NZVA gives 80+ members a professional framework for using AI safely
The New Zealand Veterinary Association asked its members how they were really using AI, then commissioned a live session built directly on what came back. Members left with a way of working they could apply the next morning, and NZVA kept the recording as an ongoing resource for the profession.
80+
members attended live
2 hr
single session
60 days
first conversation to delivery
The opportunity
NZVA is the membership body for the veterinary profession in New Zealand, supporting members across clinical practice, industry, government and academia.
AI was already in the hands of NZVA members. It had arrived the way it arrives in most professions, one clinic and one curious practitioner at a time, without training and without a shared view of what safe use looks like.
Rather than assume what its members needed, NZVA asked them. The association surveyed the profession about how AI was being used, what was working, and what was making people uneasy. The picture that came back was of a membership already using these tools regularly and expecting to use them more, with appetite running ahead of confidence and almost all of the learning self-directed.
Members also raised sharp, specific concerns. Accuracy. The time cost of correcting AI-written notes. What happens to professional judgment when a machine offers an answer first. NZVA chose to build a session that answered those concerns directly rather than run a general introduction to a technology its members were already using.
- 01
NZVA surveys its members
The association asks the profession how AI is being used and where the worry sits.
- 02
The session is built from the responses
Chapter order, examples and emphasis all trace back to what members reported.
- 03
Delivered live, then retained
Two hours live online, recorded so the value outlasts the day.
The approach: one mental model first, then put it to work
First
The session set up a single way of thinking: AI as an intelligent intern rather than an oracle. Something you brief, direct and review, while you stay accountable for everything that leaves the clinic.
Then
From there, every chapter put that model to work: prompting taught as briefing a colleague, and review practised on the documents vets write every day.
You are the vet. It is the intern. The accountability stays with you, and that is exactly what makes you valuable.
Something to do every fifteen minutes
Two hours, live and online, structured so the room was doing something every fifteen minutes rather than watching slides. It opened by surfacing how members actually felt about AI and returned to that throughout.
The teaching ran on live demonstrations, including deliberately finding the faults in AI-generated work so members could see what reviewing as a professional looks like. It closed with an open floor where members raised their own use cases and worked them through live against the same framework.
Built on the members' own words
- The survey did the design work. The order of the chapters, the examples used and the weight given to each topic all came from what members had reported about their own practice.
- Concerns members raised were quoted back to the room and answered one by one, using the documents vets write every day, so nothing had to be translated from another industry.
- The session was platform agnostic and framed around the obligations members already carry, so safe use was taught as an extension of professional judgment rather than a separate compliance topic.
What was delivered
More than eighty members joined live from across the country, and the recording stays with NZVA as a resource for members who could not attend.
- Session designed from member survey
- Two hour live online delivery
- Live demonstrations
- Prompting framework
- Review and accountability model
- Recording retained for members
Loved the interactions. Garret is an awesome presenter.
What other associations can take from this
Ask the members first
NZVA surveyed the profession before anything was designed. That single step turned a general AI session into one that answered the questions members were actually holding.
Choose a framework over a product
NZVA kept the session platform agnostic. Members were given a way of working that still applies as tools change, rather than training tied to one vendor's release cycle.
Keep the asset
NZVA had the live session recorded. A single date in the calendar became a resource the association can put in front of members who could not attend.
Planning AI training for your members?
If you represent a profession, your members are already using AI. We build the session from their own words, so what they learn holds up against the standards they are accountable to.