We put AI to work inside New Zealand businesses
AI Training, Consulting & Development
Trusted by SMBs across New Zealand and Australia
Three phases to AI implementation.
Most businesses know they need AI but don’t know where to start. We take you from zero to implemented with a proven three-phase approach.
- Get your staff trained on AI tools and thinking
- Identify high-impact use cases in your business
- We develop and implement them as your fractional AI team
An AI engineer in your team, without hiring one.
For NZ businesses of roughly 20 to 100 staff with more AI work than a workshop can fix, and not enough to justify a full-time hire. We scope it first, then an engineer from our team works inside yours, with Blake leading the engagement.
Scope
About two weeks with Blake to map your systems and agree a prioritised build list.
Embed
A Harkness AI engineer joins your team 1-3 days a week and works through it.
Hand over
Documented handover, then you run it, move to managed support, or hire.
How we help businesses go from exploring to implementing
Results from the last 12 months
Setup & TrainingSite Safety - Claude Setup & TrainingCase Study
Set Claude up around the business and trained them to run it - drafting invoices in Xero, booking jobs, handling email, researching new leads and taking notes by voice.
Training & ConnectorsTrap and Trigger - Claude Set Up, Trained and ConnectedCase Study
Started with a hands-on workshop at their Upper Hutt office and a Claude setup for the team, then connected Claude to Site App Pro for health and safety compliance, PayHero timesheets and Google Sheets and Docs.
Platform BuildPaagaa - Referral Tool to Budgeting AppCase Study
Built a referral platform for financial advisers across NZ and Australia, then grew it into Paagaa - an open banking budgeting app where AI writes the plans and code checks every number.
Training & SetupClaude AI Brain WorkshopCase Study
Set up four business owners with their own Claude AI brain - a 24/7 employee with full context of their business - then trained them to automate tasks and keep building on it themselves.
Organising & speaking at AI events across New Zealand
All across New Zealand - running workshops, meetups, and educational events to help Kiwis get ahead with AI.
Claude MCP Event - Christchurch
Graduating into AI - Hamilton
Young Kiwis in AI - Auckland
150+ AI Educational Videos
AI & Engineering - ChristchurchWhat Our Clients Say
Blake has become our go-to for everything AI in our business. He started by helping us set up Claude across the business and training our team to actually use it well, then built out a range of connections between our AI systems and the apps we run day to day, both native integrations and custom ones like our PayHero setup that we had struggled to get working ourselves.
Beyond the technical builds, Blake has been a genuine sounding board. He talks through our ideas with us, gives honest advice on what is worth doing, and steers us away from things that will not pay off. He has built us AI tools for reporting and project tracking that have made a real difference to how we operate.
What stands out is how easy he is to deal with. He keeps us in the loop, hits his timelines, and hands over tools that work along with clear instructions so we can run with them. He knows his stuff and gets things done.
We would happily recommend Blake and Harkness AI to any business looking to get real value out of AI.
Blake is an outstanding collaborator.
He is exceptionally well-suited to work with businesses of any size - whether small startups or large organisations. Blake has a unique ability to identify core challenges and ideas within a company and transform them into effective solutions. His expertise in AI, combined with his excellent people skills, enables him to deliver results that are both highly functional and cost-effective.
I highly recommend working with Blake.
Comments people have left
We had Blake speak at our 'BA Big Day In' conference on the 16th of October 2026. Blake is an amazing speaker and had a group of 120+ Business Analysts in the palm of his hand! The way he was able to show a new world where AI tools were truly integrated into your day-to-day (with well-tailored and reusable skills driving the mahi) was inspiring. A real asset to put in front of any audience!!
Blake has been a fantastic supporter of juniors breaking into tech. He ran two sessions for Summer of Tech this year, and the response was huge: 100+ students attended. Blake gave our tauira practical, honest advice on building an online presence that gets them noticed and on the AI skills NZ employers are hiring for right now. Just as importantly, he gave them confidence. He showed students that you don't need years of experience or a big following to start standing out, a powerful message for anyone early in their career. Thanks, Blake, for investing your time in the next generation of NZ talent. <3
We recently invited Blake to speak at a UC Marketing Society event about how AI is actually being used in marketing, and he was fantastic. Blake made AI feel practical and accessible, sharing real examples from his own business, including content repurposing, organising media, competitor research and SEO. I especially appreciated his honesty about the mistakes he had made, including handing too much of the creative process over to AI and seeing how quickly that can weaken a brand. His presentation was engaging, relatable and refreshingly free of empty AI buzzwords. The key message, that AI should amplify your skills rather than replace your thinking, really stuck with me. Blake was also incredibly generous with his time and advice. I would highly recommend him to any business, organisation or student group wanting a realistic and genuinely useful perspective on AI and marketing.
I attended a seminar about AI in marketing where Blake was one of the presenters. I learned plenty from the discussion and his insights were seriously valuable in guiding my approach to using AI in marketing strategy in my own work. Definitely worth learning from these guys as they are experts with AI and I think it's super important to know how to use it to support your work, not take it over. I highly recommend Harkness AI.
Great to work with. Creative, professional and very responsive. Delivered a really well-designed, user-friendly Franklin Seniors Directory. It exceeded expectations and will be an awesome resource for our community. Highly recommended.
Organised, eloquent speaker with great insight to the future of AI on work. Working with Blake for our "Graduating into AI" event on behalf of AUT CSEA, was simple and high impact.
Knows what he's talking about! Super engaging speaker, highly recommend.
Building MS Project tender programmes straight from the tender docs has not only saved me hours of manual work but has also improved the quality of the final product without over-spending time. Overall, well worth the time and I've already recommended the course to some of my friends that are exploring AI options within their workspaces.
Alex and I spent a day with Blake from Harkness AI setting up Claude across our complicated business systems, and it was the best investment we've made! Rather than just showing us features, he built everything around our real platforms. We highly recommend Harkness AI to any business wanting to simplify its systems, work smarter and get real, practical value from AI.
Blake presented at our IFAA conference and received excellent feedback from our advisers. He made AI easy to understand, with practical examples and useful ideas they could apply in their businesses. His session was a conference highlight and left members keen to learn more. We’d happily recommend Blake to other organisations looking for an engaging speaker on AI.
Just had Blake present at our conference and he was fantastic. Super informative but at a level we could all understand and very engaging. Highly recommend as a speaker for an event.
Blake gave us a great introduction about what is AI. The slides and explanations were clear and easy to understand. The demo using Claude was helpful as well. Highly recommend.
We brought Blake in to run an AI workshop for our team, and it was excellent. He struck a great balance between explaining concepts clearly and keeping things practical, encouraged questions and made the whole session feel very engaging. Highly recommend if you're looking to upskill your team on AI in a way that actually sticks.
Blake ran a couple of sessions for my team. He was fantastic; he made it really simple for the whole team to understand, regardless of their previous AI experience.
Blake built me a custom AI 'brain' that now handles a chunk of my day-to-day admin and research gathering. He took the time to understand how I actually work before building anything, and has been responsive every time I've hit a snag. Great combination of technical skill and genuine patience with a non-technical client. Would recommend him to anyone wanting to put AI to real use in their business. Thanks Blake!
Blake gets it - prompt, professional, knows his stuff. He took us through the easy set ups and built custom connectors and processors for our more niche requirements. Quick, fun and already changing the way we work.
We engaged Harkness AI to build an internal AI-driven quality assurance platform, and Alex has been excellent to work with throughout. He picked up a fairly niche operational problem quickly, turned it into a workable technical design, and delivered in steady increments rather than disappearing for weeks at a time. Communication was clear and honest, including when something turned out harder than first scoped. The platform is now in testing with our team and doing what we asked of it. Easy to recommend if you want practical AI implementation rather than theory.
Blake is amazing, his knowledge of AI is really impressive. He helped us become more confident with AI and showed us how to use it in our business. The training sessions were great, and he's very approachable and always happy to help. He also presented at our networking event and received fantastic feedback from everyone.
Recently completed a half day course with Blake building my Claude Brain. The course was insightful & practical. Running 2 companies I know this is going to help me claw back some time on a lot of the repetitive tasks. Thank you Blake, excellent value and advice.
Blake has become our go-to for everything AI in our business - from setting up Claude and training our team, to building integrations like our PayHero setup that we had struggled with ourselves. He is a genuine sounding board, hits his timelines, and hands over tools that work with clear instructions. We would happily recommend Blake and Harkness AI to any business looking to get real value out of AI.
Blake brought a solid technology & AI perspective to our engagement at BMC. He clearly knows his space and was easy to work with, the conversations he sparked were useful in helping us get clearer on what we actually needed from a systems / AI standpoint. Thanks again.
Blake took the time to understand our vision and explained the technical side in a way that was easy to follow, making the whole process simple and stress-free. He took a complex idea and turned it into something practical, clear and user-friendly. Great work, great communication, and a great experience from start to finish.
Blake is an absolute gem to work with! When I was drowning in the deep end trying to implement our Podcast Portal, Blake threw me a lifeline. He became an A+ collaborator who made the whole experience actually enjoyable.
Blake is an outstanding collaborator. He is exceptionally well-suited to work with businesses of any size - whether small startups or large organisations. Blake has a unique ability to identify core challenges and transform them into effective solutions.
Blake exemplifies what makes a great tech-sector professional: the ability to combine strong technical expertise with excellent soft skills. He pairs high-level technical competence and sharp critical thinking with outstanding collaboration and communication abilities.
You are so good at what you do and so generous with your time and findings!
You are an truly inspirational young guy, and you've got a lot ahead of you! Can't wait to see you transform NZ!!!
Firstly it was lovely collaborating with Blake through my podcast initiative 'The Tech'o'Space Podcast', he surely has set the standard high when it comes to innovation in the IT field.
We had Blake speak at our 'BA Big Day In' conference on the 16th of October 2026. Blake is an amazing speaker and had a group of 120+ Business Analysts in the palm of his hand! The way he was able to show a new world where AI tools were truly integrated into your day-to-day (with well-tailored and reusable skills driving the mahi) was inspiring. A real asset to put in front of any audience!!
Blake has been a fantastic supporter of juniors breaking into tech. He ran two sessions for Summer of Tech this year, and the response was huge: 100+ students attended. Blake gave our tauira practical, honest advice on building an online presence that gets them noticed and on the AI skills NZ employers are hiring for right now. Just as importantly, he gave them confidence. He showed students that you don't need years of experience or a big following to start standing out, a powerful message for anyone early in their career. Thanks, Blake, for investing your time in the next generation of NZ talent. <3
We recently invited Blake to speak at a UC Marketing Society event about how AI is actually being used in marketing, and he was fantastic. Blake made AI feel practical and accessible, sharing real examples from his own business, including content repurposing, organising media, competitor research and SEO. I especially appreciated his honesty about the mistakes he had made, including handing too much of the creative process over to AI and seeing how quickly that can weaken a brand. His presentation was engaging, relatable and refreshingly free of empty AI buzzwords. The key message, that AI should amplify your skills rather than replace your thinking, really stuck with me. Blake was also incredibly generous with his time and advice. I would highly recommend him to any business, organisation or student group wanting a realistic and genuinely useful perspective on AI and marketing.
I attended a seminar about AI in marketing where Blake was one of the presenters. I learned plenty from the discussion and his insights were seriously valuable in guiding my approach to using AI in marketing strategy in my own work. Definitely worth learning from these guys as they are experts with AI and I think it's super important to know how to use it to support your work, not take it over. I highly recommend Harkness AI.
Great to work with. Creative, professional and very responsive. Delivered a really well-designed, user-friendly Franklin Seniors Directory. It exceeded expectations and will be an awesome resource for our community. Highly recommended.
Organised, eloquent speaker with great insight to the future of AI on work. Working with Blake for our "Graduating into AI" event on behalf of AUT CSEA, was simple and high impact.
Knows what he's talking about! Super engaging speaker, highly recommend.
Building MS Project tender programmes straight from the tender docs has not only saved me hours of manual work but has also improved the quality of the final product without over-spending time. Overall, well worth the time and I've already recommended the course to some of my friends that are exploring AI options within their workspaces.
Alex and I spent a day with Blake from Harkness AI setting up Claude across our complicated business systems, and it was the best investment we've made! Rather than just showing us features, he built everything around our real platforms. We highly recommend Harkness AI to any business wanting to simplify its systems, work smarter and get real, practical value from AI.
Blake presented at our IFAA conference and received excellent feedback from our advisers. He made AI easy to understand, with practical examples and useful ideas they could apply in their businesses. His session was a conference highlight and left members keen to learn more. We’d happily recommend Blake to other organisations looking for an engaging speaker on AI.
Just had Blake present at our conference and he was fantastic. Super informative but at a level we could all understand and very engaging. Highly recommend as a speaker for an event.
Blake gave us a great introduction about what is AI. The slides and explanations were clear and easy to understand. The demo using Claude was helpful as well. Highly recommend.
We brought Blake in to run an AI workshop for our team, and it was excellent. He struck a great balance between explaining concepts clearly and keeping things practical, encouraged questions and made the whole session feel very engaging. Highly recommend if you're looking to upskill your team on AI in a way that actually sticks.
Blake ran a couple of sessions for my team. He was fantastic; he made it really simple for the whole team to understand, regardless of their previous AI experience.
Blake built me a custom AI 'brain' that now handles a chunk of my day-to-day admin and research gathering. He took the time to understand how I actually work before building anything, and has been responsive every time I've hit a snag. Great combination of technical skill and genuine patience with a non-technical client. Would recommend him to anyone wanting to put AI to real use in their business. Thanks Blake!
Blake gets it - prompt, professional, knows his stuff. He took us through the easy set ups and built custom connectors and processors for our more niche requirements. Quick, fun and already changing the way we work.
We engaged Harkness AI to build an internal AI-driven quality assurance platform, and Alex has been excellent to work with throughout. He picked up a fairly niche operational problem quickly, turned it into a workable technical design, and delivered in steady increments rather than disappearing for weeks at a time. Communication was clear and honest, including when something turned out harder than first scoped. The platform is now in testing with our team and doing what we asked of it. Easy to recommend if you want practical AI implementation rather than theory.
Blake is amazing, his knowledge of AI is really impressive. He helped us become more confident with AI and showed us how to use it in our business. The training sessions were great, and he's very approachable and always happy to help. He also presented at our networking event and received fantastic feedback from everyone.
Recently completed a half day course with Blake building my Claude Brain. The course was insightful & practical. Running 2 companies I know this is going to help me claw back some time on a lot of the repetitive tasks. Thank you Blake, excellent value and advice.
Blake has become our go-to for everything AI in our business - from setting up Claude and training our team, to building integrations like our PayHero setup that we had struggled with ourselves. He is a genuine sounding board, hits his timelines, and hands over tools that work with clear instructions. We would happily recommend Blake and Harkness AI to any business looking to get real value out of AI.
Blake brought a solid technology & AI perspective to our engagement at BMC. He clearly knows his space and was easy to work with, the conversations he sparked were useful in helping us get clearer on what we actually needed from a systems / AI standpoint. Thanks again.
Blake took the time to understand our vision and explained the technical side in a way that was easy to follow, making the whole process simple and stress-free. He took a complex idea and turned it into something practical, clear and user-friendly. Great work, great communication, and a great experience from start to finish.
Blake is an absolute gem to work with! When I was drowning in the deep end trying to implement our Podcast Portal, Blake threw me a lifeline. He became an A+ collaborator who made the whole experience actually enjoyable.
Blake is an outstanding collaborator. He is exceptionally well-suited to work with businesses of any size - whether small startups or large organisations. Blake has a unique ability to identify core challenges and transform them into effective solutions.
Blake exemplifies what makes a great tech-sector professional: the ability to combine strong technical expertise with excellent soft skills. He pairs high-level technical competence and sharp critical thinking with outstanding collaboration and communication abilities.
You are so good at what you do and so generous with your time and findings!
You are an truly inspirational young guy, and you've got a lot ahead of you! Can't wait to see you transform NZ!!!
Firstly it was lovely collaborating with Blake through my podcast initiative 'The Tech'o'Space Podcast', he surely has set the standard high when it comes to innovation in the IT field.
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Last updated 17 October 2026 - added new client reviews