AMA 2025 judging demographic breakdown

352 professionals, including artists, from across the Aotearoa music industry participated in judging for AMA 2025. Here's what this year's Judging Academy looked like:

Judges by gender
In 2025, 46.1% of judges identified as female or gender diverse. While there is more work to do to improve the gender balance, this is an encouraging result.

Judges by age
A wide range of ages are represented across the Judging Academy and specialist Schools. We are pleased to share that 33.9% of judges were under the age of 35 and that 61.6% were under the age of 45.

Judges by industry role
35.2% of judges in this year’s Academy included ‘artist’ as one of their roles. This means that people with lived experience of being an artist are playing a significant role in deciding AMA winners.

Judges by ethnicity
Judges were able to report multiple ethnicities when registering with us. The full breakdown of judges by ethnicity is set out below, using ethnic groupings as recognised by Stats NZ.

In 2025, 20.15% of judges whakapapa Māori. This includes the Mana Reo and Best Māori Artist categories, for which all judges are Māori.

Find out more about how AMA judging works here