One of our team spoke to a business owner recently whose clients have started asking her about AI. She doesn’t know enough yet to give them a good answer, and she wants to learn.
That’s an honest place to be, and she’s not alone.
How many New Zealand businesses are using AI?
Just over a third of New Zealand small and medium businesses are proactively using AI, according to MYOB’s latest Business Monitor. The most common use is writing, particularly social media and marketing content.
Xero asked its New Zealand customers this year as well, and nearly half see AI as the biggest opportunity since the internet. Privacy worries, and not yet having the time or the trust, are what slow people down.
So plenty of people are curious, a lot are cautious, and many aren’t sure where to begin.
Researchers call this automation bias. We tend to trust what a system hands us, and the more polished it looks, the more we trust it.
"If you can describe a job clearly, AI can help you with it. If you can't, you get something that looks right and isn't."
Who gets the most out of AI?
The people who can explain how they do their work.
That’s what we’ve noticed. If you can describe a job clearly, AI can help you with it. If you can’t, you get something that looks right and isn’t.
How do you start using AI in your business?
Pick one job you do over and over, and ask AI to help you write down how you do it.
You don’t need to sort everything out before you start. Choose something like replying to a new enquiry, and leave out client names and details. Ask the AI to interview you about the job, one question at a time, then write the steps back to you. Correct what it gets wrong.
You could start with something like this: I want to write down how I reply to a new enquiry. Interview me about it one question at a time. When you have enough, write the steps back to me in plain English.
Even if you never use AI for that job again, you’ll have the steps written down, and that’s useful on its own.
See how we use AI in a normal week
If it helps to see it done, I’ll show you.
Join me for a free one-hour online session:
Date: Wednesday 28 October 2026
Time: 12 to 1pm (bring your lunch)
Where: Zoom (link will be sent when you register)
I’ll share my screen and walk you through how I use AI in my own work, with real examples from a normal week, including the times it gets things wrong. Then we’ll open it up for your questions.
Register now and add the one question you’d most like answered. We’ll build the Q&A around what you send in.
Can’t make it? Register anyway, send your question, and we’ll email you the recording afterwards.