needed “productivity improvements in New Zealand” and “a shift to more meaningful work” at the same time.
Datacom research, among other surveys, has shown New Zealand is falling behind the rate of AI adoption levels seen elsewhere in the world.
“Our research showed just under half of organisations in New Zealand said they are using AI in some way, and a third of the rest said they were planning on it. But when you compare that to Australia, where 72% said they are using AI, it already shows that compared to our nearest neighbour, we are falling behind,” said Gray.
He said there was not enough thought by businesses going into how AI could be linked into organisations’ strategies and logical use cases.
The privacy and security risks of the echnology, and a lack of regulation around it, were also factors, he said.
“If we don’t bridge that gap, I think we are going to miss a bit of a wave of opportunity around productivity [gains] and AI being able to accelerate business growth that can help our economy.”