Whakarongorau Aotearoa runs New Zealand’s free, 24/7 national telehealth services, supporting **more than 700,000 people a year** across **over 30 service lines** (including Healthline, 1737 Need to Talk?, Quitline, and family violence and sexual harm lines). To manage growing demand and complexity, the organisation is using a combination of **Microsoft Copilot Studio**, **Azure Agentic AI**, and **Microsoft 365 Copilot** to:

• Reduce admin workload: Copilot automatically summarises frontline interaction notes and speeds up back-office work. Tasks that used to take a week now take about an hour.
• Make knowledge easier to find: An internal Copilot Studio agent helps staff search across hundreds of clinical, non-clinical and technical policies, turning a previously slow, frustrating process into a quick lookup. Around 30% of the organisation now uses this agent.
• Support people while they wait: The Azure-based Welcome agent greets people using the 1737 SMS mental health service and Women’s Refuge webchat, gathers key details and keeps them engaged until a counsellor is available.

This approach helps Whakarongorau reimagine telehealth operations so clinicians can focus more of their time on direct care, while AI quietly handles preparation and routine tasks in the background.

Welcome is an AI-powered agent built on Microsoft Azure that supports people who reach out via the **1737 Need to Talk? SMS service** and the **Women’s Refuge webchat**. It is designed to:

• Provide an immediate response: Instead of “silence in the queue,” Welcome greets people as soon as they connect, so they know they’ve arrived and are being acknowledged.
• Gather key information: While the person is waiting, Welcome collects important details and context about their situation. This means that when a counsellor joins, they can start support faster, with the background already in front of them.
• Hold people safely in the queue: At-risk contacts (people at risk of harming themselves or others) have nearly doubled in five years, and mental health contacts now take about 50% longer on average. Welcome helps bridge that critical waiting period so fewer interactions end before they truly begin.

Welcome is not designed to diagnose, counsel or provide clinical advice. Instead, it “holds” people until they can speak with a human counsellor, helping ensure that the first moments of contact—often the most important in someone’s day, week, month or even life—are supported rather than silent.

Whakarongorau has deliberately built its AI program around **Te Ao Māori values** and clear operational guardrails. Key elements include:

• Te Korowai framework: This framework, grounded in Te Ao Māori, is built on manaakitanga (upholding the dignity and wellbeing of those served) and whanaungatanga (building strong relationships through connection, trust and belonging). It shaped how Welcome was introduced, with time to pause, reflect and avoid rushing deployment.
• Clear boundaries for AI:
  • People are always told whether they are interacting with AI or a human.
  • AI does not diagnose, counsel, treat or provide clinical advice.
  • Confidentiality, privacy and auditability are non-negotiable requirements.
• Co-design with frontline staff and lived experience: Whakarongorau follows a “we do with you, not to you” principle. Frontline kaimahi helped identify where AI could reduce time pressure and improve experience, and external organisations such as Changing Minds (a lived-experience advocacy group) contributed to the design and guardrails.
• Responsible rollout and adoption: Microsoft 365 Copilot is now used daily by 97% of licensed users, and staff have created channels to share prompts and tips. This supports consistent, informed use rather than ad hoc experimentation.

Together, these practices help Whakarongorau use AI to rethink telehealth workflows while keeping people, culture and safety at the centre of every decision.