The industry speaks – part 3: AI Appreciation Day 2026

Cybercriminals are quickly adapting, exploiting vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and credentials with AI-driven tactics and techniques. These include attacks such as data poisoning, manipulation of machine learning models, or the use of AI to conduct highly sophisticated cyberattacks. In addition, integrating AI tools into hybrid architectures can lead to inconsistencies in security protocols if not carefully governed.

In the cyber security arena, AI has shifted the advantage to the attacker, enabling nefarious players to attack with unprecedented scale and speed. Organisations are now adapting by using cybersecurity vendors that provide production-safe AI to continuously test their controls. For defenders, it is time to fight AI with AI. Adopting a proactive, monitoring approach is critical for building trustworthy AI systems and avoiding future costly retrofits or compliance failures. At the same time, effectively communicating complex AI risks to business leaders and boards is essential. IT and cybersecurity risks, including those associated with AI, are no longer optional considerations – they are strategic imperatives.

Pieter Danhieux
Co-Founder and CEO, Secure Code Warrior

The challenges with AI implementation, constant updates, and the race for industry dominance are coming thick and fast, and security professionals are among the most affected by its vast risk profile. It's a fascinating, slightly terrifying time to be in the cybersecurity space, as we really have a two-pronged issue: AI coding tools contain inherent, predictable vulnerability fingerprints that can push insecure code to production at warp speed, and we have tools that can potentially revolutionise how we approach everything from penetration testing to reverse engineering insidious attacks and stopping them in their tracks.

If there is one thing to truly appreciate in this era, it's how we can work together, as the tight-knit community we have always been, to create human-led, AI-augmented cyber innovation that is a force for positive change, safer software overall, and a whole new era for developers and security professionals alike to grow and apply their expertise where it matters most. It will take leaps and bounds in AI governance, oversight, and upskilling, but I remain excited for the sheer possibility in the space.

Tanya Bragin
VP of Product and Marketing, ClickHouse

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Australian organisations shouldn't see AI as just another workload on top of their data platform. It substantially changes workload requirements across every existing use case.

Applications are becoming agentic. Analytics interfaces are becoming conversational. Observability is moving from static dashboards to AI-driven investigation. The list goes on. In each case, the underlying data requirements converge on high concurrency, real-time query performance, full-fidelity data at scale, and cost-efficiency.

Incumbent platforms weren't built for this. The platform choices Australian organisations make in the next few years will set the ceiling on everything that follows: how fast teams move, what products get built, what the business can see. Handling today's workloads is table stakes. The real test is what your AI applications will require.

Jay Tuseth
Vice President & General Manager APJ, Nutanix

A year ago, agentic AI in Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) was mostly confined to pilots. Today, 75 per cent of APJ organisations have already deployed it in at least some initiatives – real proof of how fast this technology has scaled. Yet moving fast is not the same as moving safely, and a lot of enterprises are trying to run that bullet train on tracks built for steam engines.

Three things are putting AI infrastructure to the test. Shadow AI is one: 79 per cent of global organisations already have AI applications or agents running outside IT's knowledge. Sovereignty is another, with 80 per cent now calling data sovereignty a high infrastructure priority. And then there's legacy gravity, as most enterprises run agentic AI on top of decades-old systems never built for autonomous agents working at this speed.

None of this is a reason to slow down – it's a reason to get the basics right.

Adam Frank
Vice President and General Manager APAC, SugarAI

As organisations race to implement AI, AI Appreciation Day is a chance to sit back, take stock of those decisions, and ask a critical question; why are we implementing AI?

No serious business is implementing AI to automate customer service via a chatbot and calling it a day. Sure, this is something AI can do, but the reason AI is even considered in the first place is usually to drive the business forward. Automating customer service doesn’t move the needle.

What does make an impact is when AI is used to improve commercial outcomes or deliver outsized productivity gains.

Kristen Pimpini (KP)
VP and General Manager APJ at Workiva

AI has crossed the line from buzzword to business-critical, reshaping how teams handle financial reporting, sustainability, audit, and risk. Despite the many forward-looking claims coming from across the tech sector, the change is already underway. Workiva’s 2026 Executive Benchmark Survey found 64 per cent of Australian organisations were applying AI to parts of their quarterly and annual disclosures this year, while 55 per cent now rely on AI heavily throughout the reporting cycle.

The exhausting reporting seasons of long hours, repetitive tasks, and mounting pressure are giving way to something far more manageable, and the people living this shift are feeling the difference. Teams are developing trust in the tools with 75 per cent of organisations putting their AI models through internal audit scrutiny. Even if it is just small pockets of time handed back to reporting professionals it is genuinely valuable, and allows them to redirect their focus on strategic work moving the business forward.

Ben Mudie
Field CTO, Asia Pacific and Japan, Tenable

Melbourne Business School's 2025 global trust-in-AI research found 60 per cent of Australian workers have concealed their AI use from their employer, and 48 per cent admit to breaching company policy by entering sensitive data into public AI tools. Separate research published this month by Employment Hero found one in three Australian workers are using AI at work without their employer knowing at all. That’s not a handful of edge cases. That’s a shadow AI footprint most boards can’t see, let alone govern and it’s the same ‘reasonable steps’ question the OAIC is now actively testing under the Privacy Act.

We saw this exact failure mode with rushed cloud migrations a decade ago: convenience outran governance, and organisations spent years unwinding the exposure. This time it's happening faster, and at a far greater scale.

This isn't an argument against AI. Its benefits are real. But Australian businesses are building an exponential future on a fragile foundation, and AI Appreciation Day is a reasonable moment to ask whether anyone in the organisation actually owns that risk.

Steve Yurisich
Regional Managing Director APAC, Thoughtworks

As AI becomes embedded across every business function, success will depend less on the sophistication of individual models and more on how effectively organisations integrate AI into everyday work, maintain human judgement and deliver outcomes that are transparent and trustworthy.

The next chapter of AI won’t be defined by who can generate the most content or automate the most tasks. It will be defined by who can combine human expertise with AI to solve meaningful problems, improve customer experiences and create lasting business value.

That’s what I appreciate on AI Appreciation Day.

Not AI replacing people, but AI helping people achieve outcomes that simply weren’t possible before.

James Patrick-Evans
Founder and CEO of RevEng.ai

Artificial Intelligence has rapidly evolved from a productivity tool into a force multiplier for cybersecurity teams. In software development, AI is accelerating coding by helping developers generate, review, and optimize code at unprecedented speed. This allows security professionals to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time focusing on designing resilient systems, identifying architectural risks, and embedding security throughout the software development lifecycle. As AI-assisted development becomes the norm, the opportunity to build secure applications faster has never been greater.

The same transformation is happening in cybersecurity. Security Operations Centres (SOCs) are increasingly using AI to correlate vast amounts of telemetry, prioritise alerts, identify anomalous behaviour, and automate investigations that would otherwise consume valuable analyst time. Rather than replacing human expertise, AI amplifies it — helping defenders detect threats earlier, respond faster, and stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated adversaries who are also leveraging AI to scale their attacks. The future of cyber defence is a positive one and will belong to organisations that successfully combine AI-driven automation with skilled human judgment.

Markus Nispel
CTO EMEA and Head of AI Engineering, Extreme Networks

AI has transformed every stage of my work from research to execution. It helps me identify risks, keep initiatives on track and, when used correctly, can accelerate the journey from an idea to a demonstrable prototype. It's a fundamentally different way of innovating. While it does not invent anything by itself, it does supercharge human creativity. It doesn't just answer questions but challenges assumptions, connects ideas, and helps turn early thinking into something worth building. Another big advantage is how quickly it can synthesise information. Company assessments for partnership and M&A considerations that once took days can now be completed in hours, freeing me to focus on strategy, judgment and where I can add the most value.

AI is transforming leadership by giving leaders better data, deeper insight, and greater transparency. But while AI can inform decisions, it can't own them. Leadership will always be about judgment, accountability and the courage to make the final call. AI won't change every role in the same way, but it consistently frees people from time-consuming tasks so they can focus on higher-value work. We're already seeing experienced teams use AI to deliver significantly greater productivity – particularly in software development – while improving both quality and speed. The greatest opportunity isn't replacing human expertise; it's amplifying it.

Philippe Deblois
VP, Global Solutions Engineering, Dynatrace

AI Appreciation Day is a chance to recognise the progress organisations have made, but also to be realistic about what's next. While investment continues to grow, around half of agentic AI initiatives are still in the proof-of-concept or pilot stage. That's a reflection of where the market is today. Organisations can see the opportunity, but they're taking a measured approach as they work out how to deploy these systems in ways that are secure, reliable and practical.

The conversation has also matured. It's no longer centered on what AI could do, but where it can solve genuine operational challenges and support better, faster decision-making. As these systems take on more responsibility, trust becomes less of a nice-to-have and more of an operational requirement.

As we look ahead, AI must be treated as a strategic capability, not just another tool. Success depends on a strong foundation of high-quality data, clearly defined objectives and a focus on measurable business outcomes. Organisations that achieve fully autonomous digital ecosystems will be those that begin with a clear purpose and build on trust, transparency and demonstrable business value.

MJ Robotham
Director, APAC at NinjaOne

AI Appreciation Day is a timely reminder that the conversation around Artificial Intelligence has changed. It has shifted from whether or not organisations should adopt AI, to where it can deliver the greatest operational value.

Most IT teams in the country are already realising the value of AI by reducing the manual work that slows them down. They are managing a greater number of endpoints, applications and security risks than ever before, often without additional resources. AI can help reduce that operational burden by automating repetitive tasks, improving visibility across increasingly complex environments and giving IT teams more time to focus on strategic initiatives that move the business forward.

As AI adoption accelerates, businesses need to be more judicious in its deployment. The greatest return comes from applying AI to solve specific operational challenges while maintaining the visibility and control needed to keep environments secure.