Kiwa Digital expands Indigenous language preservation platform CultureQ

The Kiwi digital outfit works to bridge the cultural divide using AI backed by Custom D and AWS.

New Zealand-based Indigenous technology company Kiwa Digital has expanded its CultureQ platform to include Te Ao Māori and Tongan language experiences.

CultureQ transforms language and other cultural archives into interactive, multimedia experiences using conversational AI capabilities, helping to preserve these important artefacts. It comes at a critical time, with 40 percent of the world's nearly 7,000 Indigenous languages at risk of disappearing, according to Unesco.

"Translation for us is a kūwaha, a doorway – not a whare or house. And revitalisation in the truest sense needs governance, context, intergenerational participation and community authority across the data and the guardian AI," said Steven Renata, MD, Kiwa Digital.

Users ask questions through voice or text and receive answers derived from community-approved iwi leaders that include cultural context such as audio of the spoken language geographical insights and interactive learning.

The SaaS platform is designed for Indigenous communities to share cultural “taonga” that includes songs and important stories to help language learners and preservice culture for the future.

Technology is only as good as the information that you bring into it, and we spend a lot of time making sure the information, which is often undocumented or in an audio file that needs transcribing, is correct,” said Renata, speaking at this week’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

The platform treats AI as a "kaitiaki" (guardian) of cultural information, only surfacing approved knowledge while protecting Indigenous perspectives. All cultural and sensitive data remains encrypted and secure, and Indigenous communities retain full control over how their cultural knowledge is accessed, used and shared.

“For Indigenous groups, data sovereignty is a major concern and it’s why we get trust first before we progress into technical and commercial conversations,” he told CRN Australia.

It’s why engagements begin with face-to-face conversations to develop relationships and build trust between the business and these communities.

“We're there to introduce ourselves with Kanohi ki te kanohi and start by understanding their aspirations over next X amount of years,” he said.

CultureQ has been developed with AWS partner Custom D built on Amazon Bedrock, its generative AI platform that provides access to multiple AI models and customisations.

Kiwa Digital leveraged AWS Māori Data Lens, which helps organisations incorporate Māori data perspectives when architecting their AWS environment.

Kiwa Digital is engaging with communities across Aotearoa, the Pacific and Australia and plans to announce a local Queensland distributor in the coming months. It’s also in discussions with Indigenous communities in Australia and the US about potential collaborations to preserve and share their languages through CultureQ.

“I’m in touch with a lot of groups across the country and we see a lot happening with First Nations communities,” he ended.

Rosalyn Page travelled to AWS Re:Invent 2025 as a guest of AWS.