New Zealand AI Assembly Evening Speaker Series

We were honored to headline the New Zealand AI Forum's evening speaker series in December. The NZ AI Forum, part of the NZTech Alliance, connects more than 500 organizations and over 100,000 employees working to build a prosperous, technology-enabled future for Aotearoa.

We shared early findings from The Chronicle—our ongoing research into how humans are adapting to life with AI—and introduced the AI Adaptation Cube, a framework for reflecting on how we relate to these systems. Are you treating AI as a servant? An advisor? A co-author? The answer shapes more than workflow; it shapes cognition.

We explored concepts emerging from our research: cognitive permeability (how AI seeps into thought), symbolic plasticity (how we revise our frameworks for meaning), and identity coupling (how our sense of self begins to entangle with these systems). One example that resonated: an AI notetaker that shifts from recording to summarizing doesn't just save time—it changes trust and presence in a meeting.

Our message to New Zealand's business and policy community: AI is a cultural technology. It amplifies whatever values it encounters. That makes AI literacy and intentional design—for agency, for inclusion—not optional but essential.

Learn more here.