Editorial Team
5 min read
Xero and ASB launch free AI bootcamp as 79% of users say they are self-teaching
Xero's survey of 1,081 New Zealand SME customers finds 61% are proactively using AI, but most users are learning by experimentation. Its new 12-week bootcamp with ASB is a response to that confidence gap; it is not yet evidence of a productivity gain.
- Xero says 61% of its surveyed New Zealand SME customers proactively use AI; 79% of users say they are learning through self-guided experimentation.
- Xero and ASB have launched a free, 12-week online bootcamp delivered by academyEX to address that gap.
- The survey measures reported attitudes and time savings in Xero's customer base, not productivity across all New Zealand small businesses or the programme's results.
The new bootcamp makes the useful question more concrete: can structured guidance turn scattered AI use into work that is reliable enough to scale? The available evidence does not yet answer it.
Xero, the global small-business platform for accounting, payroll and payments, has partnered with ASB on a free 12-week online AI bootcamp for eligible New Zealand firms. The programme, delivered by academyEX, comes after Xero's customer research found that 61% of respondents were proactively using AI, while 79% of users were learning by experimenting on their own.
That makes training the central development, rather than another claim about adoption. Xero's survey found 47% wanted practical training, 46% wanted trusted and vetted tools, and 43% wanted real-world case studies. It also found that 40% cited data privacy and security as a reason not to use AI, or to use it less often, and 37% cited mistrust of output quality.
Company-reported shares of four AI-use archetypes in Xero’s survey of New Zealand small and medium businesses. Source: Xero.
A customer survey, not a national productivity measure
The research was commissioned by Xero with The Purpose Business and surveyed a random sample of 1,081 of Xero's New Zealand small and medium-sized business customers from 31 March to 7 April 2026. It was weighted to a nationally representative business mix by employee count. That weighting is useful context, but the denominator remains Xero customers, not every small business in the country.
Among AI users, 64% said the tools had saved time, with an average reported saving equivalent to one working day. The release does not give a period for that saving, nor does it measure revenue, output or errors. It is therefore evidence of perceived value rather than a comparable estimate of firm-level or national productivity.
