Strong tech, data and security foundations make AI succeed.
By Kathryn Carter, Cognizant New Zealand Markets Lead
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming industries and redefining competitive advantage. The big questions for every organisation are: how much will it cost, and how will it boost productivity? These questions dominate boardroom conversations because AI is no longer optional – it’s a strategic imperative.
At Cognizant, our aim is to bridge the gap between idea and execution by embedding AI into an organisation’s everyday tools. With some of our New Zealand customers, we’ve helped reduce operational costs by up to 30% through effective AI implementation.
We take a technology-agnostic approach. The priority is understanding each customer’s needs so we can design an AI solution that truly works for them – because there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
An organisation’s leadership must be right behind AI adoption. AI is not a bolt-on solution. It means looking clearly at the challenges of modernisation and ensuring the whole organisation addresses them, not just the IT team.
Building strong foundations
AI success starts with the right foundation. Without this, AI initiatives risk becoming fragmented pilots rather than enterprise-wide enablers. Cognizant’s experience shows that there are four essential pillars for building a future-ready environment: Legacy Modernisation, Modern Engineering, Data Enablement and Security Design.
New Zealand organisations, like many globally, are grappling with ageing IT legacy that have become a source of technical debt. Once considered cutting-edge, these legacy platforms now risk slowing innovation, inflating costs and increasing operational risks.
Rushing to deploy AI tools without modernising foundational systems risks creating a new breed of tech debt – problems that compound over time rather than solve them.
Modern engineering starts with enterprise-wide visibility. Start by making the invisible visible - measure the flow, find the constraints, automate the feedback. The stronger your engineering foundation, the more value AI will add.
For example, Cognizant worked with a large ASX 100 company to integrate AI assistance into the process to support human reviewers. This has achieved significant improvements in software flow, reducing ‘hand-on code review’ time and rework requests by 50%.
Understanding your data
Data enablement is vital because AI thrives on the quality and accessibility of an organisation’s data. This means having a clear understanding of how data is used and stored across all operations, along with visibility into who has access and for what purpose.
Organisations need to ensure the right data is accessible to the right stakeholders and systems because not all data is equal. This requires robust governance models that balance restrictions with freedoms to deliver value across an organisation’s operations.
Balancing governance with innovation
AI is revolutionising the way we work, unlocking new possibilities every day. But as it becomes deeply embedded in businesses, it introduces new risks that go beyond technology, extending to governance, accountability and trust. The good news is that AI can make security stronger. Modern AI-enabled platforms can detect anomalies across billions of signals in real time, transforming security from reactive to proactive.
It's not about fear, it’s about balance. With the right governance, we can unlock the benefits of AI without opening the door to unnecessary risk.
People first: Embedding AI into the culture
Cognizant’s role as a technology partner is to turn the promise of AI into productivity gains. We’ve learned that success comes from investing in people. Bringing them along on the transformational journey and embedding AI into the culture fosters an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. This approach can help ensure an organisation becomes truly AI-enabled.
It leads to better service for customers, safer operations for regulators and shareholders and a stronger, more resilient New Zealand economy.
