I promised to respond to questions about AI for this weekly column.  A good place to start is with the obvious question. What exactly is AI and am I already using it?

Many people automatically associate AI with products like ChatGPT or Claude. Some think they are just more sophisticated versions of Google. But there is an important difference. Google traditionally helps you find information that already exists somewhere on the internet. ChatGPT and Claude are examples of generative AI. They have been trained using enormous amounts of information and have learned patterns from that information. When you ask them a question, they use those patterns to generate a response rather than simply looking up and copying an answer from a website.

But you were probably using AI long before you had heard of ChatGPT. Some examples include Google maps, spam filters, Netflix recommendations, facial recognition on your smart phone, banking fraud detection. Sometimes you may not even know that it is being used. When your bank spots an unusual transaction, AI may help to decide whether it matches your previous banking patterns. Your phone can recognise faces in your photographs and navigation apps predict journey times and best routes. AI is also being used in places where it is less visible. AI is analysing X rays and scans. Doctors are using AI to transcribe your conversations into medical notes.

So AI is more than ChatGPT. Increasingly, it is simply part of the technology that now operates quietly in the background of everyday life.

Look out for the next weeks chapter of our AI conversation and don’t forget to send in your questions through the Upper Hutt Connection and I will answer them.

email The Upper Hutt Connection at editor@uhconnection.co.nz

Heather Newell

AI Researcher

A “thank you” to Heather Newell for sending this article to The Upper Hutt Connection.

28/09/26