25672 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Education

25672 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Education: How much, if any, is the total budget in the Minister's departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any, for the 2026/27 financial year on artificial intelligence- including costs on training staff, deploying systems, maintaining subscriptions and any other associated costs?

Hon Erica Stanford: The Ministry of Education (the Ministry) meets costs associated with artificial intelligence (AI) through existing departmental baselines and investment programmes. I am advised that for 2026/27, Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing was added to the Ministry’s existing Microsoft agreement at a cost of $160,670.95 per annum. The Ministry also maintains the Student Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool (SMART), with an AI-related component costing $1,858,333 per annum. Costs associated with training staff in AI-enabled tools are incorporated within broader workforce capability activities and are not separately identified. New Zealand Qualifications Authority has budgeted a total of approximately $2.7 million on artificial intelligence costs in the 2026/2027 financial year. Education New Zealand (ENZ) has allocated $125k to fund an AI Discovery and Decision Layer Pilot Programme in the 2026/2027 financial year. This programme will deliver a set of AI discovery and decision-layer pilots that will ultimately be used to influence international students and their parents’ when using AI in their information gathering and decision-making stage on international study destinations. In addition, ENZ has allocated $42k to fund the use of Microsoft Copilot for staff. The Education Review Office (ERO) that it has not finalised its budget for artificial intelligence for the 2026/2027 financial year. ERO currently meets costs through existing departmental baselines and investment programmes.