JCOIA 183 Redacted Documents.pdf

1a
Excerpt from Fortnightly Report to the Minister – 18 September 2024
AI Summit post-
Callaghan Innovation and Microsoft are continuing to present the
event
AI Activator and GovGPT at a range of events. On 17 September
demonstrations
2024 the initiatives were presented at a Microsoft AI event which
focused on solutions for the New Zealand Government. On 20
September, Callaghan Innovation will also host an information
session on GovGPT for interested public sector agencies. This
event is invitation only and includes attendees such as
representatives from the Ministry of Social Development, the
Department of Internal Affairs, Worksafe and other agencies.
In response to the significant interest in GovGPT received during
the AI Forum, Callaghan Innovation is hosting two dedicated live
stream panel discussions on September 30 to increase public
engagement with the tool. At present, the tool will likely be made
available publicly later that week on Callaghan Innovation’s
“sandbox” online environment (accessible on the organisation’s
website).
Callaghan Innovation has partnered with Engineering NZ to
deliver ‘AI Innovation Awareness & Adoption’ events to
construction businesses in Wellington and Auckland in early
October 2024. ‘AI in AEC’ is part of the AI Blueprint for NZ co-
developed by Callaghan Innovation with the AI Forum NZ,
industry sector associations and construction businesses.

1b
Excerpt from Memo: AI Activator and GovGPT supporting information
Date:
5 September 2024
Priority:
Routine
Security Classification:
In Confidence
Contact for telephone discussion (if required)
Name
Position
Telephone
1st contact
Stefan Korn
Chief Executive
9(2)(a) -

✔
Govt GPT Key Messages and FAQ
Vision for GovGPT:
An AI-enabled, multi-lingual "digital front door” for New Zealanders to find answers to al
questions about Government business support and service across a range of agencies
and information sources. Through GovGPT businesses can easily and quickly find
information to support their growth journey.
Key Messages:
• The proof-of-concept tool (dubbed ‘GovGPT’) demonstrates a practical use of
Generative AI to support easy access to information that is stored across multiple
government websites.
• Whilst the GovGPT tool is currently at pilot stage, it clearly shows the potential
benefits of this technology for the New Zealand business community.
What are the aims and objectives of the GovGPT tool?
• The GovGPT tool collates publicly available government information for
businesses, in an easy-to-access format, underpinned by AI technology.
What can the GovGPT tool actually do in its current form?
• Currently, users of the pilot can ask questions either by typing or speaking (with
multiple languages including English and text based Te Reo Maori), which the AI

model will then answer based on publically available information from a range of
Government websites.
• The model is conversational which means that it responds in natural language
(i.e. in the way a person would respond), enabling more intuitive and engaging
interactions by understanding and maintaining context throughout the
conversation
• It provides accurate and referenceable information about New Zealand’s public
services using the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques. It will also
point out to users when it does not have information on a specific question or
domain.
• The limitations of the current model are that it can only provide definitive answers
based on the information indexed, and the model currently struggles with
displaying government web pages directly (because of the huge variety of
different systems and technologies used by various agencies). These limitations
will disappear as GovGPT gets productionised.
What technology underpins the GovGPT tool (technical specifications)?
• GovGPT is based on “Azure OpenAI” and the “GPT-4o” large language model.
This technology is owned by Microsoft.
• Callaghan Innovation and Microsoft collaborated to develop GovGPT, however
any number of platforms could have been used to develop a similar product. (e.g.
AWS, Meta or Google)
• 9(2)(b)(ii) - Commercial information
• The tool does not record personal data about its users, nor is there personal data
in the sources it's trained on. With the availability of the Azure data centre in New
Zealand in late 2024 / early 2025 all information will be stored in New Zealand.
What stage of development is the GovGPT tool at, and what is the future of the
tool?
• This is a pilot project intended to show the use case for the technology and its
application to public-facing government information.
• Callaghan Innovation’s current plan is to make GovGPT available in a
“sandbox/lab” environment on Callaghan Innovation’s website in October, where
the public can access and try-out GovGPT. During this period Callaghan

Innovation will collect information about usage and feedback from those who
have used it. In the future, the tool could be supplied via a dedicated website, or
a mobile app.
• At this stage, the information indexed is only government business-facing
information, and there are no current plans to expand this.
What is the cost of the GovGPT tool?
• The pilot was developed at no cost (within resourcing of Callaghan Innovation
and computation credits and expert advice from Microsoft).
• To launch the tool to the public will require further funding. Costs include charges
for the AI model usage, infrastructure (computation, storage, and networking),
scalability, and additional tools like monitoring, security, and support.
What information has been indexed by the pilot tool?
• Information from the following websites only has been indexed by the current
tool:
Ministry of Primary Industries – Funding and rural
Funding and rural support | NZ Government
support
(mpi.govt.nz)
Work and Income – business support
Start your own business - Work and Income
Te Puni Kokiri – Māori Enterprise
Pakihi Māori – Māori Enterprise (tpk.govt.nz)
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
https://www.nzte.govt.nz/page/raising-growth-
capital-with-nzte#raising-capital-faqs
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Co-funding and investment services - myNZTE
Business.govt.nz
Home — business.govt.nz
Companies Register
Help centre | Companies Register
(companiesoffice.govt.nz)
RDTI
rdti.govt.nz
Callaghan Innovation
Home | Callaghan Innovation
Hon Judith Collins KC
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/minister/hon-judith-
collins-kc
central government organisations
https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/system/central-
government-organisations
• This is all publicly available information, and there is therefore no privacy risks
associated with its use in this pilot.

What future engagement with the rest of the Government is planned?
• The pilot is not intended as the primary way to engage with government and is
intended only as a showcase. All information used was publicly available.
• Further engagement across government would be important before such a tool
was launched to the public.

government information. GovGPT is an AI-based conversational companion, that can provide
fast, accurate and useful information on key topics relevant to NZ companies1. The tool can
be viewed as a ‘digital front-door’, designed to support businesses (or the general public) to
obtain government information quickly in a conversational style interaction (rather than
having to find the correct government website and navigate to the right page).
3.
The motivation to develop GovGPT was threefold:
● Time saving and ease of access for businesses.
Our customers are frequently complaining about the difficult in navigating government
websites and the time that is wasted to find accurate information about a specific
business need. Customers also raise challenges about their difficulty to understand
“government speak”, legal, accounting or technical details frequently found on
government websites.
● “If Government can implement AI quickly, so can you” - showcasing “no-code” or
“low-code” solutions to NZ businesses.
The technology underlying GovGPT is easier to access and use than it has ever been to
develop IT applications. The past six months have seen rapid advancement of AI
platforms and software development “co-pilots” that enable a “low code” or “no code”
development philosophy. There is a paradigm shift of software development underway
and it means these technologies and applications are available at a fraction of the cost
of traditional IT systems and can be used by people without a software development
background.
● Changing New Zealanders’ reluctance to embrace AI
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that 52% of New Zealanders reject the
growing use of AI (compared to just 35% globally)2. The GovGPT proof of concept
highlights the substantial cost savings and usability advantages of AI-based applications
compared to traditional information channels (such as websites). Once fully built out
and made available publicly, GovGPT would
i. cut down on navigation time to find information
ii. overcome technology aversion and accessibility barriers as the tool is
conversation based and interactions can text-based or voice-based
iii. enables multi-lingual enquiries in most common languages including Te Reo
Māori3;
1 The tool could provide information about all data stored on Government websites but has been limited for
the proof of concept version to a select number of websites (see Appendix 1 for a list of currently indexed
websites).
2 Source: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-
03/2024%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Key%20Insights%20Around%20AI.pdf
3 Full speech availability of te reo Māori is currently stil  in development but is expected to be available
soon
Callaghan Innovation Aide Memoire:  Information for GovGPT Demonstration
In-Confidence
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iv. dynamically adjust the reading age of its output so that specialist terms,
acronyms or “Government speak” can be explained by the tool in simple
language; and
v. provide specific and accurate reference links to the information provided by
government departments on their websites.
4.
The information and data used by GovGPT is extracted from across multiple Government
websites. GovGPT then uses a technique called “Retrieval Augmented Generation” (RAG) to
provide reliable responses in everyday conversation style through a generative AI language
model.
5.
We have developed this proof  of concept in partnership with Microsoft and  Whāriki Māori
Business Network. We are planning to present GovGPT at the Callaghan Innovation stand at
the AI Summit on 11 September 2024. We would like to offer you the opportunity to mention
GovGPT
in
your
keynote
address.
GovGPT live demo
6.
We  will  demonstrate  the  latest  version  of  GovGPT  to  you  on  Thursday  29  August.  The
demonstration will include:
● Seeing the tool on a handheld device (mobile phone) or potentially laptop s9(2)(g)(i)
● Engaging with the different options available in the user interface (text / voice);
● The  opportunity  to  ask  the  development  team  and  Microsoft  representative  any
questions about the technology or project.
7.
It is important to note the current limitations of the proof of concept:
● GovGPT  makes  use  of  Open  AI  functionality  that  is  “bleeding  edge”  and  not  yet  fully
publicly available. Consequently, our tool is subject to some stability, performance and
usability challenges that will disappear over the next few weeks and months as it moves
into more of a production environment.
● 9(2)(b)(ii) - Commercial information
● Callaghan Innovation’s main use case was to make it as easy as possible for NZ businesses
to find out all business-related information from the NZ government. E.g. how to register
a business, apply for R&D grants or tax incentives , find out what support is available for
exporters, etc. All of the information used by GovGPT is publicly available and no other
information is accessed by the tool;
Callaghan Innovation Aide Memoire:  Information for GovGPT Demonstration
In-Confidence
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● Most  of  the  tool’s  multi-lingual  capabilities  to  understand  and  respond  in  the  world's
common languages is restricted to text-based conversations. More training is required
for voice-based conversations in te reo Māori.
8.
While the proof of concept has been narrowly focused on purpose, GovGPT could be used in
the future to:
9(2)(f)(iv) - Confidential advice to Government
Lessons learnt from this project
9.
GovGPT was fast and inexpensive to build. The tool was developed using a “low code” or “no
code”  development  philosophy.  The  proof  of  concept  required  approximately  100  person-
hours  to  develop  from  end-to-end.  Relative  to  other  language-based  AI  tools  of  its
functionality, this is a very low labour cost and fast implementation time by a very small team
who also had day jobs at Callaghan Innovation.
10. While the tool has been developed using Microsoft based technology (as most of Government
runs on Microsoft infrastructure) and Open AI’s large language model, it could have been built
with similar platforms available from other providers such as Google, Meta or Amazon Web
Services as well as other large language models.
11. The current advancements in AI and supporting technologies are happening at such a rapid
pace that implementations of systems and tools can happen (and should happen) in less than
3 months. We are intentional in not using custom modifications for GovGPT at the moment
because it is highly likely that the next version already includes many of the improvements and
will be available in a few weeks. This new approach to developing and deploying solutions has
significant implications for the future of IT project implementations.
Next steps
12. If there are no concerns about deploying this tool on the Callaghan Innovation website, we will
continue  development  and  make  GovGPT  available  publicly.  We  intend  to  use  operational
funding for a 3-month deployment on our website to collect usage data and overall costs to
run the tool.
Callaghan Innovation Aide Memoire:  Information for GovGPT Demonstration
In-Confidence
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13. Out of scope
14. Callaghan Innovation would be delighted to provide further information or follow-up
briefings on any aspects of this work or opportunities that are of particular interest to you.
Appendix 1 – Currently indexed websites for GovGPT
Website
URL / Hyperlink
Ministry of Primary Industries – Funding and rural
Funding and rural support | NZ Government
support
(mpi.govt.nz)
Work and Income – business support
Start your own business - Work and Income
Te Puni Kokiri – Māori Enterprise
Pakihi Māori – Māori Enterprise (tpk.govt.nz)
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
https://www.nzte.govt.nz/page/raising-growth-
capital-with-nzte#raising-capital-faqs
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Co-funding and investment services - myNZTE
Callaghan Innovation Aide Memoire: Information for GovGPT Demonstration
In-Confidence
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Business.govt.nz
Home — business.govt.nz
Companies Register
Help centre | Companies Register
(companiesoffice.govt.nz)
RDTI
rdti.govt.nz
Callaghan Innovation
Home | Callaghan Innovation
Callaghan Innovation Aide Memoire: Information for GovGPT Demonstration
In-Confidence
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