In this episode of Tall Stories, Sophie Prebble, the Institute’s Marketing and Communications Lead, talks with Justin Flitter. 

Justin has a background in Tech Marketing, as the Chief AI Officer at AI New Zealand he provides independent and practical advice to help business leaders decide how to leverage AI across their organisation. He is also a Director and Board member at Business Mentors New Zealand. He spoke at the Institute’s annual conference in 2025 - DigiComm25.

Justin discusses: 

• Staying at the forefront of technology throughout his career
• His work at New Zealand AI including the AI Academy, and the Great AI Roadshow where they visited smaller regions as well as the big cities. 
• The common fears of and resistance to working with AI.
• Advice for where to start with AI – Find ways that AI can help you and enhance your capabilities and get AI to teach you how to use it.
• How New Zealand’s Construction industry could use AI to help with efficiency including: 
  • Using it to translate between different languages on site 
  • Saving time and money finding the right information in documents
  • Automating drafting of written documents
  • Quickly comparing estimates vs realities 

Listen for the full conversation packed full of advice for starting or continuing your AI journey.

When recording Tall Stories we travel around the motu to hear from our people across Aotearoa – this episode was recorded in Pōneke | Wellington at Designgroup Stapleton Elliott.