Hero Exchange in Wellington and Christchurch: how leaders see AI changing their businesses

In the month of August, we took our in-person Hero Exchange sessions to Wellington and Christchurch, hosting business owners, people and culture leaders and payroll professionals, closing out another leg of our nationwide roadshow. Between them, the two sessions covered growth, headcount, AI policy, data safety and how to judge whether AI output is actually any good. 

Here’s what mattered most…

Wellington

Hosted in the bright Precinct Flex Bowen Campus venue, with our partner, Karyn Campbell from Payroll Consult facilitating. On the panel was Ankur Baggan, our NZ Partnership Country Lead; Karen Peters-Naug, co-founder of Do AI; and Serge van Dam, a hands-on SaaS and AI investor and director working with New Zealand software companies.

As can be expected, AI was the chief topic of conversation. Karyn set the scene by pointing out that businesses roll out AI expecting it to instantly boost productivity. They don’t allow for the period in between, where people are slower and the work is worse while they learn. “You have to invest time back,” Karyn said. “Sometimes that’s why people think, I have time pressure so I’m just going to do it how I’ve always done it.”

Serge had a figure to back that up. Through the beginner AI training company he co-founded, they check back in 30 days after a course. At least two-thirds of people have gone back to working the way they did before. Habits are difficult to break, which is why he thinks how you lead the change matters more than which tools you pick.

Serge’s most practical suggestion was also the simplest. Set up an AI club, every Tuesday morning with breakfast muffins provided by the business. Everyone has to bring one thing they did that week with one of the AI tools. He said he’d seen it do more for take-up than any strategy document. 

Christchurch

Our Garden City Hero Exchange took place at the Christchurch Town Hall, with another one of our partners, Kim Hamill, founder of Nimba, facilitating. On the panel was Neil Webster, Employment Hero’s New Zealand General Manager; Annie Johnson, founder of AI consultancy The Honest Human; and Janine Fenwick, Head of Brand and Content at Contented.

Annie started with a handy AI tip. Most people open a chat tool, type an instruction and then wonder why the answer is so generic. Try it the other way round: ask the tool to interview you.

Instead of “write me a new onboarding process,” try “interview me about our onboarding process, ask me about the roles, the templates, the data and the value we want it to add.” You’re providing original information, while allowing it to truly explore what works and what’s currently lacking in your current process. The results will be far more relevant.

Janine also had a recommendation: don’t test AI on the thing you’re best at, because you’ll always be disappointed. Use it for the thing you’re not good at and treat it like an intern you don’t quite trust. It’ll be fast, keen, eager to impress and sometimes confidently wrong.

Finally, Neil suggested a simple test. Before you start, decide whether the task is low risk or high risk. An AI produced image for a team meeting is low risk. Employment data, financial data and anything containing personal information needs rules and a more careful approach.

Three things both panels agreed on

To get the most out of AI, you need to use your judgement. Janine put it best: a business that started using AI 18 months ago is not 18 months ahead on any particular tool, because tools change constantly. Instead, they’re 18 months ahead on knowing when to use one, when not to and what a poor answer looks like.

Most policies are also behind what staff are already doing. About a third of the Christchurch room had an AI policy while in Wellington, it was closer to half. Neil put a figure next to that gap: in a survey run across New Zealand companies earlier this year, nearly half of employees were using AI without telling their employer and felt guilty about it. Karen’s view is that a policy should reflect your team’s approach. Ankur would open the document with a single line: you are expected to use AI every day to get better at your job.

AI frees up time, and what you do with it is a decision. At Employment Hero we’ve grown from around 1,200 people to 1,600 (including over 70 in New Zealand), with more than 600 software developers who use AI heavily to write code. We’ve been able to ship bigger and faster solutions for our customers. 

However, in Wellington, Serge also shared stories from small software companies that used the same time saved to run with fewer people. The point underneath both examples was the same: AI creates room, and what a leadership team does with that room is a choice.

What to do this week

The main advice from the rooms? Review your workflows to get a clear picture of how work moves through your business today, who handles it and what data they are working with. Identify one or two bottlenecks in your business that stand out, so start there. And don’t forget to look into an AI policy – we’ve got a guide for creating one right here.

It also helps to talk and collaborate. Chat to someone in your network already using AI and ask exactly how they’re using it. You might come away inspired. 

Hero Exchange is coming back

Thank you to Karyn, Ankur, Serge and Karen in Wellington, and to Kim, Neil, Annie and Janine in Christchurch. Thank you also to everyone who came along, asked a question and stayed on afterwards to keep networking. The insight in those rooms came from the people in them.

We’re planning the final set of Hero Exchange events across New Zealand for 2026. Find out if we’re coming to your region next on the Employment Hero events page. 

Based in Auckland? We’ll be visiting in October. Find out more and sign up to attend. 

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Other event recaps: 

AI and the future of work: inside Hero Exchange in Tauranga and Hamilton

Employment Hero hosting leader roundtables at New Zealand Tech Week 

HR & People and Culture Leaders lunch with New Zealand’s startup founders