Cairn Compass Is Now the NZ AI Benchmark

In April I wrote about building a free AI maturity assessment because the paid version was out of reach for most New Zealand businesses. That tool was Cairn Compass. It now has a new name, a new home and a different framework underneath it. It's the NZ AI Benchmark, run by AI New Zealand, and it's still free.

Short version: the NZ AI Benchmark is a free 20 minute assessment for New Zealand organisations. Forty questions, eight dimensions, five stages on the AI Playbook. On screen you get your stage, the trap at that stage and a radar of all eight dimensions. Leave a work email and the detailed report follows, including the one move that takes you one stage up. compass.cairn.nz now redirects there.

Why did Cairn Compass move to AI New Zealand?

Cairn merged into AI New Zealand this year. I'm Chief Technology Officer alongside Justin Flitter as Chief Executive Officer, and the work I'd been doing under my own brand, including Compass, came across with me.

Compass was always a front door. People took it, looked at their radar chart, and then asked what to do about it. Under Cairn, the answer to that question was me. Under AI New Zealand, the answer is a team and a full set of ways to work with it: the Executive AI Briefing, the AI Operating System (AI OS), the AI Academy courses, AI advisory and consulting, AI development, and partnerships with the vendors and specialists a business needs alongside us. Whatever the radar shows, there's a next step and someone to deliver it. Leaving the assessment on a separate site, pointing at a business that no longer operates on its own, made no sense.

What changed between Compass and the Benchmark?

The framework. Compass measured eight dimensions drawn from the research: strategy, leadership, data, technology, people, process, culture and governance. It did its job well, and the people who took it got a clear, honest read on where they stood. What it couldn't do on its own was connect that read to a delivery model. It was a good assessment attached to one consultant.

AI New Zealand already had a framework its programmes run on, the AI Playbook, with six steps: assign an AI Ambassador, set governance protocols, identify practical use cases, understand your risks, select the right AI tools, and provide ongoing AI skills training. An assessment that didn't map to those steps would tell you where you stood and then hand you a different map for what to do next.

So the Benchmark's eight dimensions follow the Playbook's six steps, plus leadership and the knowledge that feeds every tool. Your result lands on the same framework the briefings, AI OS and the courses are built on, and the team delivering those programmes is the team reading your radar. The questions are also more specific than Compass asked. Not "do you have an AI strategy" but whether there's a number AI is meant to move and a leader who owns it. Not "do you have governance" but whether the data boundary is enforced by tools or by trust. The full set, with the five stages and six steps, is on the Benchmark framework page.

The stages changed too. Compass ran from Aware to Transforming. The Benchmark runs Aware, Experimenting, Adopting, Adapting, Frontier, and each stage now names its trap. The one I'd point every leadership team at is stage two. Experimenting, where people are using AI ad hoc with no policy and no standard, feels like the cautious option. It's the highest risk stage on the scale.

If you took Compass earlier this year, it's worth 20 minutes to take the Benchmark. The questions are sharper, and what you get back is a baseline on the same framework the programmes use.

What is the NZ AI Benchmark built on?

The same foundations as Compass, with the Playbook on top. The questions are grounded in New Zealand and international AI research, and your answers are scored against best practice now, not against a theoretical ideal. Peer comparison against other New Zealand organisations by industry, size band and region appears once at least 20 organisations in that group have completed it. Early on you'll see best practice. Later you'll see your peers. I'd rather tell you that now than have you wonder why the comparison is blank.

It was also built the way Compass was built, with the same AI tools we help clients adopt. Claude did a lot of the heavy lifting the first time round, from research synthesis to shaping the framework.

Why is it still free?

Datacom's 2026 State of AI Index, released in August, puts AI use at 91% of New Zealand organisations. It was 66% in 2024 and 87% in 2025. The share that has scaled AI across the whole organisation went from 12% to 15% in the last year. Adoption is close to done. Scaling has barely started, and the organisations in that gap need a baseline before they need a consultant.

Charging for the baseline puts a fee between a leadership team and the first honest conversation about where they stand. Free removes the excuse.

What happens after you take it?

You see your stage, your trap and your radar straight away. Leave a work email and you get the detailed breakdown: commentary on every dimension, the patterns in your answers, how you compare with other New Zealand organisations, and the one move that takes you one stage up. One move, not five.

From there it's your call. Some organisations take the one move and run with it. Some book a free CEO briefing call to talk the result through, and some carry it into an Executive AI Briefing or AI OS. The assessment is the same whichever you choose, and it's just as useful if you never speak to us.

Take the NZ AI Benchmark. It's 20 minutes, it's free, and the trap at your stage is probably not the one you expected.