If you run a small business in New Zealand, two things are happening at once: everyone suddenly wants to sell you AI, and the Government has started helping pay for it. The second part is real and worth understanding — but before you go chasing the funding, here's the take you won't hear from the people lining up to spend it for you.
It's called the AI Advisory Pilot, and it can co-fund up to half the cost of getting an AI plan built for your business. Genuinely useful. But here's the thing most small businesses don't have: an AI problem. What they have is a systems problem. And the smartest thing this funding can buy you isn't a pile of new tools — it's a clear-eyed look at what's actually slowing you down.
What the AI Advisory Pilot actually is
The AI Advisory Pilot is a Government scheme run by MBIE (the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment) and delivered through the Regional Business Partner Network — the same regional advisors who already help thousands of Kiwi businesses access support and grow.
The headline numbers:
- Co-funding of up to 50% of the cost of developing an AI plan for your business,
- capped at $15,000 per business,
- delivered through your local Regional Business Partner.
It was popular enough out of the gate that the Government expanded it from around 50 businesses to 150, and extended it to run until 31 January 2027. So there's a real window here — but it isn't unlimited.
Always check the current details. Funding schemes change. The figures here were accurate at the time of writing — confirm the latest eligibility, dates and process with your Regional Business Partner or at business.govt.nz before you count on anything.
Who can get it
Broadly, to be eligible your business needs to be:
- NZ-registered, with a clear New Zealand footprint,
- operating for at least 12 months,
- under the staff-size threshold — it's aimed squarely at small and medium businesses,
- a customer of the Regional Business Partner Network (you can register with them — it's free),
- not already receiving other Government AI funding, and
- in good standing with IRD and WorkSafe.
Notice what's not on that list: you don't need any existing AI know-how. The pilot is built specifically for businesses that are just getting started and don't know where to begin. If "I know I should look at this stuff but I've got no idea where to start" sounds like you — that's exactly the point of it.
What you actually get for the money
This is the bit people skip past, so read it twice. The pilot funds a plan — a documented AI strategy tailored to your business, your people and your customers. It does not hand you a finished, switched-on system. It pays for the thinking: working out where AI (and often, just better systems) could genuinely help you, and in what order.
That's actually good news. The most expensive mistake I see small businesses make with AI isn't doing nothing. It's buying the tool first and asking "what's it for?" second — ending up with three subscriptions nobody opens and a team quietly going back to the old way. A plan first means you spend money on the right fix instead of the loudest one.
The honest part: you might not need AI at all (yet)
Here's where I'll probably talk myself out of some work, but it's the truth. When I sit down with an overwhelmed owner, the conversation almost never starts with AI. It starts with: why are you still doing admin at 9pm? And nine times out of ten the answer isn't "because you don't have AI." It's because the same piece of information is being copied by hand between four apps that don't talk to each other. Because the booking lives in your head. Because the handoff between you and your team was never written down.
None of that needs artificial intelligence to fix. It needs your existing systems to actually work — and the best systems are the ones people actually use, not the most sophisticated ones.
So my approach is simple, and it's the opposite of the hard sell:
- Find where your time and your business are actually leaking. Usually it's a handful of boring, manual things with surprisingly big impact.
- Fix the highest-impact one first — often a small automation that gives you hours back, no fancy AI required.
- Then, and only then, once we've cleared the noise, we look at whether AI genuinely earns a place in your business. Sometimes it does. Often a simpler system wins.
The AI Advisory Pilot fits neatly into that, because a good "AI plan" is really just a clear, honest map of where you'd get the most leverage, with AI included only where it actually pays its way. That's the conversation I'd want to have with you anyway. The funding just makes it cheaper to have it.
How to actually access the funding
- Register (free) with the Regional Business Partner Network for your region if you haven't already — start at business.govt.nz or search "Regional Business Partner" for your area.
- Talk to your Regional Business Partner about the AI Advisory Pilot and whether you're eligible. They assess on a rolling basis.
- Get matched with an advisor to scope and build your AI plan, with the co-funding applied to eligible costs.
- Use the plan — implement the fixes that matter, in priority order.
If you'd like a hand thinking it through before you go in — what to ask for, where your real bottlenecks are, whether AI is even the right lever — that's exactly the kind of conversation I'm happy to have for free.
The bottom line
The AI Advisory Pilot is a genuinely good scheme, and if you're a Kiwi small business sitting on the fence about all this, it's worth a look while the window's open. But use it for what it's actually good at: getting clarity before you spend, not buying tools you'll never use.
Don't let anyone — including me — talk you into adding cost and complexity nobody asked for. The goal was never "more AI." The goal is your evenings back, your systems running smoothly, and your business advancing without you holding it all together by hand.
Sources: Beehive — New pilot helps small businesses harness AI; MBIE — More practical AI support for small businesses; business.govt.nz — Regional Business Partner Network.