In this Q&A our Associate Director Digital Platforms Elias Billeh asks John Mackenney, Director - Digital Strategy Group APAC at Adobe — who the Datacom team works with as part of our Adobe Gold Partner status — to share his insights on why New Zealand can’t afford to sit on the fence as the AI revolution accelerates, and how the choices made now will determine whether Kiwi organisations lead or lag in the new era of web and content creation.
The most significant change is the paradigm shift AI is driving in how organisations build and manage their web presence. Tools like Adobe’s Project Site Leap, for example, can now migrate an entire website into Adobe Experience Manager simply by entering the URL, then re-skin the site according to new design templates, all automatically.
This means web teams can focus less on manual migration and more on creating immersive, omni-channel experiences. The goal is to boost productivity for digital teams and deliver richer, more engaging experiences in an age where generative AI and search are fundamentally changing how people interact with websites.
AI is now handling many of the basic but time-consuming tasks in web development, everything from identifying broken links and slow-loading code to recommending changes that could improve conversion rates.
For example, Adobe’s new Site Optimiser agent can analyse a web page and suggest specific improvements, even estimating the potential uplift in engagement or conversion if those changes are made. We’re also seeing AI used to write briefs, allocate tasks, build customer journeys, and analyse which content is performing best.
Essentially, AI agents are becoming digital colleagues, handling repetitive work and providing data-driven recommendations throughout the creative and marketing process.
It’s a massive shift. Globally, we’ve seen traffic from generative search engines, like those powered by large language models, grow by around 1,300% in the last year. This traffic is more engaged and converts better than traditional web traffic. But it also means the way content is structured and surfaced is changing.
For New Zealand travel companies, for example, if you want to appear in Google’s AI Overviews or similar tools, your content needs to be instructional, review-based, and tailored to specific personas and intents. The challenge is making sure your content is not only discoverable but also authoritative, or you risk losing visibility to sources like Reddit, which Google increasingly draws from if it can’t find a trusted official source.
There’s a real risk that government agencies, with their fragmented and often outdated web infrastructure, could lose their authoritative voice. If content is spread across dozens of poorly maintained sites, search engines and AI models may struggle to identify which is the official source.
If that happens, citizens might end up relying on unofficial forums like Reddit for critical information about government services. That’s why website consolidation and improved digital experience aren’t just nice-to-haves, they’re essential for maintaining trust and visibility in the AI era.
AI-driven tools can significantly reduce the cost and complexity of website migration and ongoing maintenance. Tasks that used to take months can now be completed in days, with a much lower barrier to entry. More importantly, AI is giving organisations better predictive insights. So they can see, before making changes, what the likely commercial benefits will be in terms of conversion, engagement, and customer retention.
This tighter link between AI-driven actions and business outcomes is making the case for investment much clearer, even when budgets are tight.
Adobe’s generative model, Firefly, is unique because it’s trained only on content that Adobe owns or has licensed, and we indemnify our customers for anything generated. That makes it the only truly IP-safe solution on the market.
We also lead the Content Authenticity Initiative, a coalition of over 4,000 organisations, including Google, Meta, and OpenAI, focused on content provenance. Our technology allows brands and agencies to digitally sign their content, proving its origin and whether it’s been modified by AI.
We’re also working on tools to embed ‘do not train’ credentials, so sensitive content isn’t scraped by AI engines. This is critical for government and any organisation where trust and information integrity are paramount.
Australia and New Zealand are generally more conservative in adopting generative AI compared to the US, where we’re seeing true enterprise-grade deployment. Here, the approach is more cautious, often limited to pilots or tightly controlled use cases, especially in government.
There’s still a level of apprehension, but the commercial sector, particularly banking and telco, is starting to see AI as a competitive differentiator. The key is to take a problem-led approach: start with a clear business challenge, and use AI to solve it, rather than being distracted by the latest shiny technology.
Start with the business problem you’re trying to solve. For example, Coca-Cola’s adoption of generative AI began with the need to maintain brand consistency and scale content creation, not just because AI was available.
When you focus on tangible outcomes, like reducing the time to write a creative brief from 21 days to a few hours, you’re much more likely to get buy-in and see real productivity gains. Education and strong examples are vital to overcoming resistance and inspiring both public and private sector leaders to take the next step.
