Sovata is a private AI company headquartered in New Zealand, helping organisations worldwide deploy private AI in their own infrastructure. Protect sensitive data, keep complete control of your AI, and scale AI with confidence.
30 minutes · No obligation · Headquartered in New Zealand, supporting organisations worldwide
Clients & ventures we’ve built for
Healthcare is one of the most demanding environments for AI: sensitive data, strict governance, no tolerance for improvisation. Here is how Sovata designed, deployed and governs a private AI assistant for a healthcare organisation. Client identity withheld — the architecture and governance model are exactly what we deliver.
A healthcare organisation needed AI that could operate inside strict clinical governance:
Sovata deployed a governed private AI assistant inside the organisation’s own environment, integrated into daily workflows:
Production deployment architecture — not a pilot harness:
A fully private deployment — nothing leaves the environment the organisation governs:
What changed for the organisation once the deployment went live — operational results, under the organisation’s own governance.
Answers drawn from approved organisational knowledge in seconds instead of minutes spent searching systems or waiting on the right person.
Repetitive administrative workflows automated, returning skilled time to the work that requires human judgement.
The same governed, on-policy answer every time — consistency that matters in a regulated operating environment.
Routine processes move faster end to end, with fewer handoffs and less re-keying between systems.
The organisation — not a vendor — controls the data, the access rules and the boundaries the AI operates within.
Staff make decisions with sourced, current organisational knowledge in front of them, while accountability stays human.
The clearest evidence of a deployment partner is systems running in production. Voorna and Luniby Farm are worked examples of Sovata’s deployment methodology — and below them, what the people behind each deployment say about working with us.
These are not products Sovata sells. They are production systems we architected and deployed end to end — with the same secure infrastructure, role-based access, governed data handling and workflow automation we bring to enterprise clients.
A worked example of Sovata’s deployment methodology: secure production architecture, role-based access, governed data handling and integrated payments — deployed end to end and architected for AI orchestration and automation.
Read the case study →
A worked example of Sovata’s deployment methodology in the field: structured data architecture, role-based access, secure cloud sync and business process automation — the same governed foundation Sovata builds for enterprise AI and knowledge retrieval.
Read the case study →Real feedback from organisations we’ve partnered with. Published with permission.
Sovata AI feels like an extension of our own team. They’re responsive, knowledgeable, and always focused on finding the best solution for the business, not just the technology.
Sovata AI helped us turn complex ideas into practical solutions. Their team is professional, collaborative, and genuinely cares about delivering the right outcome. I’d confidently recommend them to any organisation looking to adopt AI.
The question is no longer whether your organisation adopts AI — it's whether you adopt it on your terms or a vendor's. Four risks come up in almost every boardroom conversation we have:
Vendor-hosted AI processes your information on infrastructure you don’t own, in jurisdictions you don’t govern, under terms you didn’t write. If your data can’t leave your control, most cloud AI is off the table before you start.
Providers retire and replace models on their schedule, not yours. Prompts and workflows tuned to one version can stop working the day it’s deprecated — and you find out after it happens.
Building critical operations on a single AI vendor means inheriting their pricing changes, roadmap pivots and outages — with no practical way to switch once you’re embedded.
Usage-metered pricing punishes success: the more your people adopt AI, the larger — and less predictable — the bill becomes. Forecasting next year’s spend turns into guesswork.
A private AI instance is an AI system that runs inside infrastructure you control — your own servers or your own cloud tenancy — instead of a shared public platform. Sovata designs and operates yours end to end: knowledge retrieval grounded in your approved sources, workflow automation shaped to your processes, and an architecture your IT and security teams can inspect line by line.
You’re already using it. The assistant in the bottom-right corner runs on the exact governed architecture we’d deploy for you — grounded only in approved knowledge, with nothing leaving the boundary.
Security, data ownership, governance and privacy aren’t features we add at the end — they’re the architecture. Here’s what that means in practice.
Security is designed in from the first boundary conversation, not bolted on after go-live.
How this works →Your data — and everything derived from it — stays yours. We don’t train on it or reuse it elsewhere.
How this works →Built so you can change model, provider or direction without a rebuild — and without us holding the keys.
How this works →Explicit rules for what the AI can do, must escalate, and must never do — agreed before deployment.
How this works →Privacy by design: the system only sees what it needs, and only surfaces what it’s allowed to.
How this works →Operated, monitored and improved after launch — a production system, not a proof of concept.
How this works →You don't need an internal AI team. Your leadership sees a structured, low-risk path to a working system; your IT and security teams see the architecture, governance boundaries and access model at every step — most first deployments go live in 6–12 weeks.
See the full deployment process →
We find the work that is slow, repetitive or knowledge-heavy — where private AI delivers the most value with the least risk. One conversation, not a three-month discovery phase.
Data rules, access controls, escalation points and what the AI must never do — agreed with your stakeholders before a single line of code is written.
We structure, test and validate the content your AI will draw on, so it answers accurately and stays inside your approved boundaries.
We launch inside your environment, onboard your team, monitor performance and keep governance live. The people who built it stay involved well beyond go-live.
The operational improvements a governed AI deployment typically delivers. Every engagement is baselined before go-live — so your result is measured against your own starting point, not a projection.
20–40%less administrative work
Reduce repetitive administrative tasks through intelligent automation so teams can focus on higher-value work.
Secondsto governed answers
Transform internal knowledge retrieval from minutes to seconds using governed AI search across approved company knowledge.
50–80%less manual data entry
Automate repetitive data capture and information handling across business processes.
30–70%of repetitive workflows automated
Streamline repetitive business processes using AI orchestration and workflow automation.
24/7AI assistance
Provide continuous AI support for employees and customers without increasing headcount.
100%data under your governance
Deployed inside your environment, your organisation retains full control over data, infrastructure, security policies and access.
We support open-weight models, self-hosted deployments and API-based models under your governance. The model is your choice — the control remains yours.
Whether a deployment runs an open-weight model on your own hardware or a frontier model through a governed API, the boundaries, access rules and data never leave your control — the deployment architecture, not any individual LLM, is the product.
The reason data can’t leave your control differs by sector — but the answer keeps the same shape. Pick yours.
Patient information sits under the Health Information Privacy Code. Sending it to a vendor-hosted model is often a non-starter before the conversation even begins.
Clinical knowledge search, triage support and summaries — inside your infrastructure, with a clinician on every decision that carries consequence.
Sovereign AI for healthcare & health services →
How are NZ businesses actually using AI — and what’s holding them back? Five minutes, anonymous, and you get the full report before public release.
Clear, practical guides on private AI, data sovereignty, governance and adoption — written by the team that does the deployments.
Up to $15,000 in government co-funding (50%) to help New Zealand businesses adopt AI. How the AI Advisory Pilot works, who’s eligible, how to apply, and how to turn a funded plan into a working system.
What an AI receptionist can and can’t do, what it costs, and the questions to ask before you buy one.
Sovereign AI, from national strategy to your own server room — what the term means and why it’s driving procurement decisions.
Sovata's leadership team combines enterprise AI strategy, responsible AI governance and hands-on production delivery — experience earned at IBM, in banking data governance, and building governed AI for healthcare.
Sovata is a new company — the experience behind it isn’t. And there's no bait-and-switch: the people you meet in discovery are the people who design, build and run your deployment.
Award-winning business leader and pioneer in responsible AI. Alan combines enterprise leadership with deep technical expertise, helping organisations adopt AI safely, strategically, and at scale. He previously trained at IBM and co-founded Mission Ready and Wonderbean.
Tracey specialises in responsible AI, public sector engagement, and community leadership. With 16 years at Kiwibank and extensive experience across Pacific communities, she helps organisations implement AI that is ethical, inclusive, and trusted.
Every engagement begins with a free discovery call, and each stage de-risks the next — you know the cost and the case before you commit to anything. If private AI isn't the right fit, we'll tell you in the first conversation.
A 30-minute conversation to find out whether private AI makes sense for your organisation — and an honest "no" if it doesn’t.
Free · 30 minutes
A structured working session that turns AI interest into a prioritised roadmap and a clear recommendation for your first deployment.
Fixed fee, quoted upfront · half or full day
We design, build and operate your private AI instance — built to your boundaries, trained on your knowledge, owned by you.
Scoped per organisation · project-based, not per-seat
No. Sovata AI works with organisations of all sizes — we partner with startups, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, enterprises and government organisations. You don’t need a large IT department or an enterprise budget to benefit from AI. Every solution is tailored to your business goals, infrastructure, security requirements and budget, and many clients begin with a small pilot project and scale over time. If a simpler option is a better fit for you, we’ll tell you honestly.
It’s priced in three clear stages, not as a per-seat subscription. AI Discovery is free, the AI Readiness Workshop is a fixed fee quoted upfront, and a full Private AI Deployment is scoped per organisation after that workshop. Cost depends on your data volume, governance complexity, infrastructure and the integrations you need — so you get a genuine range and the factors behind it before committing to anything. Running costs are typically fixed and predictable once the system is built.
Your data stays inside infrastructure you control — your own servers or your own cloud tenancy — and is processed there rather than sent to an external provider. Data residency is agreed before any build begins, so if your data must remain in a specific country or region, that’s designed in from day one. Sovata is headquartered in New Zealand and can guarantee local data residency wherever it’s required.
Yes. A private AI instance can be deployed inside your own Microsoft Azure tenancy and connected to the systems you already run — SharePoint, document management, CRM, ticketing and more — with access controlled entirely by you. We map exactly which integrations you need during the AI Readiness Workshop, so the system fits your existing workflows rather than forcing you to change them.
Most organisations go from workshop to a working system in 6–12 weeks. The exact timeline depends on the complexity of your use case, your data and your governance requirements. We give you an honest estimate once we understand what you’re trying to solve — not an optimistic one — and many clients start with a focused pilot that delivers value quickly before scaling further.
Yes — you own all of it. The deployment runs inside infrastructure you control, your data is processed there rather than sent to an external provider, and you keep full ownership of your data, your knowledge base and the governed system itself. We design, build and operate it for you, but it belongs to you. There’s no vendor lock-in and no dependency on a shared external platform.
Sovata AI works across professional services, public sector and government, healthcare, education, financial services and other regulated or knowledge-heavy industries. Our approach suits any organisation that handles sensitive information or relies on internal expertise and needs to keep that data under its own control. Because every deployment is tailored to your context and governance requirements, the same governed approach adapts to the rules of your specific sector.
Public AI tools are excellent for general productivity, but they process your data on infrastructure you don’t own, under terms you didn’t write. A private AI instance runs inside your own environment, so your data never leaves your control, costs stay predictable, and provider updates can’t silently break your workflows. You control the model, the access rules and the governance — which is the most secure and defensible way to adopt AI with sensitive data.
Explore our complete knowledge base covering pricing, implementation, integrations, security, compliance, AI governance, support and deployment.
Thirty minutes, free, no preparation required. Tell us what you're trying to solve; we'll tell you honestly whether private AI is the right answer — and exactly what the next step would cost if it is.
Deployed inside infrastructure you control — designed around the data-residency and governance obligations that apply to you.
We intentionally limit the number of active deployments we run at any one time, so every client receives direct senior involvement throughout implementation. We'll reply within one business day to arrange a time.
SOVATA