New ZealandCentral to both instruments. The court guidelines require accuracy checking before reliance, warning that chatbots invent cases, citations and quotes and will confirm false information as accurate. The Law Society guidance requires all output to be verified before reliance.
Regulation Tracker · Country · Asia-Pacific
New Zealand
Substantialcommon lawupdated 2026-09-04verified 2026-09-04
As of 4 September 2026 New Zealand's regime is the Chief Justice's three sets of generative-AI guidelines for courts and tribunals of 7 December 2023, unamended since. There is no practice direction, no disclosure requirement and no AI statute; the Law Society supplies profession-facing guidance and the courts have policed misuse through costs and warnings.
As of 2026-09-04, New Zealand has 0 binding rules, official guidance in 13 categories, 0 proposals and 1 position set only by case law across the 20 categories in the map. In 3 categories we found nothing; in 3 the position is not yet determined.
How to read this page
- Binding rule Binding rule means a rule in force from a court, statute, regulator or equivalent authority.
- Official guidance Official guidance means an official non-binding position from a judiciary, regulator, bar or public body.
- Proposed / consultation Proposed / consultation means a public bill, draft rule or consultation that is not yet in force.
- Set by case law Set by case law means no rule was found, but courts have set the position in decisions.
- Nothing found Nothing found means the category was checked and no rule, guidance, proposal or case-law position was found.
- Not yet determined Not yet determined means research did not establish a reliable position yet.
The rules, category by category
A dedicated judicial version applies to all judges, judicial officers, tribunal members and support staff. Seven principles: understand limitations; uphold confidentiality and suppression; ensure accuracy; address bias, including Maori and Pasifika cultural context; maintain security; disclosure; and watch for others' AI use.
A separate non-lawyer version of the guidelines exists. The judicial version tells judges that lay litigants often cannot verify AI legal information and may not know it is error-prone, and that it may be appropriate to ask what accuracy checks they made. Every reported New Zealand AI-citation case has involved a self-represented party.
No evidence rule. The judicial guidelines warn that generative AI can fabricate convincing images, audio and other media which parties could present as evidence, and list red flags for AI-produced submissions, but the Evidence Act 2006 is unamended for synthetic media.
The court guidelines say nothing that is not already public should be entered into a chatbot, and nothing private, confidential, suppressed or privileged; chat history should be disabled and breaches reported to the Head of Bench and to the Ministry of Justice. The Law Society guidance requires privacy and privilege to be protected.
No rule change. The Law Society applies the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules through guidance updated 24 February 2026; the court guidelines open with a requirement to understand the tool's capabilities and limitations before use.
The judicial side is explicit: clerks, research counsel and support staff must discuss with their supervising judge how they are using generative AI and what steps they take to mitigate risk. The Law Society guidance addresses firm-level responsibility for output but there is no dedicated supervision rule.
The Law Society guidance says clients should be told about AI use where appropriate to the engagement. There is no consent requirement and no court-side obligation.
One of the few jurisdictions to address this squarely: the Law Society's updated guidance tells lawyers to review whether a fee remains reasonable where AI has materially reduced the time spent on a matter, engaging the fee-reasonableness rule.
New Zealand Law Society generative-AI guidance, first published 2024 and updated 24 February 2026, covering verification, privacy and privilege, client communication and fee review. It is the profession's principal instrument; there is no separate Bar Association guidance.
No deployment policy published, but the judicial guidelines record an intention to procure an in-house generative-AI chatbot for the New Zealand judiciary that protects confidential, suppressed and private information, and forbid use of public chatbots for such material until that happens.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner publishes Artificial Intelligence and the Information Privacy Principles (from 21 September 2023) and a generative-AI page setting expectations for agencies under the Privacy Act 2020; it does not approve or endorse any AI tool or vendor and expects a privacy assessment before an agency uses AI on personal information.
Thin. The Law Society guidance requires privacy and privilege to be protected in anything entered into a tool, and the Privacy Commissioner expects a privacy assessment before adoption and endorses no vendor. There is no legal-sector vendor due-diligence framework.
Seven reported New Zealand decisions, all involving self-represented litigants, with warnings rather than penalties. In Jones v Family Court at Whangarei [2026] NZSC 1 the Supreme Court awarded NZ$500 costs and warned that reliance on unverified AI output may in serious cases amount to obstruction of justice or contempt.
Deliberately absent. The December 2023 court guidelines impose no obligation to declare generative-AI use in filings, and the judicial guidelines state that judges themselves need not disclose chatbot use. Judges are instead told it may be appropriate to ask a lay litigant whether they used a chatbot and what checks they made.
Notably permissive. The judicial guidelines contain no restriction on using generative AI in judgment writing or in the assessment of evidence, in contrast with the New South Wales, Victorian and Hong Kong instruments. Control is exercised through the accuracy and confidentiality principles instead.
No mandatory AI-specific CPD requirement. New Zealand lawyers' CPD is self-directed under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Ongoing Legal Education) Rules 2013; the Law Society's AI guidance is framed as competence support rather than a training mandate.
- Generative AI guidance for lawyers 2026-02-24
Not established. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 reserves certain work to lawyers, but no New Zealand determination or guidance applying it to consumer AI legal products was located before the search budget was exhausted.
No horizontal AI statute and no risk classification of justice uses. New Zealand's stated approach is to rely on existing law with a light-touch national AI strategy, but the MBIE AI policy page could not be opened before the search budget was exhausted, so the current strategy title and date are not verified here.
Not established. No AMINZ or NZDRC generative-AI protocol was located before the search budget was exhausted. The court guidelines apply to tribunals listed in the schedule, not to private arbitration.
Official documents recorded for New Zealand (3)
- Generative AI guidance for lawyers
NZ Law Society · revised 2026-02-24 · verified 2026-09-03
- Guidelines for use of generative artificial intelligence in Courts and Tribunals
Courts of New Zealand · revised 2023-12-07 · verified 2026-09-03
- Artificial Intelligence and the Information Privacy Principles
NZ Privacy Commissioner · revised 2023-09-21 · verified 2026-09-04
Court incidents on the record in New Zealand
- Jones v Family Court at Whangārei [2026] NZSC 12026-02-11 Dismissal
Cite this page
SafeLegalAI Legal AI Regulation Tracker, "New Zealand" (updated 2026-09-04, verified 2026-09-04), https://safelegalai.com/regulation/country/nz (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.
SafeLegalAI is a research publication by Cognesio LLP, not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice, and no lawyer–client relationship arises from reading it. Rules change; always check the official document linked on each record and take advice on your own situation. Researched and drafted with AI assistance; verified against primary sources and edited by Cognesio LLP. The linked official documents are the record — our summaries are not the law and are not legal advice.
- Courts of New Zealand — Guidelines for use of generative AI in courts and tribunals (7 Dec 2023)
- Courts of New Zealand — judicial version (official PDF)
- New Zealand Law Society — Generative AI guidance for lawyers (updated 24 Feb 2026)
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner — AI and the Information Privacy Principles
- Jones v Family Court at Whangarei [2026] NZSC 1