The Government Will Cover Half Your AI Costs: A Plain-English Guide to the AI Advisory Pilot

What is the AI Advisory Pilot?

If you have been putting AI in the too-hard basket, here is a reason to take it off the shelf. The New Zealand Government is now co-funding up to 50% of the cost of getting expert help with AI, capped at $15,000 per business, through a scheme called the AI Advisory Pilot. It runs until 31 January 2027, and it is aimed squarely at small businesses like yours.

The AI Advisory Pilot is a Government scheme, delivered through the Regional Business Partner Network, that co-funds expert advice on using AI in your business. The Government pays up to half the cost of the engagement, up to a maximum of $15,000, and you cover the rest.

The point of it is practical, not academic. You work with a registered advisory firm to look at your actual business, find where AI could genuinely save you time or money, and come away with a documented AI strategy or implementation plan you can act on. The pilot was set up to help small businesses get past the "I know I should be doing something with AI, but I have no idea where to start" stage.

It is a pilot, which means the numbers are capped. It supports up to 150 businesses, and applications are assessed on a rolling basis. There is no queue that resets each year. When the 150 spots are gone or the scheme closes on 31 January 2027, that is it.

Who is eligible?

The pilot is designed for established New Zealand small businesses. In general terms, you will need to be a New Zealand registered business that has been trading for a while, has room to co-fund your share of the cost, and is not already receiving other Government funding for the same AI work.

I am being deliberately general here, because eligibility details for schemes like this can shift during a pilot, and the last thing you want is to build a plan on a rule that has changed. The reliable move is to talk to your local Regional Business Partner. They are the front door for this funding, they will tell you in one conversation whether you qualify, and the service itself is free to talk to. Your local partner is usually run through your regional chamber of commerce or economic development agency.

How do you apply?

The application is lighter than most Government funding you have dealt with. You are not writing a thesis.

In practice, you submit a short proposal that covers four things: a quick description of your business, the advisory engagement you want to run, the outcomes you expect from it, and a quote from the advisory firm you plan to work with. MBIE reviews applications as they come in, and most decisions come back within about three to four weeks.

So the order of operations looks like this:

1. Talk to your local Regional Business Partner to confirm you are eligible.
2. Choose a registered advisory firm and agree on the scope of work.
3. Get a quote from them for the engagement.
4. Submit your short proposal with that quote attached.
5. Wait roughly three to four weeks for a decision, then get started.

The one thing to know upfront: the engagement has to be delivered by a registered advisory firm, and it has to produce a documented deliverable, usually an AI strategy or an implementation plan. This is a good thing. It means you cannot spend the money on a vague chat that leaves you no better off. You get something on paper you can hold people to.

Why the Government is paying for this

This is not the Government being generous for the sake of it. It is a response to a real gap.

Most New Zealand businesses know AI matters. The problem is not awareness, it is confidence and capability. MBIE's own research into AI adoption points to the same barriers coming up again and again: not enough internal skills, not enough time, worries about privacy and data, and the upfront cost feeling too big for a small operator to justify. The confidence gap, not the technology, is what is actually holding businesses back.

That gap hits established women business owners in a particular way. You did not build your business by chasing every shiny new tool, and you are rightly sceptical of the breathless "AI will change everything" noise online. Being cautious has served you well. But cautious can quietly tip into stuck, and the businesses that start figuring this out now will have a real head start on the ones still waiting to feel ready. The pilot exists to lower the cost and the risk of taking that first proper step.

Is it worth doing, or is it a box-ticking exercise?

It is worth doing if you go in with a real problem to solve. It is a waste of everyone's time if you treat it as free money for a generic AI report.

The businesses that get the most out of a scheme like this come in with something specific. They know which part of the week eats their time. They know the task they dread. They know the bottleneck that has been there for two years. AI advice aimed at a real problem gives you a plan you will actually use. AI advice aimed at "help us do something with AI" gives you a document nobody opens again.

So before you apply, spend an hour writing down where your time and money actually leak. The admin that swallows your evenings. The customer questions you answer for the hundredth time. The reporting you do by hand. That list is the brief. The clearer it is, the better your $15,000 of co-funded advice will be.

How re:ampd fits in

At re:ampd we work with established New Zealand women business owners on exactly this: turning AI from a source of anxiety into a set of tools that quietly give you your time back. That is what we do through our business training, our AI masterclasses, and our custom AI implementation work. re:ampd is a proud Claude Partner, which is to say this is our actual speciality, not a bolt-on.

To be clear about how the funding works: the AI Advisory Pilot itself is administered by the Government through the Regional Business Partner Network, so your first call for the co-funding should be your local partner. What we can help with is the part that matters most, making sure whatever you plan actually lands in your business rather than gathering dust. If you want to start smaller and less formally, our AI training is built to take a capable, cautious business owner from wary to genuinely confident.

The funding is time-limited and the spots are capped. If AI has been on your someday list, this is the cheapest and lowest-risk moment you are likely to get to move it up. If you would like the wider community around you while you do it, come and see what is included in the Members Lounge.