19949 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Social Development and Employment

19949 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: 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 Louise Upston: I have understood your question to be about how AI is used when interacting with clients. I am advised by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that MSD staff have access to one generative AI system, Microsoft Copilot Chat, as a general productivity tool, but this is not used to analyse or give advice about clients. For clients, a non-generative AI voice recognition tool is available, on an opt-in basis that enables our systems to securely identify clients when they call MSD, reducing the need for them to answer security questions when talking to contact centre staff. MSD also makes use of some other non-generative AI tools that support customer service functions but are not used in interactions with clients. These include: • Audio transcription to help categorise inbound calls (not used to inform decisions about individual clients) • Predictive models to support forecasting of demand for services. Artificial intelligence has not been deployed in a customer service function in any of the Crown entities I am responsible for as Minister for Social Development and Employment.