25825 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Defence

25825 (2026). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Defence: 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 Chris Penk: Currently, the only AI tool available to Ministry and New Zealand Defence Force staff within the Defence Information Environment is Microsoft Copilot Chat, which is part of the existing Microsoft 365 licence. Defence is also trialling an industry engagement AI tool that will be a ‘front door’ for industry enquiries into Defence. It is envisaged this tool will triage requests based on their content and assign an owner. Testing is underway to identify other potential tools that could be used, but the funding in future years for these has not yet been finalised.