About this guidance
New artificial intelligence (AI) developments and applications are advancing at an exponential pace, aiming to support business productivity, competitiveness and innovation. The artificial intelligence strategy for New Zealand aims to advance New Zealand toward an AI-powered future.
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What is this guidance?
New AI developments and applications are advancing at a rapid pace and are helping support business productivity, competitiveness and innovation. There is strong potential for AI to help lift New Zealand’s economic performance and the Government has set out its ambition in New Zealand’s AI Strategy.
The responsible AI guidance for businesses (the guidance) is a voluntary resource to help businesses (including sole traders, non-profits and individual professionals) to realise AI’s benefits through using and developing AI systems in a trustworthy way. The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) AI principles provide a broad direction for this that highlights:
- engaging in responsible stewardship of AI and pursuing beneficial outcome for people and the environment
- designing systems that respect the rule of law, human rights and democratic values
- building transparency and responsible disclosure regarding AI systems
- prioritising robustness, security and safety in AI systems
- establishing accountability and a systematic risk management approach across an AI system lifecycle.
OECD AI principles overview(external link) — Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
According to the OECD:
- Artificial Intelligence refers to a machine-based system’s ability to infer from inputs and generate outputs for explicit or implicit objectives. Different types of AI systems vary in their levels of autonomy and adaptiveness.
- Generative AI is a type of AI system that can create or generate new content such as text, images, video and music based off models and patterns detected in existing datasets.
“AI” is an umbrella term of technologies with many actual and potential applications. These include, for example, fraud detection, inventory management, and targeted ads as well as autonomous vehicles and disease diagnosis.
Recently, there has been increased awareness around Large Language Models (such as Open AI’s ‘ChatGPT’, Anthropic’s ‘Claude’, Google’s ‘Gemini’, Meta’s ‘Llama’, or the Chinese model ‘Deepseek’) and Generative AI (GenAI) more broadly. But these are just a portion of AI systems available today. More ‘traditional’ rule and logic-based AI systems have been around for decades, with more modern AI systems including machine- and deep-learning. These support applications such as facial recognition, speech detection, and automated cybersecurity systems.
This guidance reflects Government and wider expectations around how businesses might assess and understand the implications of any AI system that they are using, deploying, designing or developing. It is in line with New Zealand’s proportionate risk based approach to AI (agreed by Cabinet), commonly seen in other countries and international initiatives advancing AI, where potential risks are treated in proportion to their likelihood, magnitude and context.
The guidance outlines various types of considerations that businesses can take into account when using or developing AI systems. These include potential risks to: cybersecurity; privacy; human rights; workplace culture; the environment; intellectual property and creators; and physical safety. A range of thoughtful safeguards can help ensure AI systems work well and responsibly. By better understanding the implications of using and developing AI systems, businesses can choose mitigations that are appropriate for their context and feel more confident in taking advantage of the varied and potentially significant benefits of leveraging this technology. Over time, the guidance can be built on and supported through supplementary resources and materials, case studies and toolkits.
Approach to work on Artificial Intelligence [PDF 156KB]
This guidance is not an exhaustive list of all considerations that may be relevant for a business. International standards, such as those developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), can also provide useful direction and information, for instance. The guidance also does not remove the need to follow all relevant and applicable New Zealand legislation and regulations (or those of international jurisdictions where a business operates). Examples of relevant laws are mentioned later in this guidance (see Compliance and legal obligations).
Who is this guidance for?
This guidance is for all New Zealand businesses, regardless of:
- where they sit in the AI supply chain – users and deployers, developers, or both. All AI actors should be thinking about the considerations outlined in this guidance when it comes to AI. However, the majority of New Zealand businesses will be current or potential AI users or deployers, and this guidance is focused accordingly.
- what kind of work they do – rather than attempt a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, the guidance sets out internationally accepted concepts and practices to consider. Sector-specific entities may provide their own guidelines for specific contexts, which can be considered in tandem with this guidance.
- scale or AI expertise – all sized businesses increasingly facing expectations around responsible business practice and due diligence with respect to AI. Bigger businesses may be better-equipped to assess and manage AI. However, small businesses have much to gain if they can evidence their responsible adoption of AI to customers, staff, and potential business partners – including opening new markets, improving access to finance, and staff recruitment and retention. Size is not always indicative of opportunity when it comes to responsible AI adoption.
Why use this guidance?
AI can involve changes in business processes, the types of products and services offered, and the way businesses interact with customers and stakeholders.
It is useful to consider whether existing management approaches and firm capabilities remain fit-for-purpose in an AI enabled environment, including whether an AI application or system may expose vulnerabilities or exacerbate existing risks. This Guidance outlines considerations for businesses to help put good processes in place, so you can spot and fix issues early.
This Guidance supports a responsible AI approach that can help businesses:
- build better, safer and more fit-for-purpose products and services
- earn the confidence and trust of customers and other stakeholders
- be ready for challenges and avoid costly mistakes.
This guidance draws on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) values-based AI Principles: inclusive growth, sustainable development and well-being; human rights and democratic values, including fairness and privacy; transparency and explainability; robustness, security and safety; and accountability.
AI principles(external link) — Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
It also aligns with international equivalent guidance materials, while taking into account New Zealand values and interests in:
- creating a flexible and adaptable environment for technology experimentation and innovation
- preserving and taking account of our diversity, including by taking care of New Zealanders’ data, exercising good practice engagement with impacted communities, and enabling equitable impact of AI developments where possible
- enabling all New Zealanders to benefit from AI, and that benefits from AI are fairly and appropriately distributed
- respecting te reo Māori (Māori language), Māori imagery, tikanga, and other mātauranga (knowledge) and Māori data
- supporting sustainability, including of industry, reflecting that it is in our interest as a small island nation to ensure we are able to innovate with and benefit from our resources for years to come.
How should it be used?
Some parts of this Guidance are always important when using AI, while others might not apply to a business’s specific situation.
Businesses can decide the extent to which different parts of the Guidance matter in their context – based on where they sit in the AI life cycle, how the business works, who their customers are, and their business goals and limits.
Even if some parts don’t seem to fit right now, reading the Guidance in full will help with understanding the big picture and what to watch out for when using, deploying or developing AI systems.
This Guidance builds on things many businesses already do—like planning, keeping customer information safe, following the law, and managing risks.
Reflects that, in many cases, managing AI systems responsibly builds on things many businesses already do – like planning, engaging with customers and keeping their information safe, risk management, and otherwise following the law.
Any voluntary guidelines or standards, including this guidance and supplementary resources, should be used in conjunction with relevant legal requirements as well as any context-specific guidance that may be available from industry bodies or peers, as well as AI suppliers and vendors.
Navigating the guidance
This guidance is structured around three main layers as detailed below alongside key questions each section will help to answer:
- Understanding your why for AI – encouraging a clear understanding of your purpose, principles and objectives for the use and/or development of an AI system, as well as attention to continuous monitoring and improvement.
- Good business foundations for responsible AI – including leveraging existing business expertise and functions to account for the use and/or development of an AI system (proportionate to the context and/or use case).
- AI system specific considerations - in line with the AI life cycle, including steps businesses can take to manage identified risks/issues
If you are a business thinking about using AI, the quickstart guide for business users may be a useful place to start:
Some content is specific to GenAI, and this will be indicated by an asterisk *.
Check the Glossary for any terms used throughout the Guidance that are unfamiliar to you.
Other additional information and resources to aid businesses with understanding and implementing the guidance:
These are quick-reference examples only and not exhaustive. We recommend reading the full guidance (see How should it be used?) to identify matters relevant to your business case.