New Zealand digital government score rises as AI test looms
Thu, 17th Sep 2026 (Today)
Adobe has released a new Digital Government Index for New Zealand, showing the country's overall digital maturity score rose to 68.8 from 66.5.
The findings point to continued progress in how public agencies deliver online services and add a new measure of how well government information is positioned for use in AI-driven search and discovery tools.
The assessment covers three established areas: customer experience, site performance and digital self-service. It reviewed the official websites of Auckland Council, Inland Revenue, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development.
Site performance and digital self-service recorded the strongest gains in the latest study. Customer experience declined, suggesting that improvements in the technical foundations of government websites did not always lead to a better experience for users.
New Zealand ranked second in the Asia-Pacific region and remained among the stronger-performing countries internationally. It recorded the highest customer experience score in APAC and ranked second globally on that measure, despite the year-on-year decline.
New Zealand also ranked second internationally on site performance. Its digital self-service score, however, trailed peers including the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States.
AI readiness
The latest edition introduces an AI readiness assessment alongside the three core measures. The new category reflects a shift in how people seek information, with AI tools increasingly used to answer questions and help users navigate public services.
The assessment examines trust and authority, technology structure and discoverability, and brand and content relevance. In practice, this means testing whether official information is credible, whether AI systems can access and index it easily, and whether it is likely to be recognised and surfaced in AI-generated responses.
Across the agencies assessed, the average AI readiness score was 57.6 out of 100. Individual results ranged from 53.0 to 60.8.
The strongest scores came in trust and authority, suggesting government websites are generally seen as reliable sources of information. Lower scores in discoverability and content relevance pointed to a different issue: some agencies have information that AI systems can access, but it is not consistently cited or surfaced when those systems generate answers.
Digital progress
The report links New Zealand's broader gains in digital maturity to several public sector efforts in recent years. These include the Service Modernisation Roadmap, the continued development of Govt.nz, and investment in shared platforms and digital identity.
Those programmes aim to make services more connected and easier to access. The index suggests that this work has improved the technical quality of digital services and made it easier for users to navigate information independently.
The methodology defines customer experience as how effectively citizens can complete tasks online. Site performance measures a site's technical quality, authority and speed, while digital self-service focuses on accessibility, readability and whether users can navigate without extra support.
The report also identifies common features among the highest-ranked government websites, including serving as a clear entry point to services, maintaining accessibility standards and helping users find relevant information quickly.
Wider test
The addition of AI readiness broadens the benchmark for digital government performance beyond websites and search engines. It reflects the view that official information now needs to be structured not only for direct visitors, but also for systems that summarise, recommend and retrieve content on behalf of users.
That creates a new challenge for public agencies. A site may be technically sound and contain trusted information, but still fall short if its content is not easy for AI systems to identify, interpret and present accurately.
The report argues that agencies best placed for the next phase of digital government will combine strong governance and authoritative content with accessible services and the technical structure needed for AI discovery.
For New Zealand's public sector, the latest results show measurable gains in core digital delivery, but they also suggest the next test will be whether government information can be found and trusted wherever citizens choose to engage.