About
One person, who will tell you when you don't need this.
I'm Zavier Taylor. I build AI systems for New Zealand firms through Taylor Consulting, based in Christchurch, alongside a civil engineering degree at Canterbury.
I came to this from engineering rather than from software. Civil at Canterbury: structures, materials, soil mechanics, which is the reason I can read your documents rather than merely process them. A producer statement, a monitoring report, a set of test results: I know what they are for and what makes one wrong, before any model touches them.
The AI came alongside it, building automation for New Zealand businesses, brief to deployment, on my own. Working across a dozen small firms teaches you quickly that the automation that survives is unglamorous and specific, not a clever general agent.
That’s also why I’m careful about what I sell. I know what these systems do well and where they fall over: reliable at drafting, extraction and answering from your own documents; unreliable at long chains of autonomous reasoning. A quote that ignores that difference is a quote that disappoints.
Being one person is the trade-off. You get someone who understands your work and answers his own phone, not an account manager. In return I keep a deliberately small number of clients, and I won’t take on a job I can’t support properly.
How I got here
Worth setting out, because the combination matters more than any one part of it. Engineering training and deployment experience running together is unusual among people selling this, and it is the reason I can read your documents.
- 2025 – present
Bachelor of Engineering (Hons), Civil
University of Canterbury · Christchurch
Structures, materials, fluid mechanics, soil mechanics, environmental engineering.
Chose civil because of the sites, not despite them. It is also why the consulting work is aimed at engineering and surveying firms first: I can read their documents.
- May 2025 – present
Junior AI Engineer
Harkness AI · Christchurch
Building AI automation for New Zealand businesses part-time alongside study: supplier comparison tools, bookkeeping automation, voice assistants. Brief to deployment, independently.
This is where the tooling came from. Working across a dozen small NZ businesses teaches you fast that the winning automation is usually unglamorous and specific, not a clever general agent.
- Jan 2026 – present
Director of Technology
UC AI Society · Christchurch
Elected at the society's inaugural AGM. Leading technical direction and connecting UC's engineering community with Christchurch's AI industry.
The tools that came out of all that are listed here with reasons attached.
Tell me what your firm spends too long on.
That’s the whole first conversation. No pitch deck, no obligation. If the honest answer is that you don’t need a private system, I’ll say so and point you somewhere cheaper.
Or put a time in the diary