About
Operations first.
Then automation.
AiTearoa is a small, senior team building production AI for New Zealand businesses. We start with the workflow that's costing you the most time or budget, then automate it with the model and stack that actually fit. No vendor lock-in, no junior teams, no "exciting opportunities".
Founded by Daniel Thomson, AiTearoa exists because most AI consultancies sell the technology first and figure out the operations later. We do it in the opposite order.
The founder
Daniel Thomson
Daniel is the Managing Director and lead engineer at AiTearoa. He was a finalist for Young Achiever at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards, with a track record of delivering software for some of the country's larger organisations. His background spans product, operations, and engineering for fast-moving teams shipping software in domains where the wrong abstraction costs real money.
The last three years have been deep in production AI: voice agents that handle inbound queues, workflow automations that close the loop between mobile capture and back-office systems, and integration work across Google and Azure environments, connecting workflows via APIs that just make day-to-day life easier for the businesses on the other end. That hands-on work made one thing clear: the AI models everyone talks about have been ready for serious work for at least two years. The bottleneck is no longer the technology. It's choosing the right workflow to automate, designing the human-AI interface so it fits the way the team already works, and shipping it without drama. That's what AiTearoa is built to do.
Daniel reads every contact-form message personally. If you reach out, you'll hear back from him, not a sales development rep.
Reach Daniel
Principles
How we think about the work
These aren't slogans. They're the trade-offs we make on every engagement, even when the easier choice is in front of us.
Operations first, technology second
Most AI vendors lead with the model. We start with the workflow that's costing you the most time or budget, then choose the technology that fits. The model is a tool, not the strategy.
Model-agnostic by design
We deploy OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, and open-source models depending on the job. Cost, latency, accuracy, and where your data lives all matter. Locking into one vendor is a future tax.
We don't replace what works
If your team lives in Microsoft 365, Salesforce, HubSpot, Xero, or Slack, we build into those tools, not around them. The new AI surface should fit into existing habits, not force a rewrite of how the team works.
NZ data sovereignty by default
We deploy in regions you choose: Sydney, Auckland data centres, or wherever your compliance demands. We tell you exactly which providers touch your data and what they retain.
Show, don't tell
Our trial workspace is a working four-product suite anyone can click through. The contact form returns a personalised three-bullet operations diagnostic the moment you submit. We'd rather demonstrate than describe.
Senior team, no juniors
Every engagement runs with senior AI engineers and product managers. We don't pad teams with juniors learning on your dollar. The trade-off is we take fewer projects at a time. The upside is your pilot ships.