Dr Oliver Hartwich joined Mark Smith on The Intelligence Age podcast to talk about where AI stands in New Zealand. He called 2026 “peak AI” so far, driven by agentic tools that can work through whole projects rather than answer single prompts. He described using competing models to peer review each other’s work, and gave a personal example: with AI help, the Initiative produced two data-heavy publications in a week each that would once have taken months.

On data centres, he argued New Zealand could be a world leader given its geothermal energy, but that grid reliability and social licence come first, and that investors who supply their own power and water will win the public over without needing legislation. He said small businesses are better placed than large, IT-bound firms to adopt AI quickly, but that it takes leadership to bring colleagues along. Asked whether AI is a scapegoat for job cuts, he said the public service should shrink with or without it, and that at the Initiative AI has lifted output rather than cost jobs.