Also published on business.govt.nz:
At its heart, mentoring is a transfer of knowledge. A business owner sits down with someone who's seen more, built more, and failed more. For an hour or two, that hard-won experience is theirs for the taking. But knowledge only changes a business if it's captured, remembered, and acted on. Miss that step, and the best insight in the world evaporates the moment the meeting ends.
Business Mentors New Zealand's Mentoring Assistant closes that gap. It listens in on the session, then hands the business owner back exactly what they agreed to, not a vague memory of a good chat. For many, it's also their first real brush with what AI can actually do for a business, not just talk about. One quiet tool, reshaping how business owners experience a mentoring session, and how many go on to put AI to work themselves.
Carolyn Baines, founder of South Pacific Education Courses (SPEC) in Hastings, has spent decades helping learners across New Zealand and the Pacific access practical, industry-focused education and training opportunities. Having built a respected education business dedicated to creating pathways to employment and personal development, Carolyn turned to Business Mentors New Zealand at a pivotal stage in SPEC's growth journey. During the mentoring process, her mentor used the AI Mentoring Assistant, and the impact was immediate.
"Before, I'd come away from a mentoring meeting and have to sift back through everything to work out what actually mattered. Now I can easily track the actions we've agreed on and stay focused on making progress. The AI Mentoring Assistant captures the key points and next steps clearly, which means I spend less time trying to reconstruct conversations and more time acting on them. It's a simple change that has made a real difference."
BMNZ introducing Carolyn to her first experience with AI accelerated her to fully embracing AI in her business. She highly recommends any business owner to embrace the opportunities it brings. She has recently launched a new business, Spike Stories, and says her positive experience with BMNZ's Mentoring Assistant opened her eyes to how AI could help achieve this.
A secure environment
Business Mentor’s New Zealand’s Mentoring Assistant is a secure environment, purpose-built to give business owners a detailed summary of what's discussed. Every session is captured automatically, with agreed actions surfaced. Both mentor and business owner have the same clear picture of what was said and what happens next.
"We wanted business owners to walk away from every session with a clear idea of next steps, and who was doing what, without having to trust their own memory or their mentor's handwriting," says Sarah Trotman, CEO of Business Mentors New Zealand. "That's the difference between a good conversation and a business that transforms."
For the business owner, this changes the texture of the session itself. Instead of splitting their focus between listening and writing, they can be fully present with their mentor, an experienced sounding board with vast knowledge. A ready-made accountability record is automatically produced, they didn't have to lift a finger to create it.
"The first time I saw a Meeting Summary, condensing a whole conversation into the few points that counted, I thought, why was I ever doing this the hard way?" says Carolyn.
A record of actions is what makes changes stick
It isn't the conversation itself that changes a business; it's whether the actions agreed in that conversation actually get done. A great mentoring session that ends with good intentions and no record rarely survives contact with a busy week. The business owner gets back to the business, the till, the inbox, and the insights fade; before it becomes an important process change.
This is why the Mentoring Assistant’s Meeting Summary leads with actions. A business owner doesn't need to remember everything that was said. They need to know exactly what they agreed to do next, and by when. Recorded clearly, an action gets done. Left to memory, it competes with everything else in a business owner's day and usually loses.
Business owners freed up to focus
The time poor business owner experiences better conversations: more probing questions, more back-and-forth, more quality mentoring and listening than transcribing.
Ashton Norton founded Unyceet after identifying a widespread problem: purchase records scattered across paper receipts, emails, retailer apps, and disconnected systems. His platform creates a universal digital receipt infrastructure that transforms traditional receipts into connected digital assets, creating a more connected, efficient post-purchase experience for businesses and consumers.
"You can always tell when someone is only half listening because they're trying to write everything down at the same time. With the AI Mentoring Assistant taking care of that, I'm fully present in the conversation. I can ask better questions, engage more deeply, and get far more value from the time with my mentor.
And the Mentoring Assistant is wicked. It has literally saved me a job. After every meeting, I would normally replay the discussion and write notes from memory. Now the key takeaways and agreed actions are captured for me automatically, and they're incredibly accurate. For me, those actions are the most valuable part, and the summaries have been bang on every time."
AI curiosity
Something happens once a business owner sees their first Mentoring Assistant summary; actions at the top, key points clearly laid out, nothing to dig for. They start wondering what else AI could do for a business like theirs.
Carolyn Baines saw this play out with her mentor, Colin Bass. “Our Meeting Summaries were a real example of how AI can be so impactful. That demonstration was the turning point for me, I now use AI weekly across my business, from legal reviews to translating teaching materials."
Human-first, by design
Business owners also get access to a Digital Mentor, through their mentor. The Digital Mentor is a culmination of business insights from BMNZ Mentors. They use it live in mentoring sessions; to surface ideas, insights, and considerations tailored to that business, right there in the conversation. It's AI adoption demonstrated by someone the business owner already trusts.
The Digital Mentor unlocks great value, that adds to the mentoring experience. The Mentor is someone who already understands the business and can put AI's suggestions into context, rather than hand over a raw answer and hope it fits.
Business owners are acutely aware that AI advice without an experienced human lens can steer them wrong just as easily as it can help, particularly when the stakes are a real livelihood, not hypothetical. Keeping a trusted mentor in the loop is what makes the Digital Mentor a genuine catalyst.
"AI can be a brilliant thinking partner, but it doesn't know your business, and it certainly doesn't know when to push back," says Sarah Trotman, CEO of BMNZ. "That's the Mentor's job. We built the Digital Mentor to add value, not to replace the judgement Mentors bring to every conversation."
The ripple effect, in practice
The AI Mentoring Assistant and Digital Mentor already show what good use-case selection looks like. Neither is technically complex; a summary that leads with actions, an AI tool used well by a trusted mentor. But the ripple they create is real: business owners who follow through on agreed actions, and who leave every session a little more curious about what AI could do for them next. That's the outcome that matters, not the technology itself.
BMNZ are always happy to share their AI journey. Click here for some inspiration on how a small organisation has embraced AI into its business processes.
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