The Kiwi jobs at highest risk of AI automation

Friday, 17 July 2026

A surprising discovery inside the chatbot Claude has scientists asking profound questions about AI consciousness and whether the technology can actually suffer.

Documents obtained under the OIA say more than a third of New Zealand occupations are expected to be significantly affected by AI.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says most jobs will be augmented rather than replaced.

Officials forecast AI could lift New Zealand’s productivity by 1.5% by 2035 and almost 3% by 2055, although slow business adoption may limit the gains.

Depending on who you ask, we are rapidly heading towards a future of either mass unemployment or a post-work utopia as automation transforms our economy.

Whatever the outcome, one question looks set to dominate the next decade: what impact will AI have on our jobs?

This week, more than 200 economists — including 16 Nobel laureates — wrote an open letter titled We Must Act Now, calling for urgent action on AI. Radically more powerful AI “could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter timeframe,” the letter states.

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has warned that up to half of white-collar work could be automated by 2030.

But what work is being done to prepare New Zealand for this upcoming wave of automation? We asked the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) for any modelling or advice regarding the impact of AI on our workforce.

Here is what it said.

What percentage of jobs in New Zealand are currently exposed to AI?

A report from MBIE officials, released to Stuff under the Official Information Act, raises some red flags but determines that New Zealand is insulated from widespread job losses — at least for now.

A May 2026 briefing on the labour market impacts of AI was prepared for the Labour Market Ministers Group, a cross-agency committee chaired by Employment Minister Louise Upston that coordinates government decisions on employment, skills, and the economy.

The briefing finds that around a third of occupations are exposed to some transformation from AI, but concludes it will largely augment existing work rather than totally replace it.

“Around 36% of occupations have high potential for augmentation, with low to medium risk of automation. The largest occupational groupings here are managers and higher-skilled knowledge workers,” the briefing states.

According to MBIE’s modelling, only 2% of current occupations in New Zealand are at risk of “high automation” using AI at its level of capability when the research was conducted. These occupations are primarily software programmers, other ICT professionals, accountants and call-centre operators.

The Government has stated it plans to use AI to pick up the shortfall as it slashes 9000 public service roles over the next three years.

MBIE forecasts AI will increase productivity by 1.5% by 2035 and by close to 3% by 2055, but notes sluggish adoption among many Kiwi businesses as a barrier to greater uplift.

A table presented by officials breaking down Kiwi occupations by their exposure to AI.

Officials were bullish on New Zealand’s ability to absorb AI-driven employment changes, noting that our labour market is flexible and has coped well with large-scale shifts in demand in the past.

“In a typical year, new and disappearing jobs account for around 13–15% of all jobs in New Zealand, and every year around one-fifth of New Zealand workers change jobs, and 2.5% retire. Scenarios of AI leading to rapid displacement and mass unemployment appear unlikely at this stage.”

Data gaps and red flags

Because the MBIE modelling was largely based on Australian economic research adapted for the local context, officials noted a lack of New Zealand-specific data, which hampers how conclusive any analysis can be.

To remedy this, MBIE is surveying 20,000 New Zealand businesses to find out exactly how AI is affecting them. The findings will be delivered in September.

The documentation also includes a note of caution: young people may struggle to get onto the employment ladder as an increasing amount of entry-level work is automated. The unemployment rate among New Zealand’s 15- to 24-year-olds currently sits around 15% — triple that of the wider working-age population.

Furthermore, research from the AI Forum earlier this year showed that 45% of businesses were planning to lower their headcount due to implementing AI.

“Lower-skilled workers in AI-affected occupations have not yet had time to develop the tacit knowledge and skills that can be augmented by AI, and may have increased difficulty entering the workforce and establishing a career path,” the briefing states.

While officials paint a relatively rosy picture of how insulated the country is from immediate job losses, one complicating factor is how quickly the underlying technology is developing.

While New Zealand moves softly, softly on AI, Australia is rolling out the red carpet - along with the regulations.

The AI most consumers currently interact with is largely a side hustle for Silicon Valley. The primary focus at frontier labs is developing AI that can completely automate the coding process — which is why software jobs are currently deemed most at risk.

Once AI can reliably build faster versions of itself (a concept known as recursive self-improvement), it can plausibly start building specialised versions for virtually any task.

A more useful framing could be to focus research narrowly on individual technologies and specific occupations, ensuring the effects of humanoid robotics aren’t lumped together with, for example, Microsoft Copilot under the same generic banner.

“My niece and nephew are making career decisions based on this notional idea that ‘AI is going to take my job’. Actually, there is no one thing called AI. AI is like 1500 technologies in a trenchcoat,” says Rebecca Downes, of the Victoria University school of management.

How our allies are responding

Overall, the briefings align with the Government position outlined in its National AI Strategy released last year, which promised a “light-touch” approach focusing on lifting productivity as opposed to regulating risks.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s allies are taking a much more hands-on approach.

This week, Australia announced it will create an ‘Office of AI’ to design specific domestic standards for the technology. The framework will bring together work from different ministries to address AI’s impact on climate change, energy, education, jobs, copyright and defence. It will also establish rules for how and where data centres are built.

Local experts argue that New Zealand is lagging badly behind.

“We see little political leadership in New Zealand,” says Victoria University AI lecturer Andrew Lensen.

“None of our major political parties have released a standalone AI policy for the 2026 election, despite AI having a major impact on key policy issues like the cost of living, jobs, the environment and Māori sovereignty. We are continuing to fall behind on the opportunity to manage the risks of AI in New Zealand, with potential harms increasing by the day.”