AI Consulting, Training and Builds for Auckland Businesses
Harkness AI is a New Zealand consultancy working with Auckland businesses on AI training, automation and custom builds. Most delivery is remote, and Blake flies up for the parts that genuinely work better in the room - discovery, team workshops and handover.
Trusted by Auckland businesses
What Auckland clients say
Every company below is based in Auckland, and the quote is from the person who engaged us.
Blake is an outstanding collaborator. He is exceptionally well-suited to work with businesses of any size - whether small startups or large organisations. Blake has a unique ability to identify core challenges and transform them into effective solutions.
Blake is an absolute gem to work with! When I was drowning in the deep end trying to implement our Podcast Portal, Blake threw me a lifeline. He became an A+ collaborator who made the whole experience actually enjoyable.
An Auckland build, start to finish
Campfire Studios is a boutique podcast and film studio in Mount Eden, built around amplifying Maori and Pasifika voices. Will Fleming came to us wanting AI woven into how the studio actually operates rather than bolted on as a novelty.
The work has run across several projects since, including the People in Pursuit voice app and a client portal. The pattern each time is the same: understand the workflow first, design against it, then ship in increments the team can see and use.
Auckland engagements mostly run this way - a remote build cadence with in-person sessions at the points where being in the room is worth the airfare.
The same pattern built the Whānau Hotaka Portal for Kura Cares Charity, who run health, financial literacy and employment programmes for whānau across South Auckland.
Out there doing the work
Auckland is the room Blake speaks in most often outside Christchurch, from university lecture theatres to industry conferences.
What this looks like in Auckland
Auckland has a different mix to the rest of the country, and the AI work follows it.
Agencies, media and creative studios
Studios and agencies live on turnaround. AI earns its place in the unglamorous middle of the process: transcription and edit prep, first-pass copy, proposal drafting, and getting an archive of past work searchable so nobody rebuilds something that already exists.
Professional services and finance
Auckland carries the country's densest concentration of advisory, legal and financial firms, and they bill for time. The wins come from the admin wrapped around the billable hour - file notes, research, reporting, and pulling information out of systems that were never designed to talk to each other.
Distribution, trades and field services
Businesses running crews and vans across the region generate a constant stream of jobs, quotes and compliance paperwork. AI handles the repetitive middle: quoting support, scheduling admin, job reporting, and answering staff questions from your own documentation.
Three ways Auckland businesses start
- A workshop. Half a day with your team, in your office. Cheapest way to find out whether AI is worth anything to your business before committing to a project.
- A build. One specific problem - a manual process, a bottleneck, a system that will not talk to another system - scoped, built and handed over with instructions.
- Fractional support. A day or two a week, embedded, working through a backlog of AI opportunities and upskilling your team as it goes.
Not sure which one fits? That is what the first call is for, and you will get an honest answer even when it is “you do not need us yet”. Full detail on all three sits on the services page, and the comparison guide covers how fractional stacks up against hiring or using an agency.
Auckland AI questions
Talk to an AI consultant for Auckland
Every engagement starts with a free strategy call. No slides, no pitch deck - just a conversation about what your business does and where AI would genuinely help.
Last updated 6 September 2026