Overview
Spencers manages maintenance and property services at scale across approximately 33,000 properties in the Auckland and Northland regions on behalf of Kainga Ora and Tamaki Regeneration. The business coordinates around 3,500 to 4,000 subcontractors through a bespoke job management system built over more than a decade.
The business is already highly systemised. Jobs are dispatched, managed and paid through long-standing internal processes supported by bespoke systems, helping Spencers operate efficiently in a low-margin, high-volume environment.
As leadership looked ahead, they saw AI not as a reaction to a single urgent problem, but as a strategic next step to unlock further efficiency and prepare the business for future growth. Because Spencers works with sensitive tenant and operational data on behalf of government-controlled housing providers, the priority was never simply to try AI. Instead, the focus was on exploring AI in a secure, ring-fenced way, one that allowed the organisation to control exactly what information the system could access, and avoid exposing personal or proprietary data to uncontrolled public tools.
SmartSpace was selected as the platform to provide that secure starting point, giving Spencers a practical way to move quickly, test real use cases, and build internal confidence in AI adoption.
The challenge
Executives
- Further improve efficiencies in a business with mature, well-established processes
- Prepare the organisation for future growth and new customer opportunities, without creating a large internal AI build effort
- Move decisively on AI, while maintaining clarity around security, cost and delivery
Board, Governance, Risk and Compliance
- Protect personal and private information in a ring-fenced environment
- Avoid staff using uncontrolled public AI tools in ways that could expose proprietary data
- Adopt AI in a way that supports responsible governance rather than creating new unmanaged risk
Technology Leaders
- Introduce AI without needing to build a bespoke secure environment from scratch
- Give non-technical users a practical starting point, while retaining control over what the system can access
- Create a platform that can support future use cases, not just a one-off experiment
Operational Teams and End Users
- Help users who are not naturally tech-savvy get value from AI tools
- Reduce reliance on colleagues for routine policy or process questions
- Make the chatbot easier to use, and help staff understand what it can and cannot do
The SmartSpace solution
Spencers adopted SmartSpace as a secure platform for practical AI deployment. In the context of Spencers' requirements, SmartSpace provided:
A secure, self-hosted environment for AI exploration
Aligned with the need to keep sensitive information protected and ensure the system only works from approved data.
A faster path to deployment
Rather than trying to design, secure and build an in-house solution from scratch, Spencers had a practical starting point ready quickly.
A foundation for an internal chatbot
Staff can start using the chatbot today, while the platform creates room for additional agents and workflows over time.
A structured rollout and enablement approach
Supported by training materials, feedback loops and workshops, helping Spencers build adoption progressively rather than expecting immediate results.
A platform model for future operational use cases
Including AI agents that summarise inbound emails, circulate updates and save knowledge into SharePoint for later retrieval.
How Spencers is using SmartSpace today
Internal AI chatbot
A chatbot has been implemented for internal users, with initial feedback mostly positive. The focus is now on improving usability and helping staff understand how to prompt it effectively and what information it can access.
Structured rollout and enablement
Spencers used its learning management system to create training materials on AI fundamentals and prompting, so users could learn at their own pace before wider use. Workshops were also run with tradespeople from the field to test appetite and identify practical operational use cases.
Foundation for future workflow automation
One of the clearest next opportunities identified is an agent that can summarise emails, circulate the relevant information, and store a copy in SharePoint so the chatbot can surface that knowledge later. Spencers is also exploring customer-facing possibilities such as an AI receptionist for tenant calls.
Outcomes
Executives
- A low-risk way to move on AI now, rather than waiting for the market to settle
- A clearer path to future efficiency gains in administration, internal support and information access
- Confidence that AI can be explored without creating a major internal build programme
Governance and Risk Leaders
- A more responsible approach to AI adoption, centred on security first
- Greater confidence that sensitive information can remain ring-fenced rather than leaking into uncontrolled public tools
- A practical example of governance enabling progress, not blocking it
Technology Decision Makers
- Rapid deployment of a secure AI capability, without needing to assemble the full infrastructure, manpower and specialist expertise internally
- A platform that can evolve from chatbot use into broader workflow automation as the business identifies higher-value use cases
- Strong vendor support through implementation and iteration
Operational Teams and End Users
- A governed way to start learning how AI can assist with day-to-day work
- Training and workshops that build adoption progressively, instead of assuming users already know how to work with AI
- The beginning of a shift away from always asking a colleague first, toward retrieving approved information directly
- Created a secure, practical starting point for AI inside the business
- Approached AI as an operational and governance decision, not a generic productivity experiment
- Kept sensitive tenant and operational data ring-fenced from uncontrolled public tools
- Built staff confidence through structured training and progressive enablement
- Established a platform foundation where higher-value use cases can be added over time
“Stop being on the fence and jump in. SmartSpace gave us a safe, secure and quick way to explore AI, with support from the team along the way.”