A quick snapshot of the usage of the Māori language in the New Zealand Artificial Intelligence communities, while also celebrating The Māori Language Week for 2025.
Translations for Artificial Intelligence
There are a number of Māori words that are used to say Artificial Intelligence in the Māori language. The reason there are so many is that there is no central authority that creates new terms and distributes the new terminology.
Having multiple Māori words for new terms has been common from at least 1997 when new terms were created by Māori in the industry to be able to converse in Māori language about their work and and academics and teachers to teach courses in immersion classes.
Gradually over time certain words become the mainstream words and others simply stop being used.
- Hinengaro Hiko (Community) Translated as “Hinengaro= Deity of conscious, thoughts and more recently mind, thought, intellect, consciousness, awareness” and “hiko = electrical, power, electronic, electric.”
- Hinengaro Rorohiko (Māori Language Commission/Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori) Translated as “Hinengaro= Deity of conscious, thoughts and more recently mind, thought, intellect, consciousness, awareness” and “Rorohiko – Computer (roro=brain; hiko electricity)
- Hinengaro hori (Ian Cormack) Translated as “Hinengaro= Deity of conscious, thoughts and more recently mind, thought, intellect, consciousness, awareness” and “hori=false”.
- Atamai Iahiko (AUT gifted to the AI Forum) Translated as Translated as “atamai = knowing, quick-witted, ready, intelligent and iahiko = electrical current.”
- Atamai hangahanga (Pae Kupu) Translated as “atamai – be knowing, intelligent; hangahanga – to build, create)”
- Te Mahara (Waikato University) used in the name Te Ipu o Te Mahara. Maybe not a direct translation but a te Ao Māori way of expressing Artificial Intelligence.
All of the above are acceptable words, but the Māori Language Commission’s translation might be considered too narrow as it could be interpreted as AI in a computer by some.
However, it should be noted that if speaking in the Māori language, you should not refer to AI in English (A and I) as this is a Māori word referring to intimacy and your conversation may take on a different perspective than what you had intended.
Māori names
Māori names are also proving top be popular with tech companies who offer AI services. From June 2025:
At least 7 non Māori owned New Zealand companies had Māori names with one spelt incorrectly using a singular version of the word, but translated in plural form.
Data Centres that use Māori names including Mātai the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) data centre “A key partner in this build has been with mana whenua Ngati Whātua o Kaipara who have generously gifted the name Mātai to the building. The name comes from the site of an ancestral Pā, Rangi Mātai at Ōtakanini in South Kaipara and from where you can see in all directions.”
Also, Datacom’s Kapua (Cloud) Data Centre and Indigenous owned Data Centre Gambarra Kaha.
National organisations and at least one company have bi lingual names, including:
- Institute of AI Governance Ltd – Te Whare Wānanga o Hinengaro
- Te Kāhui – Atamai Iahiko o Aotearoa
- Te Ipu o Te Mahara – Artificial Intelligence Institute (University of Waikato)
- Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence – Te Whiri Kawe
Cyber Squatting of Māori names
On a not so positive note, we are witnessing wide spread cultural appropriation and cyber squatting of Māori words with the introduction of the dot ai domain name. Again, cybersquatting of Māori domain names was wide spread in 2001 when the worlds first Indigenous domain name .maori.nz was created. One prolific example was a business who on the day of release, registered tens of tribal and common terms in the .maori.nz space and then offered them for sale at up to 1000 times the original price.
As of May, 2025 the public .AI Zone File showed 70,926 registered .ai domain names. At a quick glance, 15 cybersquatted Māori names were identified including: Aotearoa, iwi, marae, tereo, kura, koha, taonga, reo, hapu, TameIti.
There also appears to be a number of Māori words that have begun the process for a TradeMark and for what ever reason, the process was not continued or denied.
Some of the names (current at July 25, 2025) include: AI Aotearoa, AI-WAKA (Poutini), W.ai and AI Tearoa. The later appears to be a play on the word Aotearoa.
In New Zealand we have a Māori Trademarks Advisory committee who approve and decline Māori related Trademarks. It is possible that this is the reason for the low amount of Trademark registrations that relate to Māori.
Conclusion
There are many ways to express the term “Artificial Intelligence” in the Māori language, some using mātauranga Māori, while others creative translations.
The important point to note is that the Māori language continues to be integrated into everyday society and emerging technologies, further normalising the language and realising the dreams of decades of Māori language advocates who fought and petitioned for the Māori language to be normalised.