19900 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Energy

19900 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Energy: How, if at all, has artificial intelligence been deployed in a customer service function in the Minister’s departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any?

Hon Simeon Brown: EA: I have been informed that the Electricity Authority (EA) does not operate direct customer service functions in the traditional sense. Its primary stakeholders are electricity industry participants; customer service interactions are therefore limited in scope compared to a public-facing agency. The following AI tools are currently in use or under early-stage evaluation for engagement with consumers and other stakeholders. The Billy website uses Google Gemini in order to extract fields when an end-user submits their bill on the website for comparison. It is a controlled, staff-assisted use of AI for structured data tasks and is not a public-facing deployment. I am further advised that the EA is in the early stages of evaluating a third-party vendor using a Microsoft foundry-based AI tool to assist with processing public submissions. This is not yet fully deployed and remains under assessment. The intended use would be to help extract and organise information from submissions received as part of the EA's statutory consultation processes. No decisions will be made autonomously by the AI tool, with EA staff reviewing all outputs and conclusions. The tool is being assessed to confirm that it meets the EA’s privacy and information security requirements before any wider deployment, consistent with the EA's risk management obligations as a Crown entity. EECA: EECA does not currently use AI in its customer service functions.