Research · AI recommendations, October 2026
When a New Zealand business asks an AI assistant who to hire for AI work, the answer is built mostly from "best of" lists, directories and big firms' own pages, and it changes a lot depending on which assistant you ask. Across 176 answers to 22 buyer questions on 28 October 2026, Deloitte was named in 41, Datacom in 39, and PwC, Enterprise DNA and AI New Zealand in 36 each. The three most-cited pages were all "best AI consultants in New Zealand" lists.
AI assistants build their New Zealand shortlists from a small set of pages, and most of those pages are lists written by consultancies. The three pages cited most across 176 answers were "best AI consultants in New Zealand" articles, each cited in 12 to 14 answers. Large firms with strong websites (Deloitte, Datacom, PwC) were named most often overall.
The assistant you ask matters as much as the question. ChatGPT named large firms; Grok, Claude and Amazon Nova named smaller specialists, mostly because they read the lists; Gemini sat in between. If you are hiring, that means an AI shortlist is a starting point, not a verdict. If you sell AI services, it means the pages the assistants read matter more than almost anything on your own site.
22 questions, eight models, one run on 28 October 2026, with every answer and every cited page logged.
One more thing you should know: Ez-AI ran this test and is one of the firms being asked about. Every count is reported as the assistants gave it, including where they ignored us.
The Big Four and Datacom led, followed by a group of smaller NZ AI consultancies that appear on the most-cited lists. Counts are the number of answers, out of 176, that named each firm.
| Firm | Answers naming it | Mostly named by |
|---|---|---|
| Deloitte | 41 | Grok, Gemini, Claude |
| Datacom | 39 | ChatGPT, training-only GPT, Grok, Gemini |
| PwC | 36 | Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude |
| Enterprise DNA | 36 | Grok, Nova, Claude, Perplexity |
| AI New Zealand | 36 | Claude, Nova, Grok |
| Harkness AI | 25 | Grok, Claude, Perplexity |
| Automate AI | 25 | Grok, Perplexity |
| Theta | 23 | ChatGPT |
| ImplementAI, KPMG, Matrix AI Consulting | 21 each | Nova and Claude (ImplementAI), Claude (KPMG), Grok (Matrix) |
| Qrious, EY | 19 each | ChatGPT and Gemini (Qrious), Claude and Gemini (EY) |
| AI Innovisory, Levy Street | 18 each | Grok |
Ez-AI was named in 28 answers. Nearly all came from Grok (12), Nova (5), Claude (4) and Perplexity (4), and none from ChatGPT or from either model answering without search.
A handful of "best of" lists did most of the work, and most of them are written by consultancies that put themselves at the top. These were the pages cited most often.
| Page | Answers citing it | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise DNA: NZ AI consulting firms | 14 | Article by an AI consultancy |
| Clever Merchants: best AI consultants in New Zealand | 14 | List by a consultancy that lists itself first |
| BEE Sigma: best AI consultants in New Zealand | 12 | Comparison by a consultancy that lists itself first (Ez-AI is on it) |
| AI Superior: AI consulting companies in New Zealand | 9 | List by a consultancy that lists itself first |
| Datacom: artificial intelligence solutions | 8 | A firm's own service page |
| FlyPix AI: AI consulting companies in New Zealand | 7 | List by an AI company that lists itself first |
| DesignRush: AI companies in New Zealand | 7 | Agency directory (Ez-AI is listed) |
| business.govt.nz: AI Advisory Pilot | 6 | Government programme page |
Government pages mattered too. business.govt.nz was cited in 28 answers across 14 of the 22 questions, often when an assistant pointed a small business to the government's AI Advisory Pilot before suggesting any consultant.
Each assistant reads a different slice of the web, so each produces a different shortlist from the same question.
| Assistant | Firms it named most | What it leaned on |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Datacom (10), Theta (10), Qrious (7) | Large NZ firms' own pages, government sites, vendor documentation |
| Claude | AI New Zealand (12), Enterprise DNA (8), HighPeak Digital (8) | Directories, lists and small firms' own pages; it said when it could not find independent reviews |
| Perplexity | Enterprise DNA (8), Automate AI (7), ELab AI (6) | Small NZ firms' own pages and comparison lists |
| Grok | Enterprise DNA (10), Levy Street (10), AI Innovisory (9) | "Best AI consultants" lists and LinkedIn company pages |
| Gemini | Datacom (8), Deloitte (7), PwC (7) | Google results and government pages |
| Amazon Nova | Enterprise DNA (10), AI New Zealand (8), ImplementAI (7) | Agency directories such as DesignRush and GoodFirms |
| GPT and Claude, no search | Datacom, Deloitte, PwC, Accenture | Memory only: mostly large firms, plus a few long-established NZ tech companies such as Alphero and Soul Machines |
The no-search results are worth noticing. Plenty of people still use these tools without web search turned on, and from memory alone they mostly know the biggest, longest-established names.
On several specific questions the assistants had little or nothing useful to say about New Zealand providers.
Since this run I have published guides on AI for NZ insurance brokers, AI for NZ construction companies and AI for NZ law firms, and the next edition will show whether they changed anything.
Use an AI shortlist to find names, then check each one the way you would any supplier.
Being on the pages the assistants read counts for more than anything you say about yourself. In practice that means four things: getting onto the lists and directories they cite, getting independent reviews they can see, being indexed by Google, Bing and Brave (Gemini draws on Google, ChatGPT leans on Bing, and Claude's web search on Brave), and making sure your own pages state plainly what you do, where, for whom and at what price.
I learned this on my own site. In the four weeks to 28 October the assistants opened ez-ai.nz about 430 times for people asking questions, mostly the homepage and pricing page, yet ChatGPT never named Ez-AI in this run. If you want to know what the assistants say about your business, that is what an AI visibility audit checks.
None is reliable on its own. In this test ChatGPT mostly named large firms such as Datacom, Theta and Deloitte, Grok and Claude drew on published lists and directories, and Gemini leaned on Google results. Asking two or three assistants and comparing their answers gives a wider shortlist than any one of them.
Its answers in this test cited large firms' own pages, government sites and vendor documentation far more than small consultancies or lists. Its web search is widely reported to lean on Bing, where big, long-established sites rank strongly. Small firms that are thin on Bing rarely appear.
Not directly. The answers in this test were built from pages each assistant found on the web: lists, directories, reviews and firms' own sites. Being on the pages the assistants read, with clear prices, proof and reviews, is what changes the answer.
Yes. Ez-AI ran the test and is one of the firms being asked about. It was named in 28 of the 176 answers: 12 from Grok, 5 from Nova, 4 each from Claude and Perplexity, 3 from Gemini and none from ChatGPT. The counts are reported as the assistants gave them; this page does not rank anyone.
Monthly. The same questions are asked several times a month because answers change from one run to the next, and each update reports the latest results. This first edition is a single run on 28 October 2026.
Book a free 30-minute call. I will run the questions your buyers ask through the same assistants, show you who gets named instead of you and why, and tell you what it would take to change it. Discovery is always free.
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