With AI code generation already well understood, businesses are also leaning on natural language processing and agentic AI to help their experts such as data engineers and data scientists automate their work more effectively.

What does all this mean for businesses looking to adopt AI? And how is the UK AI market maturing?

In this episode, recorded on the ground at Databricks AI Days London 2026, Rory speaks to Michael Green, UK&I managing director at Databricks and Richard Shaw, AVP Field Engineering at Databricks, to better understand how data and AI are converging.

Read more:

• What is natural language processing?
• ‘A true vote of confidence’: Databricks announces $850m UK investment as firm looks to quadruple London office footprint
• "We want AI to work for Britain": The UK government wants to upskill 10 million Brits in AI by 2030 – and the courses are free to access
• The UK’s AI ambitions depend on channel partners
• Microsoft says fear of falling behind is driving an AI arms race among UK businesses – and it's fueling record adoption rates
• Databricks wants to train 100,000 people in AI across the UK and Ireland – here's how to get involved

In the past week, speakers from across the cybersecurity industry came together at RSAC Conference to warn about the latest threats facing businesses. Some warned that just as AI agents are becoming an opportunity for leaders, they’re also becoming a potential threat vector.

Also this month, Arm has unveiled its first in-house chip, the Arm AGI CPU. What does it mean, and is this a win for UK tech?

In this episode Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack some of the biggest news items from throughout March.

Read more:

• Safe AI adoption rests on cybersecurity professionals, says RSAC chairman
• Enterprises need to think of agents as ‘digital co-workers’ – and that means implementing the same security safeguards
• Observability will be key to agentic AI safety, says Microsoft Security exec
• The key risks security teams face in 2026
• Tenable co-CEO Stephen Vintz says enterprises need to get serious about tackling the AI “responsibility gap”
• Systems are deterministic, people are probabilistic – AI is both, and that's a headache for cyber teams

As RAM prices skyrocket, businesses are under pressure to make device purchases that count and that will future-proof their workers for years to come. Both Apple and manufactures in the Windows ecosystem are vying for enterprise money in the budget and pro segments – even as it becomes more expensive than ever to spec devices to 16GB of memory and beyond.

Where does the latest Apple release fit into the wider business laptop ecosystem?

This week, Rory speaks to Bobby Hellard, ITPro’s reviews editor, to unpack all things MacBook Neo, Windows laptops, and the future of business hardware.

Read more:

1. MacBook Neo: everything you need to know about Apple's £599 laptop
2. The MacBook Neo is another Apple master stroke, and it couldn’t have come at a better time
3. Low-budget devices are the biggest casualty of the RAM crisis
4. Give businesses more practical AI services and some return on investment before you go selling 6G
5. Lenovo wows at MWC with concepts for a modular ThinkBook and desktop AI-devices
6. AMD thinks ‘AI on the PC has crossed an important line’ – the rise of ‘Agent Computers’ will be the next big breakthrough
7. Are AI PCs becoming the norm?
8. Nobody asked for AI PCs, but they’ve been thrust upon us – at least Dell realizes it’s probably made a mistake

Few professionals could arguably benefit from this more than teachers, who spend many of their evenings and weekend hours completing paperwork and carrying out marking.

How is AI already being used to free up time for teachers, and what can we learn from exemplar organizations leading the way on this path?

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with AWS, Jane and Rory are joined by Scott Hayden, head of teaching, learning and digital at Basingstoke College of Technology, to explore how the college has deployed AI to support its teaching staff.

Read more:

1. Basingstoke College of Technology
2. Perform Partners
3. Helping BCoT Secure $25K Credits to Accelerate AI Growth: How OGVA Enables Innovation in Further Education

As attackers look to lure in business professionals with new tech such as deepfakes and AI scams, enterprise cybersecurity teams and cybersecurity vendors are faced with the task of combatting cyber fraud more effectively.

How can we combat this new frontier of cyber fraud?

In this episode, Jane is joined by Paul Weathersby, chief product officer, Identity, Fraud & Financial Crime Compliance at Experian, to explore the increasing sophistication of cyber crime and fraud campaigns.

It’s International Women’s Day 2026 – and the rate of women hired in tech continues to lag far behind that of men. As hiring teams turn to AI tools to automatically field candidates, we’re at something of a crossroads – do we fix the bias inherent in hiring? Or simply replicate it at scale with similarly biased AI tools?

In this episode, Jane are Rory are joined by Clare Hickie, EMEA CTO at Workday, to discuss how businesses can engage in bias-free talent acquisition in the age of AI.

Amid growing fears of AI stealing jobs, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has claimed that firms are simply using the technology as an excuse for mass layoffs. Earlier this month, a series of Anthropic releases drove stocks down at a range of companies – all tied to fears that the SaaS model might be on its way out.

Also this month, Pure Storage has rebranded as Everpure – what’s behind this decision and what does it say about the company’s strategy going forward?

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of February’s biggest stories.

Read more:

1. Sam Altman just said what everyone is thinking about AI layoffs
2. Why Anthropic sent software stocks into freefall
3. Anthropic says Claude Code can help streamline 'cost-prohibitive' COBOL modernization, but IBM says it's not that simple
4. What might cause the 'AI bubble' to burst – and what impact would that have on the business world?
5. Pure Storage snaps up 1touch in data management pivot

Indeed while we’ve spoken about the need for digital sovereignty before, recent geopolitical developments have cast the debate in far starker light. With European governments and businesses leaning heavily into digital sovereignty, it’s clear there’s an emerging race to secure critical workloads.

Just how important will digital sovereignty be in 2026?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss all things digital sovereignty – how it’s being realized, the scale of the transformation, and how we could see things play out.

Read more:

1. Sovereign infrastructure spend to triple in Europe as fifth of workloads stay local
2. What is a sovereign cloud?
3. Sovereign cloud services are now the “bare minimum” expected by customers, and hyperscalers are scrambling to meet demand
4. What the new AWS European Sovereign Cloud means for enterprises
5. What the new Microsoft Sovereign Cloud push means for European customers
6. CIOs wrestle with Europe's new digital sovereignty approach
7. Can the UK achieve AI sovereignty?

But risk management can’t always be about bailing out the sinking ship. Sooner or later, businesses need to integrate their risk management systems and connect teams together via a centralized framework.

What are the benefits of overhauling risk management in this manner? And how can it be achieved?

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Qualys, Rory is joined by Ivan Milenkovic, VP Risk Technology EMEA at Qualys, to explore how businesses can reduce the burden on C-suite executives and improve their overall resilience by restructuring their approach to risk management.

Read more:

1. Risk Operations Center (ROC) | Qualys

Cyber attacks can feel a layer detached from the real world. Yes, businesses frequently see IP stolen, get frozen out of systems, or have data wiped by malicious actors. But if you haven’t got your finger on the pulse, cyber attacks can also fail to register in your day to day.

But there are instances where cyber attacks come crashing into the lives of everyday people, and become impossible to ignore: when attackers go after critical infrastructure and operational technology. Breaches and malware attacks at power and water plants, against core supply chain organizations, or against transport networks can all cause catastrophic damage, enormous financial losses – and even lead to deaths.

In this episode, Rory speaks with Magpie Graham, technical director of intel and services at Dragos, to discuss attacks on operational technology, critical infrastructure, and the future of large-scale cyber attacks.

Read more:

1. What is operational technology – and why is it at risk?
2. Manufacturing firms are struggling to handle rising OT security threats
3. When everything connects, everything’s at risk
4. Former NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bare
5. CISA shares lessons learned from Polish power grid hack – and how to prevent disaster striking again

Initially, the focus was on IoT devices, which were exploding in the enterprise environment. But recent years have brought an onslaught of AI tools and AI agents, all of which come with security and governance complications.

How can business leaders get a grip on the adoption of AI agents, particularly as these tools begin to communicate with one another and with third-party enterprise tools?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Shiven Ramji, president, Auth0 at Okta, to discuss the future of identity, security and governance in the face of AI agents.

But in the tech sector, it’s become something of an ominous month – the start of layoff season. January 2026 has been no different, with Amazon announcing 16,000 jobs cut in a plan that could see up to 30,000 cut by the end of May according to Reuters.

Earlier in the month, Dell made waves at CES 2026 with the news that it’s reviving the XPS laptop line, just one year on from its announcement that the brand would be deprecated. What can we make of the job cuts and of Dell's reversal?

In this episode, Rory welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore some of January's biggest stories.

Read more:

1. Amazon is cutting 14,000 roles in a bid to ‘operate like the world's largest startup’
2. ‘Lean into it’: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy thinks enterprises need to embrace AI to avoid being left behind – even if that means fewer jobs in the future
3. Fresh Microsoft layoffs hit software engineering roles, documents show
4. Return of the XPS: Dell resurrects iconic brand at CES after customer demand
5. Dell kills off XPS and other brands for PC simplicity

One sector that knows this better than most is iGaming, which has to meet the demands of users around the world including mobile payments, virtual wallets, and cross-border social gaming payouts.

Delivering all this in near real-time, with adequate security and reliable infrastructure, is no small feat. How are these payment systems possible?

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Paysafe, Rory is joined by Bob Legters, chief product officer at Paysafe, to discuss the best practices for building a payments strategy – and how this can be applied to iGaming.

Bots have been a part of the internet since at least the 1990s but recent technological advancements have swollen their number exponentially. Some of these net dwellers are benign, others are malicious, and some sit somewhere in between.

But no matter what category they fall into, they can all cause problems for businesses. How much of an issue is this for businesses and what can they do to mitigate it?

In this special discussion, in association with Fastly, Jane speaks to Marshall Irwin, chief information security officer (CISO) at Fastly, to discover more about how organizations can protect themselves from the risks of bots.

When you power a data center with coal, it’s obvious that it’s having a detrimental impact on the environment. But is a ‘green’ data center really green? And to what extent might the benefits of AI outweigh potential environmental negatives?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the shifting sustainability targets of the world’s public cloud giants, as caused by AI, and what they’re doing to get back on track.

Read more:

1. Microsoft Environmental Sustainability Report 2025
2. Amazon 2024 Sustainability Report
3. Google 2025 Environmental Report
4. Google emissions have surged 51% in five years – but it’s making solid progress in data center efficiency
5. Data center carbon emissions are set to skyrocket by 2030, with hyperscalers producing 2.5 billion tons of carbon
6. Small businesses are ‘flying blind’ on carbon emissions and struggling to meet sustainability goals – and the blame lies with big tech vendors
7. Big tech’s solution for AI-related carbon emissions could be more AI
8. Microsoft wants to drastically cut carbon emissions, so it’s building data centers with wood
9. Can small modular reactors meet data center power demand?
10. Google just confirmed the location of its first small modular reactor
11. Hyperscalers go nuclear
12. Gas-powered data centers: what's behind the boom?
13. Could all data centers go solar?
14. TPUs: Google's home advantage
15. What is a tensor processing unit (TPU)?
16. AI’s thirsty secret

Unsurprisingly, at this year’s event AI was a primary focus – with more details on Nvidia and AMD’s latest hardware, alongside AI PC innovations by brands like Lenovo.

Alongside these headlines, however, we also saw a return to form by companies such as Dell, with the resurrection of the XPS laptop range.

What did we learn from CES about what to expect in business hardware over the coming year?

In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Mike Moore, deputy editor at TechRadar Pro, to discuss the biggest moments from CES 2026.

On the one hand, we’re told that AI tools are beginning to empower security teams to go further and faster. On the other, the use of AI by hackers to launch attacks also appears to be on the rise.

All of this is happening against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and continual attacks by state-sponsored hacking groups against businesses. How will all this come together in 2026 and beyond?

In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Jamie Collier, lead advisor in Europe at Google Threat Intelligence Group, to explore the risks – both novel and ordinary – enterprises face in 2026.

Read more:

1. NCSC issues urgent warning over growing AI prompt injection risks – here’s what you need to know
2. Cyber experts have been warning about AI-powered DDoS attacks – now they’re becoming a reality
3. Salt Typhoon attack on US congressional email system ‘exposes how vulnerable core communications systems remain to nation-state actors’
4. OpenAI says prompt injection attacks are a serious threat for AI browsers – and it’s a problem that’s ‘unlikely to ever be fully solved'
5. OpenAI turns to red teamers to prevent malicious ChatGPT use as company warns future models could pose 'high' security risk
6. A flaw in Google’s new Gemini CLI tool could’ve allowed hackers to exfiltrate data
7. Google says you shouldn't worry about AI malware – but that won’t last long as hackers refine techniques
8. North Korean IT workers: The growing threat
9. North Korean hackers continue targeting developers in open source malware campaign - and experts say as many as 36,000 victims have been snared so far
10. CRINK attacks: which nation state hackers will be the biggest threat in 2026?

While there will undoubtedly be surprises ahead, both exciting and concerning, it’s also possible to look at some of the standout moments from 2025 to help us understand where we’re headed.

So what can we expect IT decision makers to come up against in 2026?

For this new year’s edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s News and Analysis Editor, to discuss the key trends that will shape 2026.

Footnotes

1. AI adoption is finally driving ROI for B2B teams in the UK and EU
2. AI is finally delivering bang for its buck, according to Microsoft
3. UK firms are pouring money into AI, but they won’t see a return on investment unless they address these key issues
4. Former NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bare
5. If you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up call
6. North Korean IT workers: The growing threat
7. US Department of Energy’s supercomputer shopping spree continues with Solstice and Equinox
8. Inside Isambard-AI: The UK’s most powerful supercomputer
9. Nvidia just announced new supercomputers and an open AI model family for science at SC 2025

At this time of year, it’s usual to reflect on the year and consider some of the biggest, most impactful things that have happened. But here at ITPro, we like to take a different approach: what didn’t happen?

The tech industry can’t help but make bold promises and some just don’t pan out. What are some of the biggest targets, trends, and predictions that just haven’t come to fruition in 2025?

In this episode, Jane and Rory are once again joined by Ross Kelly, news and analysis editor at ITPro, to discuss the biggest misses of the year.

Read more:

1. Is enterprise agentic AI adoption matching the hype?
2. ‘Agent washing’ is here: Most agentic AI tools are just ‘repackaged’ RPA solutions and chatbots – and Gartner says 40% of projects will be ditched within two years
3. Agentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should know
4. 'It's slop': OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy pours cold water on agentic AI hype – so your jobs are safe, at least for now
5. IBM is targeting 'quantum advantage' in 12 months – and says useful quantum computing is just a few years away
6. SAS thinks quantum AI has huge enterprise potential – here's why
7. SAS rejects generative AI hype in favor of data fundamentals at Innovate 2025
8. Post-quantum cryptography is now top of mind for cybersecurity leaders
9. Why does Nvidia have a no-chip quantum strategy?
10. Meta executive denies hyping up Llama 4 benchmark scores – but what can users expect from the new models?

On the other hand, attackers are also using AI to launch large scale attacks such as sophisticated phishing campaigns and identity theft. To fight this threat, cybersecurity teams will need to unify data like never before and take advantage of as many new technologies and processes as they can.

How can they go about this? And what does a unified cybersecurity strategy really look like in 2026?

In this episode, Rory is joined by Mandy Andress, chief information security officer at Elastic, to explore how businesses can evolve their threat detection and security posture, as well as how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for attackers.

Read more:

1. In the age of AI threats, the future of security is unified
2. AI-generated code is now the cause of one-in-five breaches – but developers and security leaders alike are convinced the technology will come good eventually
3. AI-generated code risks: What CISOs need to know
4. Agentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should know
5. The NCSC touts honeypots and ‘cyber deception’ tactics as the key to combating hackers — but they could ‘lead to a false sense of security’

Nvidia alone has forecast $500 billion in sales across 2025 and 2026, driven largely by Jensen Huang, founder and CEO at Nvidia, recently stated that “inference has become the most compute-intensive phase of AI — demanding real-time reasoning at planetary scale”.

Google is meeting these demands in its own way. Unlike other firms reliant on chips by Nvidia, AMD, and others, Google has long used its in-house ‘tensor processing units’ (TPUs) for AI training and inference.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of Google’s reliance on TPUs? And how do its chips stack up against the competition?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss TPUs – Google’s specialized processors for AI and ML – and how they could help the hyperscaler outcompete its rivals.

Read more:

It’s a pivotal time for the firm, as it consolidates its hardware partnerships and heralds a recent acquisition, while laying out its strategy to help customers not only meet demand, but expand their networks and adopt new technologies.

What are some of the biggest things HPE announced – and what does the firm have lined up for 2026 and beyond?

In this episode, Rory interviews Jane live on the ground to unpack all things HPE.

In November, CrowdStrike admitted one of its own employees had provided screenshots of internal systems to hackers in exchange for a sizable payout. Industry experts have told ITPro the incident should act as a wake up call to the all-too-serious risk of insider threats.

Earlier in the month, websites all over the world went offline after a major outage at the content delivery network service provider Cloudflare. What was the cause of the incident: had Cloudflare fallen victim to the kind of DDoS attack it’s famous for preventing?

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of November’s biggest stories.

Footnotes

• If you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up call
• Nearly 700,000 customers impacted after insider attack at US fintech firm
• AI means cyber teams are rethinking their approach to insider threats
• ‘Insiders don’t need to break in’: A developer crippled company networks with malicious code and a ‘kill switch’ after being sacked – and experts warn it shows the huge danger of insider threats
• Everything you need to know about Cloudflare
• The Cloudflare outage explained: What happened, who was impacted, and what was the root cause?
• Cloudflare says AI companies have been “scraping content without limits” – now it’s letting website owners block crawlers and force them to pay
• Security experts issue warning over the rise of 'gray bot' AI web scrapers
• Cloudflare is fighting back against AI web scrapers
• Nearly half of all digital initiatives still fail – here’s how you can learn from the ‘digital vanguard’ and deliver success

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While this isn’t the case for every business, it’s certainly a worry that hangs over discussions of the technology. The secret to making AI projects succeed is knowledge that every leader is after right now – and knowing what not to do is just as important.

Where are businesses going wrong with AI adoption? And how can they apply the learnings of the past few years to ramp up return on investment?Today, we’re joined by Alan Trefler, founder and CEO at Pegasystems, to unpack the main hurdles businesses face when it comes to AI adoption – and why AI failure is becoming such a widespread concern.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Alan Trefler, founder and CEO at Pegasystems, to unpack the main hurdles businesses face when it comes to AI adoption – and why AI failure is becoming such a widespread concern.

But achieving this in the modern enterprise environment requires as much focus on IT strategy as business strategy. Without the right approach to cloud, technology, and cybersecurity, businesses will struggle to scale past a point. 

Camp Australia knows this better than most. When the leading provider of Outside School Hours Care in Australia came to the conclusion that its decades-old IT and cloud processes were holding it back from unlocking its full scalability, it partnered with SoftwareOne to migrate to Microsoft Azure and adopt the benefits of a unified cloud environment.

How did SoftwareOne help Camp Australia achieve these goals? And what are the key lessons to be taken away from this successful transformation project?

In this episode, in association with Hyland, we’re speaking to Justin Itin, Sales Lead at SoftwareOne and Peter Lane, CTO at Camp Australia, to explore Camp Australia’s digital transformation project and how SoftwareOne helped facilitate it.

Read more:

• Find out more about SoftwareOne
• Find out more about Camp Australia

Anyone who works outside of a major city, or has ever tried to get work done while on a trip to a more rural location, knows that rural connectivity can be patchy. 

Despite the UK’s high population density and relative lack of difficult terrain, rural connectivity remains an uneven picture. Many rural businesses are still struggling to receive fiber optic cables, let alone leverage 5G signals to keep up with the demands of modern business.

Is UK connectivity improving? And how far have we still got to go?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to David Happy, non-executive director at JET Connectivity and non-executive chairman for transport at Wales Fiber, and Colin Wood, innovation lead at Dorset Council, to better understand the state of rural connectivity in the UK.

Read more:

• UK rural businesses set for broadband improvements
• Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy
• UK gov has ramped up broadband roll-outs to tackle 'hard-to-reach' areas in 2023
• BT and OneWeb succeed in "game changer" satellite connection trial
• The battle for space broadband dominance is hotting up
• UK government to run Starlink trials in Snowdonia, Lake District

In the previous episode, we spoke about this in a reactive sense – the immediate customers impacted and the likely causes.

But it's also important to break the problem down at a strategic and technical level. Just how do outages at this scale occur – and what’s it like as an insider, fighting to bring services back online?

In this episode Rory speaks to James Kretchmar, SVP & CTO of the cloud technology division at Akamai Technologies, to get an insider’s perspective on cloud outages and how businesses can navigate these incidents.

Read more:

• Amazon Web Services outage live: Hundreds of apps including Slack, mobile carriers, banking services down
• The AWS outage brought much of the web to its knees: Here's how it happened, who it affected, and how much it might cost
• The Microsoft Azure outage explained: What happened, who was impacted, and what can we learn from it?
• Australia internet banking outage blamed on DDoS mitigation service
• Why the CrowdStrike outage was a wakeup call for developer teams

But partners looking to seize on this opportunity face a slew of challenges. Establishing a services offering for customers demanding the scale of the cloud and complex technologies like AI is difficult without the right service provider, for example.

Whether you're already offering cutting edge IT services or just scaling within your region, it's a huge benefit to get a helping hand with pre-sales, managed services, and ongoing support.

What does this look like in practice, and who can partners turn to? In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with TD Synnex, Jane and Rory speak to Stephen Ennis, VP of Technology Acceleration at TD Synnex.

We are of course referring to the AWS outage, which on 20 October took down some incredibly notable websites and caused global disruption. It’s the latest, most severe example of why data centers are considered critical infrastructure – and acts as a stark reminder to IT administrators that even big tech can fall foul of technical errors.

Of course, October hasn’t just been defined by negative stories. At the end of the month, the US Department of Energy has revealed a slew of supercomputer announcements. What are they for, and when can they be expected to be up and running?

In this episode, Jane and Rory once again welcome Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to the show to discuss the biggest developments of the month.

But by and large, business hardware has stayed much the same for the past decade. With a few notable exceptions, the laptops, desktops, and portables we use for work today are simply evolved versions of what we were using in 2015.

Is this set to change? And what could the hardware of the future look like?

In this episode Rory speaks to Bobby Hellard, ITPro’s reviews editor, to explore some of the latest advances in business hardware and ask – is this the best it gets?

Read more:

• The Huawei MateBook Fold Ultimate Edition is a unique take on what it means to be a laptop – but good luck getting it outside of China
• E-ink is on-trend and I'm all for it
• ReMarkable Paper Pro review: The e-ink color tablet that lets you think
• The ReMarkable Paper Pro Move gives you e-ink in a pocketable package – but it's not without fault
• Supernote A5 X2 Manta review: A premium e-ink tablet that's still somewhat Spartan
• The Amazon Kindle Scribe is no bullet journal – it is, in fact, a fairly basic E Ink tablet

What can we learn from the pronouncements – and contradictions – being delivered on stage this year?

In this episode Jane speaks to Rory, who has been on the ground this week reporting from Salesforce Dreamforce 2025.

Highlights

"This year is part two of the hard turn into AI agents. Ross wrote a great piece last year on how Agentforce is kind of intended to be Salesforce's Chat GPT moment. So this is Salesforce's dedicated AI agents platform – platform kind of undersells how extensive it is. It's not just like a marketplace for agents, for example. It's kind of a marketplace, slash fabric, slash agent builder."

"Slack is more and more becoming the front end for interacting with your Salesforce data. So CRM data from Salesforce will now be directly accessible in Slack. You can pull data through from Tableau, from HR, IT from sales, by just invoking it through agents"

Footnotes

• "Do not sacrifice your entry-level jobs" says UK Salesforce CEO
• Slack is now the key to Salesforce's agentic AI plans
• Marc Benioff is bullish about Salesforce's agentic AI lead
• Salesforce just launched a new catch-all platform to build enterprise AI agents

AI PCs are quickly becoming the norm for new product lineups, with specialized hardware to run certain AI processes on-device, alongside integrated AI assistant software.

But what are the main benefits of this technology to businesses – and how far can we expect AI to transform the PC?

In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, to explore the impact of AI on PCs and how it’s already being deployed at the edge.

• What is an NPU and what can they do for your business?
• Dell says Windows 11 migration is a prime opportunity to overhaul ageing PC fleets – and AI devices are in the spotlight
• AI PCs will ‘become the norm’ by 2029 as enterprise and consumer demand surges
• AI PCs are becoming a no-brainer for IT decision makers
• AI PCs are paying dividends for HP as firm reports sales surge
• “It’s almost mind boggling” – Dell is betting big on AI PCs, but customers are less enthusiastic

But vibe coding also comes with risks, because by its very nature it's more of a hands-off activity. It decreases the degree to which developers can explain what their code is doing, and may lead to them overlooking vulnerabilities.

How serious is this risk, and what are the potential benefits of vibe coding in the future?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Simon Black, director of evangelism at Mendix, to unpack what vibe coding is and why it comes with such high risks.

Unstructured data, which can be generated in massive quantities before it ever produces value, can be especially difficult to handle. But if this task is completed correctly, businesses can future-proof their operations and lay the groundwork for future AI deployments.

What solutions are available to turn unstructured data into machine-readable content? And how does this feed into implementing in-demand tools such as AI agents?

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Hyland, Rory and John explore how businesses can harness their structured and unstructured data to generate value and enable AI tools.

Read more:

• Structured vs unstructured data management
• A quarter of firms still don’t have a formal data strategy – and it’s hampering AI adoption
• Data quality worries are holding back AI adoption among manufacturers, despite optimism over its growth potential
• AI is causing a data storage crisis for enterprises

This month, the US tech ecosystem made its first significant contribution to recognizing this reality with tens of billions invested in the UK ecosystem.

Will it pay off? And what does this investment mean in practical terms?

In this episode, Rory welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack this bumper investment in the UK tech ecosystem.

Read more:

• Google opens doors on UK data center ahead of Trump visit
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says UK ties are 'stronger than ever' as tech giant pledges $30bn investment
• UK to host largest European GPU cluster under £11 billion Nvidia investment plans
• Is the ‘British firm’ at the heart of Britain’s AI plans actually British?
• UK is going to be ‘AI superpower’, says Nvidia boss as he invests £500m
• ‘This is the largest AI ecosystem in the world without its own infrastructure’: Jensen Huang thinks the UK has immense AI potential – but it still has a lot of work to do

In addition to human and machine identities, cybersecurity professionals now have to handle potentially 1000s of AI agent identities across MCP and API endpoints. 

How can businesses handle all of these complications while maintaining their cybersecurity?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Art Gilliland, CEO of cybersecurity firm Delinea, to discuss the thorny issue of identity attacks, and how IT leaders can get a grip on digital identities.

There’s a significant disconnect between IT specialists, CEOs, and other parts of the business when it comes to understanding what this means and how ready they are, however. 

Research from Informatica found 69% of IT teams rate their data quality as excellent or very good, barely half of business leaders say the same at 51%. The same survey found 57% of business professionals and 30% of IT workers don’t know what it means for data to be ‘AI ready’.

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Informatica, we explore what data excellence is, why it’s important to companies, and how they can achieve it.

In data centers, the tech sector is focused on reducing latency, improving bandwidth, and reducing energy consumption to improve AI performance and lower operating costs. But achieving these goals by shifting about current technology can only go so far.

Increasingly, firms are looking to cutting-edge technologies and approach such as all-photonics networks, which use photons for all processes including data transfer and storage, rather than electronic components. How close are we to achieving this technology? And how could it benefit every business.

In this episode, Rory is joined Chris Wright, SVP global engineering and CTO at Red Hat, to discuss the potential benefits of all-photonics networks and how they could upend current network architecture.

From sovereign clouds to AI, Jane McCallion and Ross Kelly dig into what digital sovereignty is, how it’s being used, and its relationship with AI, cloud, and national data regulations.

Highlights

“The World Economic Forum describes digital sovereignty as the ability to have control over your own digital destiny andI think that's a really great way of describing it. And when you look at how the EU has positioned itself in recent years, that certainly is the key focus there – it's all about … maintaining control.”

“You can't understate the impact of regulatory compliance in the EU – that's the huge driving factor, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Google Cloud, they wouldn't be bending over backwards if they didn't know the risks there. And for individual organizations as well as customers of these providers, they're the ones that are pushing for this because they're conscious of their compliance as well.”

Related links

• Sovereign cloud services are now the “bare minimum” expected by customers, and hyperscalers are scrambling to meet demand
• What the new Microsoft Sovereign Cloud push means for European customers
• AWS says only Europeans will run its European Sovereign Cloud service
• What is a sovereign cloud?
• SAP wants to take data sovereignty to the next level with new 'on-site' infrastructure options
• HPE launches exclusive sovereign cloud offering for the channel

Well, AWS CEO Matt Garman has weighed in this month, calling replacing devs with AI “the dumbest thing” he’s ever heard.

Elsewhere in August, Cisco has engaged in a round of layoffs, despite healthy figures in its recent financial report. 

What does all this mean for tech jobs at large?

In this episode Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explain why tech jobs have become such a hot talking point this August.

The role of chief information security officer is among the most important in any firm. CISOs shoulder a heavy burden, with responsibility for protecting their company’s data, infrastructure, and associated assets.

As the tech stack has grown, so too has the pressure on those in the role. CISOs have to shepherd technologies including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and edge computing.

Gartner predicts that nearly half of all IT leaders could leave their roles by 2025, and CISOs are subject to the same talent shortages as the rest of the sector amidst a constant need to maintain oversight of a growing IT estate.

In this episode, Jane is joined by Andrew Rose, resident CISO for EMEA at Proofpoint, to expand on how to be an effective CISO, and how the role is changing.

For more information:

• Work-related stress “keeps cyber security professionals awake at night”
• CISO job description: What does a CISO do?
• Gartner: Nearly half of cyber leaders to leave roles over mounting stress
• Fighting the ‘always on’ culture that’s savaging mental health in cyber security
• Gartner urges CISOs to adopt new forms of trust and risk management for AI
• What is ransomware?
• What is business email compromise (BEC)?
• 96% of CISOs without necessary support to maintain cyber security
• Six generative AI cyber security threats and how to mitigate them

Typically realized in the form of website shutdowns, in which the National Crime Agency logo is emblazoned across the dark web site of would-be hackers, these are powerful PR moves to show that cyber crime doesn’t always pay – and the seriousness with which law enforcement approaches these crimes.

But the truth is, hackers continue to operate. And sometimes, the very groups that have been billed done and dusted simply reemerge under a new site, new servers, or with a fresh coat of paint.

What can we learn from this cycle – and does the industry need to take a different approach?

In this episode, Rory is once again joined by Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of the most prominent cyber crime gang takedowns we’ve had recently and what it means for the sector.

Read more:

• BlackSuit ransomware gang taken down in latest law enforcement sting – but members have already formed a new group
• Cobalt Strike abusers have been dealt a hammer blow: An "aggressive" takedown campaign by Fortra and Microsoft shuttered over 200 malicious domains – and it’s cut the misuse of the tool by 80%
• Hundreds of Cobalt Strike servers have been taken offline in a major law enforcement sting
• Ransomware victims are refusing to play ball with hackers – just 17% of enterprises have paid up so far in 2025, marking an all-time low
• Average ransom payment doubles in a single quarter
• 75% of UK business leaders are willing to risk criminal penalties to pay ransoms
• Can the UK ban ransomware payments?
• LockBit could be done and dusted after NCA operation gained access to admin environments, source code, and affiliate info
• LockBit ransomware group falls victim to hackers itself
• The Zservers takedown is another big win for law enforcement
• ‘I take pleasure in thinking I can rid society of at least some of them’: A cyber vigilante is dumping information on notorious ransomware criminals – and security experts say police will be keeping close tabs

But advances in AI since 2022 have put this to the test. While human writers are no doubt being forced to compete with AI-written content, developers are also being asked to outsource more and more of their work to large language models in a bid for improved productivity.

While AI-generated code can be quick to produce and efficient to run, it also comes with associated risks such as overlooked vulnerabilities.

Are developers actually going to lose their jobs to the machine?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the extent to which developers are already using AI to generate code and the potential risks associated with the practice.

In the past four weeks, two almighty security stories have broken, with far-reaching implications for the tech sector and beyond. First, we learned that the China-backed hacking group Salt Typhoon had critically breached the US National Guard for more than a year – and has potentially gone undetected in other US military networks.

Later in the month, Microsoft revealed a major vulnerability in on-premises Sharepoint servers, sounding the alarm for users to patch with urgency – but the days after have seen attack after successful attack carried out.

In this episode Jane welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore what happened to make July such a bad month for cybersecurity.

Read more:

• ‘All US forces must now assume their networks are compromised’ after Salt Typhoon breach
• FCC orders telcos to sharpen up security after Salt Typhoon chaos
• UK cyber experts on red alert after Salt Typhoon attacks on US telcos
• Salt Typhoon hacker group recorded conversations of ‘very senior’ US political figures
• 300 days under the radar: How Volt Typhoon eluded detection in the US electric grid for nearly a year
• Microsoft’s new SharePoint vulnerability – everything you need to know
• NCSC says ‘limited number’ of UK firms affected by SharePoint attack as global impact spreads
• SharePoint flaw: Microsoft says hackers deploying ransomware

Under government proposals, public bodies and operators of critical national infrastructure would be banned from paying up when they’re hit by ransomware – and other businesses would have to be transparent when they decide to cough up the cash.

But can we really put a lid on ransomware? And might the new rules have unintended negative consequences?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the UK government’s new ransomware payment ban and what it could mean for the sector.

Read more:

• Nearly half of MSPs admit to having a ransomware kitty
• A ransomware payments ban risks criminalizing victims
• The end of ransomware payments: How businesses fit into the fight
• Building ransomware resilience to avoid paying out
• UK government officials consider banning ransomware payments

But there are instances where cyber attacks come crashing into the lives of everyday people, and become impossible to ignore: when attackers go after critical infrastructure and operational technology.

Breaches and malware attacks at power and water plants, against core supply chain organizations, or against transport networks can all cause catastrophic damage, enormous financial losses – and even lead to deaths.

What are some of the groups leading the charge against critical infrastructure, how are groups targeting operational technology – and what can we do to protect that infrastructure we hold most dear?

In this episode, Rory speaks with Magpie Graham, technical director of intel and services at Dragos, to discuss attacks on operational technology, critical infrastructure, and the future of large-scale cyber attacks.

All around the world, data centers are becoming more and more important, bringing data and computing power together to get the most out of AI workloads.

But this is far from a simple process. Without the right data center architecture, assembled with rigorous testing, organizations can’t achieve the full speed and performance of AI.

In this episode, in association with Keysight Technologies, Jane speaks to Ben Miller, product manager at Keysight Technologies, to learn more about AI infrastructure and how Keysight can optimize it for the best performance possible.

Read more:

• Keysight Introduces AI Data Center Builder to Validate and Optimize Network Architecture and Host Design
• What is a GPU?

But what’s clear is that from the smallest to the largest businesses, the landscape is already shifting. We’ve spoken about AI agents on the podcast before – the promise of autonomous AI activity – but it’s only now that businesses are beginning to put more faith in these tools.

How is AI already being used to improve business processes? And what will progress in the sector look like?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Oliver Parker, VPAI GTM at Google Cloud, to explore some of the practical ways AI is changing organizations from startups to the enterprise.

Read more:

• The UK government is teaming up with Google Cloud to kill public sector legacy tech
• Google Cloud announces new data residency flexibility for UK firms, accelerator for regional startups
• Enterprises are worried about agentic AI security risks – Gartner says the answer is just adding more AI agents
• How effective are AI agents?
• IT leaders are less AI-ready than they were a year ago, says Cisco report

When people talk about the environmental impacts of data centers, normally the discussion focuses on energy usage. It’s something we’ve talked about at several points this year already, with reference to growing efforts to house AI workloads in green data centers that run on renewable energy to reduce their carbon impact.

But while we can generate nearly limitless amounts of green energy, there is a decidedly finite amount of water in the world – and unfortunately, most data centers need vast amounts of fresh water to cool hardware. 

Without care, big tech could push already drought-stricken communities to breaking point.

In this episode, Jane and Rory unpack the growing problem of data center water use, how operators can tackle this, and how it will exacerbate environmental tensions in the near future.

Read more:

• Data center water consumption is spiraling out of control
• Google data centre soaks up a third of Oregon city's water supply
• What is a green data center and why are they attracting big investment?
• Data center waste energy to heat homes in 'UK-first' scheme
• OVHcloud just open sourced its data center liquid cooling system — here’s why
• AWS plans to be 'water positive' by 2030
• Microsoft lays out water-positive plans for next decade

But no doubt some of the audience will be thinking: “haven’t we heard this before?” Indeed, robotic process automation and software robots have been available since the turn of the century, completing multi-step, repetitive tasks for businesses without human oversight.

How have we evolved from robots to agents? And how can both be used by businesses to boost their productivity?

In this episode, in association with UiPath, Jane and Rory are joined by Edward Challis, head of AI strategy at UiPath, to discuss the foundational role robotic process automation has played in getting us to advances such as AI agents, and how both fit together in the modern enterprise.

ITPro’s news editor Ross Kelly and reviews editor Bobby Hellard step in for Jane and Rory this week to chew that fat on some of the biggest IT news stories of June.

However, a new research paper by Apple has cast significant doubts on the efficacy of reasoning models, going as far as to suggest that when a problem is too complex, they simply give up. What's going on here? And does it mean reasoning models are fundamentally flawed? 

In this episode, Rory Bathgate speaks to ITPro's news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to explain some of the report's key findings and what it means for the future of AI development.

This has become even more important in the face of AI. Before any leader can begin implementing AI across their workflow, they must first ensure they’ve prepared data at the right scale – and across its entire lifecycle.

Data integration, in which data from across a business is combined into a single stream, can be a huge help here. But where do you start with this? And where do open data formats fit into this mix?

In this episode, in association with Informatica, Jane and Rory are joined by Eric Ho, senior director product management at Informatica, to discuss data integration at scale and explore the evolution of open table formats for modern data architectures and data warehousing.

Read more:

• Structured vs unstructured data management
• Only a handful of generative AI projects make it into production – here’s why
• A quarter of firms still don’t have a formal data strategy – and it’s hampering AI adoption
• What is Delta Lake in Databricks?
• Why your business needs data protection policies

With nation states lending a hand to threat groups with more pointed aims than ever before, alongside the double-edged sword of greater AI adoption in cybersecurity, there’s never been a more worrying – and exciting – time to specialize in the field.

This episode was recorded live at RSAC conference in San Francisco by Scott Becker, director of Webinar programs at ActualTech Media and Alan Liska, threat intelligence analyst and ‘ransomware sommelier’ at Recorded Future. 

Together, the pair discuss the future of the sector, how threats like ransomware compare to emerging concerns such as quantum decryption, and why AI is the topic on everyone’s agenda.

AI has put additional pressure on firms to figure out exactly what they’re running in the cloud – as agentic AI drives organizations to consider ‘always on’ workloads and whether this is feasible in a public cloud model.

How can leaders navigate this changing cloud landscape and what is on the horizon?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Alex Grimshaw, CTO at Microsoft Azure UK, to explore what he sees as the key trends for the cloud and how AI will shape it in the coming years.

In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Jane is joined by news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to discuss three of the most significant news stories of the past month and wish Java a happy 30th birthday.

Highlights

“A significant portion of [the redundancies] are in Washington state, in the US, the heartland of Microsoft headquarters. It comes at quite an interesting period for Microsoft – they've been performing well, they’re really bullish on their AI investments at the moment. But again, another round of layoffs and it must be really demoralizing for people not only at Microsoft … but across the tech industry to see this still continuing.”

“[For] developers and engineers specifically, I think the writing has been on the wall. We've spoken about this a couple of times over the last year, when you look at big figures in the tech industry like Marc Benioff specifically on agentic AI talking about the fact that they might not have to hire any engineers in the second half of 2025 … you have to wonder where they're all going to go.”

“Last week, on the 21st M&S said hackers were able to essentially access systems by social engineering techniques at a third party contractor, [which] allowed them to circumvent M&S defenses and caused an absolute disaster, and again, it underlines the dangers of an increasingly interconnected software supply chain.”

“[Java’s] a programming language that's had remarkable longevity, still very popular. We covered something on this last year around the fact that … its popularity is still there very much. It's having somewhat of a renaissance, so to speak, in terms of organizations really scrambling to get Java developers.”

Footnotes

Microsoft workers face a fresh round of layoffs – here’s who could be impacted

Microsoft expects 1.3 billion AI agents to be in operation by 2028 – here’s how it plans to get them working together

‘Developers will need to adapt’: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reveals the scale of AI-generated code use

Agentic AI is coming for customer service jobs

CrowdStrike layoffs to hit 500 staff as firm targets strategic AI shift

More than a third of UK tech leaders admit they’ve cut staff in favor of AI – but now they regret making hasty redundancies

Why DragonForce is growing in prominence – with retailer attacks boosting its reputation

M&S confirms customer personal data was stolen in recent attack

Everything we know about the Co-op cyber attack so far

‘It’s far from showing its age’: Java might’ve just turned 30, but it’s still going strong and here to stay

What this means in practice for IT decision makers and business leaders can sometimes be hard to divine, however. This week, Jane sits down with John Roese, chief technology officer and chief AI officer at Dell Technologies, to dig into the practical effects of this, from how businesses will think about endpoints and devices to the potential end of HCI.

Read more:

• Dell Technologies World 2025 live – all latest news and updates live from the Venetian Conference Center, Las Vegas
• Dell brings new cybersecurity features to PowerStore, Data Domain, and PowerScale product lines
• Michael Dell talks up the power of human and AI collaboration – but not everyone’s singing the same tune
• Dell Technologies Global Partner Summit 2025 – all the news and updates live from Las Vegas
• Jensen Huang joins Dell Technologies World virtually to talk servers and AI factories
• New Dell AI Factory partners debuted at Dell Technologies World 2025
• Dell Technologies wants to cut infrastructure costs – here's how it plans to do it
• Dell grows AI laptop line with Dell Pro Max Plus at Dell Technologies World 2025

As technological innovations happen, it can be easy to forget that even the most complex systems rely on large networks of basic infrastructure to operate. At the most fundamental level, all tech products rely on effective data storage 

But this is easier said than done. Each byte of data has to be stored somewhere, on a rack, disk, tape, or flash device. As the world embraces hardware and software that creates data at an even faster rate, businesses will be forced to push the frontiers of data storage and evaluate their data management strategies.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Tom Coughlin, president and CEO of the IEEE, to learn more about how data storage will continue to evolve and what organizations can do to keep up with innovation in the space.

Read more:

• ​​​​Best SSDs 2023: The top NVMe and SATA drives around
• 10 things to consider when buying an external hard disk-based storage device
• What is machine learning and why is it important?
• What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?
• Who owns the data used to train AI?
• How to choose the right storage medium for your organization’s backup strategy
• Three keys to successful data management
• Structured vs unstructured data management
• 5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage provider
• How close is glass data storage to scaled enterprise use?

All these questions and more have been front and center at SAS Innovate 2025, the data and analytics veteran’s annual conference held in Orlando, Florida.

As the week has pressed on, what have we learned about SAS’ view of its place in the rapidly changing world of business technology? And what sets it apart from its competitors?

In this episode, Jane once again speaks to Rory, to learn more about his SAS Innovate 2025 coverage and the key themes and announcements.

Read more:

• SAS wants its AI agents to supercharge workers, not replace them
• SAS leans on synthetic data and digital twins to support business data demand
• SAS thinks quantum AI has huge enterprise potential – here's why
• “Public trust has become the new currency for AI innovation”: Why SAS is ringing the alarm bell on AI governance for enterprises
• SAS Innovate 2025 live: All the updates from day two
• What to watch out for at SAS Innovate 2025

This year, ITPro has been providing both remote and on the ground coverage from the event, across talks covering topics such as AI security and threat actor methodology.

In this episode, Jane speaks to Rory about some of his RSAC coverage and key takeaways from the event.

Read more:

• RSAC Conference 2025 was a sobering reminder of the challenges facing cybersecurity professionals
• RSAC Conference Day One: Vibe Is 'All In' on AI for Security
• “Governance is an irreplaceable role”: Microsoft Security VP on why diversity and sector expertise will keep security workers relevant in the age of agentic AI
• RSAC Conference day two: A focus on what attackers are doing
• "There needs to be an order of magnitude more effort"": AI security experts call for focused evaluation of frontier models and agentic systems
• Cyber defenders need to remember their adversaries are human, says Trellix research head
• RSAC Conference day three: using AI to do more with less and facing new attack techniques
• "China has almost doubled their aggression in cyber’: Kevin Mandia and Nicole Perlroth warn organizations aren’t waking up to growing APT threats

A major upset in the international database for tracking vulnerabilities had some in the cybersecurity field stunned – until a last minute U-turn.

Elsewhere, AWS is the latest hyperscaler to roll back on data center plans, but what does this mean for the market?

In this episode Jane and Rory speak once again to Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack some of the most noteworthy April news.

Read more:

• MITRE CVE program handed last minute reprieve amid funding lapse concerns
• Third time lucky? Microsoft finally begins roll-out of controversial Recall feature
• Microsoft's Recall delayed once again as roll-out fiasco continues
• New Microsoft Recall feature is a 'security nightmare' and could make Copilot+ PCs a top target for cyber criminals
• First Microsoft, now AWS: Why tech giants are hitting the brakes on costly data center plans
• Analysts think Microsoft's data center rollback is bad news for the AI boom – but the company says not to worry

But small language models are also possible – and rapidly growing in popularity.

What benefits do these tiny AI models offer, and how much use will they get in the coming months and years, and how do they differ from other lightweight, ‘low latency’ models?

In this episode, Jane and Rory take a look at some of the smallest AI models on the market, asking what they're for and if they could be the future of the technology.

Read more:

• Small language models are growing in popularity — but they have a “hidden fallacy” that enterprises must come to terms with
• Small language models set for take-off next year
• Google’s new ‘Gemma’ AI models show that bigger isn’t always better
• Microsoft wants to take the hassle out of AI development with its ‘Models as a Service’ offering
• Three open source large language models you can use today
• Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has Silicon Valley flustered

There have already been a number of headline grabbing announcements: we've seen the launch of a powerful new AI accelerator chip by the name of Ironwood, huge updates to Google Cloud's security capabilities, and new agentic AI development kits for enterprises. But there's been much, much more on top.

In this episode, Ross Kelly, news and analysis editor at ITPro, speaks to Rory about Google Cloud's messaging at its annual conference and what the mood on the ground is at Google Cloud Next 2025.

Read more:

• Google Cloud Next 2025: All the live updates from the day two keynote
• Google Cloud wants to tackle cyber complexity – here's how it plans to do it
• Google Cloud announces major computing boost with Ironwood chip, new hypercomputer upgrades
• Foreign AI model launches may have improved trust in US AI developers, says Mandiant CTO – as he warns Chinese cyber attacks are at an “unprecedented level”
• Google shakes off tariff concerns to push on with $75 billion AI spending plans – but analysts warn rising infrastructure costs will send cloud prices sky high
• Google Cloud Next 2025 is the hyperscaler’s chance to sell itself as the all-in-one AI platform for enterprises

But all this could be set for change. Advances in technology have opened the door to software problems being detected and remediated automatically, while internal learning platforms could also provide employees with the information they need to fix issues themselves.

How will all this come together, and is it really just around the corner?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Samuele Gantner, chief product officer at Nexthink, to get a better understanding of the direction IT support is headed and why the service desk might soon be a thing of the past.

But something that can be easily lost in these discussions is consideration of the exact format your data exists in at rest. Unstructured data is especially important for AI and knowing where it fits into your AI strategy is essential. This doesn’t just mean knowing where it resides and capturing it, but also storing it in architecture that makes it searchable, secure, and accessible whenever you need it.

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Nasuni, Jane and Rory are joined by Jim Liddle, chief innovation officer of data intelligence and AI at Nasuni, to discuss using unstructured data in the most effective way possible.

Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, has spoken out against the tech sector’s apparent fixation on achieving AGI while comparing the potential for AI to the rise of Excel spreadsheets in business. The Microsoft chief has turned his attention to the material benefits of AI, as we enter a crunch year for AI developers.

Elsewhere this month, UK tech firms are being offered support with adopting a four-day week, which could have major benefits for staff and a major security blogger has fallen victim to a classic cyber attack.

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to discuss some of the most noteworthy news from across the month.

Read more:

• ‘The entire forecasting business process changed’: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Excel changed the game for enterprises in 1985 – he’s confident AI tools will do the same
• OpenAI says it’s charting a "path to AGI" with its next frontier AI model
• 'Digital hide-and-seek': Workers are wasting hundreds of hours a year sourcing the information they need to carry out their role
• Agentic AI investment is putting the cart before the horse
• 200 UK firms have now adopted a four-day working week – and Brits are convinced it will become the norm within five years
• UK tech firms have a chance to trial a four-day week this year – here's how other pilot schemes fared
• Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt’s mailing list compromised in phishing attack
• What is phishing?

According to AI developers, new tools known as AI agents will free up workers as never before, with the ability to autonomously complete tasks based on pre-approved instructions and by contextually processing new data. 

What does all this mean for businesses, and how far can AI agents really go?

In this episode, Rory is joined by Paul O’Sullivan, UKI CTO at Salesforce, to discuss the potential of AI agents in the workplace.

As businesses seek to unlock productivity gains from AI, investment in the technology has continued to rise. All across the world, firms are buying AI products, undergoing digital transformation in preparation, or even fine-tuning AI to suit their bespoke use cases.

But how much of this is going to pay off? And what do you do if your AI project fails on its own terms?

In this episode, Jane speaks to James Hodge, chief strategy advisor, EMEA at Splunk, to explore where we’re going wrong with AI.

The tech sector still has a sizable gender divide, with only around one quarter of all tech roles held by women. Tech leaders need to enter into open dialogue over how to make tech careers more attractive to women and to empower women within their workforce.

In this episode, Rory speaks to Elizabeth Barr, head of the Cisco Networking Academy in the UK, Ireland, and Nordics, to explore what International Women’s Day means in 2025 and how young women are entering tech.

• Women in tech think the industry has changed for the better, but there’s still more work to be done
• Women in tech are being forced out of work by the ‘motherhood penalty’
• The women returning to tech – and why they left
• “We are influencing generations to come”: Improving the picture for women in tech through cultural changes
• Supporting female founders in tech
• The company-wide benefits of mentorship in tech

Microsoft has made waves with Majorana 1, a first of its kind quantum chip that the tech giant says could open the door to usable quantum computers in years, not decades as previously thought.

Elsewhere this month, Sam Altman made a series of public rebukes of Elon Musk, following an offer by a Musk-led consortium to purchase OpenAI for over $97 billion. And could the tech sector be staring down the barrel of widespread ‘revenge quitting?

In this episode, Rory is joined once again by Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to discuss some of the biggest news for February 2025.

Though automated defense systems are a welcome feather in cap for any company, it’s not just the good guys who have access to the latest tools. Off-the-shelf frameworks to launch attacks are becoming more common and businesses can’t rely on any single service to be a silver bullet.

What are the individual forces at play here? And how can security teams keep up?

In this episode, Rory speaks with Kevin Mandia, founder and former CEO at Mandiant and current board member at cybersecurity firm Expel, and Dave ‘Merk’ Merkel, co-founder and CEO at Expel, to learn more about the current global cybersecurity landscape and what the future holds for security teams.

Read more:

• State-sponsored cyber attacks: The new frontier
• The new ransomware groups worrying security researchers in 2025
• Stopping cyber attackers from targeting the weakest links in security
• Stealthy malware: The threats hiding in plain sight
• Why attacks against critical national infrastructure (CNI) are such a threat – and how governments are responding
• Why vendor breaches still haunt enterprise IT leaders
• London council claims it faces 20,000 cyber attacks per day
• I love magic links – why aren’t more services using them?
• How to create a secure password policy
• Majority of firms using generative AI experience related security incidents – even as it empowers security teams

The Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris has seen a number of high-profile announcements made on EU AI investments, on both a continental and regional basis. But it’s also highlighted the distance the EU has yet to go for true international AI competition – up against the likes of the US and China, can it continue to stand out? 

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome Nader Henein, Gartner VP Analyst, Data Protection and AI Governance, to discuss the finer details of EU AI and how public-private partnerships balance with its strong legal requirements for the technology.

Read more:

• UK and US reject Paris AI summit agreement as “Atlantic rift” on regulation grows
• Unraveling the EU AI Act
• The EU just shelved its AI liability directive
• A big enforcement deadline for the EU AI Act just passed – here's what you need to know
• Looking to use DeepSeek R1 in the EU? This new study shows it’s missing key criteria to comply with the EU AI Act
• How the EU AI Act compares to other international regulatory approaches
• UK regions invited to apply for ‘AI Growth Zone’ status

Apple and Meta did not undergo the same rapid stock shocks as Nvidia, Microsoft, and others in the immediate aftermath of the DeepSeek R1 launch – the latter has actually seen a healthy surge in the past few weeks. 

Why is this? And who actually wins thanks to DeepSeek?

In this episode, Rory speaks once again to ITPro’s news and analysis editor Ross Kelly to analyze who stands to benefit the most from DeepSeek.

Read more:

• Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has Silicon Valley flustered
• The DeepSeek bombshell has been a wakeup call for US tech giants
• DeepSeek R1 has taken the world by storm, but security experts claim it has 'critical safety flaws' that you need to know about
• Looking to use DeepSeek R1 in the EU? This new study shows it’s missing key criteria to comply with the EU AI Act
• Apple’s generative AI slumber is ending – Microsoft and Google should be on alert
• Meta Quest Pro preview: Meet Meta's 'laptop killer'

• What is a sovereign cloud?

To say the Chinese large language model has caused an upset in the market would be an understatement. Within days of its release, it wiped more than a trillion dollars off the US stock market, and sent big tech into a public spiral.

But where did DeepSeek come from? And what does it mean for the future of the AI sector?

In this episode Jane and Rory are once again joined by Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore the profound implications of DeepSeek.

Read more:

• Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has Silicon Valley flustered
• The DeepSeek bombshell has been a wakeup call for US tech giants
• DeepSeek accused of training its models on OpenAI’s content
• Stargate project: OpenAI, Oracle pledge support for $500 billion AI infrastructure drive

• Why 'psychological safety' is so important for building a robust security culture
• Building an incident response strategy in 2024
• The hidden cost of ransomware is more painful than many realize
• Why ransomware attacks happen to small businesses – and how to stop them
• The end of ransomware payments: How businesses fit into the fight
• UK firms are failing miserably at data breach responses
• Data breach response: How to react when your business gets hit
• Dell hacker claims they had access to systems for nearly three weeks

• UK rural businesses set for broadband improvements
• Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy
• UK gov has ramped up broadband roll-outs to tackle 'hard-to-reach' areas in 2023
• BT and OneWeb succeed in "game changer" satellite connection trial
• The battle for space broadband dominance is hotting up
• UK government to run Starlink trials in Snowdonia, Lake District

• Generative AI's cybersecurity potential is clear, but so far it's given hackers the upper hand
• Enterprises are ramping up investment in private AI systems
• VMware cuts ribbon on new Private AI offerings
• What is a sovereign cloud?
• Sovereign cloud demand is “truly global” according to Oracle — and the company is well placed to capitalize on it
• OpenAI just raised $6.6bn in funding, but it drove a hard bargain – investors will be stopped from funding rivals

• Microsoft is using AI to get its nuclear projects approved in the US
• Microsoft’s Three Mile Island deal is a big step toward matching data center energy demands
• Google is going nuclear
• Intel targets AI hardware dominance by 2025
• Intel layoffs to hit 15,000 roles as falling revenue and poor returns on AI bite
• Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announces retirement
• What do security pros want from generative AI?
• Median construction time for nuclear reactors

• The US charges 14 members of a North Korean IT worker scam
• Ireland has become a ‘data dumping ground’, says Friends of the Earth
• Is virtual reality the next frontier in software development?

• Cyber firm KnowBe4 unknowingly hired a North Korean hacker – and it went exactly as you might think
• Lawmakers clash over Irish data center industry growth amid environmental concerns
• UK warned about data center need, again
• “Significant concerns” raised over impact of data center growth on regional energy grids
• WWDC 2023: Will Apple’s Vision Pro be a VR game changer?
• Why 2024 won’t be the year of AR, VR or any kind of immersive tech

• Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip
• Explained: P vs. NP
• Preparing for the quantum revolution
• UK government quantum investment welcomed by industry
• Why experts are warning businesses to prepare for quantum now – or face critical cyber risks when it arrives
• Quantum supremacy is here — so what?
• The quantum computing sector needs to cut the hype and focus on responsible development
• UK quantum computing ambitions need a 'pro-innovation' regulatory approach akin to AI

• OpenAI could go bankrupt in 12 months if it doesn’t raise some serious cash – but is the Microsoft-backed AI giant too big to fail?
• OpenAI seeks $6.5 billion investment as costs continue to mount
• OpenAI just raised $6.6bn in funding, but it drove a hard bargain – investors will be stopped from funding rivals
• Enterprises are ramping up investment in private AI systems
• OpenAI tool previously thought 'too dangerous' for the public goes generally available
• OpenAI launches $20 ChatGPT Plus in search of greater revenue
• AWS bet big on Anthropic in the race against Microsoft and OpenAI, now it’s doubling down
• Amazon’s $4 billion investment in Anthropic faces UK competition probe – here’s what it means
• Meta’s Llama 3.1 promises to compete with closed source competition
• OpenAI says ads aren't coming soon – if ever

In the past month, we’ve seen a slew of cyber incidents, ranging from high-profile exploits of Microsoft vulnerabilities to a ransomware attack on a supply chain software company integral to high-street brands.

Elsewhere, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has hailed the strides his company has made with using AI to generate internal source code – but how far can AI code really go, and does it put software engineers at threat of redundancy?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak once again to Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack some of the most significant stories of November.

Read more:

• Warning issued after SharePoint flaw puts entire corporate networks at risk
• Blue Yonder ransomware attack disrupts grocery, retail, and hospitality firms
• Breached for years: How long-term cyber attacks are able to linger
• How IT leaders can respond to the evolution of ransomware
• Google CEO says more than 25% of the company's code is now AI-generated – is this the future of software development?
• Gemini Code Assist Enterprise – Google wants to simplify code for all
• Gemini Code Assist could be Google's secret weapon to challenge GitHub Copilot

• What is HPC really for?
• AI’s thirsty secret
• Inside Lumi, one of the world’s greenest supercomputers
• HPE’s AI and supercomputing journey continues with new Cray and Slingshot hardware
• El Capitan powers up, becomes fastest supercomputer in the world
• HPE Discover Barcelona 2024: All the news and updates live
• Isambard-AI, the UK’s most powerful and sustainable supercomputer, is now up and running

• What is the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)?
• DORA and why resilience (once again) matters to the board
• ‘Borderline irresponsible’ attitude to third party risks must change, says expert
• Supply chain attacks are still plaguing enterprises – here's why

As countries battle productivity problems, can they replicate the success of Iceland's four-day working week? Elsewhere, developers have started to question just how useful AI coding tools really are, and OpenAI has had another successful funding round – but is interest in the company starting to wain?

In this episode, Jane is once again joined by Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack the most interesting news that October brought.

Read more:

• New four-day week trial kicks off for workers across UK
• Iceland’s four-day working week trials have been a roaring success – economic growth spiked, workers were happier, and burnout plummeted
• The benefits of a four-day week in tech
• UK's four-day week trial ends, leads to reduced burnout and sick days
• OpenAI just raised $6.6bn in funding, but it drove a hard bargain – investors will be stopped from funding rivals
• OpenAI could go bankrupt in 12 months if it doesn’t raise some serious cash – but is the Microsoft-backed AI giant too big to fail?

In this episode, Rory and Jane talk to Solomon Klappholz, ITPro’s cybersecurity reporter, about some of the spookiest cyber incidents of 2024 and what businesses can learn from these ghoulish tales.

Footnotes

• CrowdStrike CEO confirms update "defect" as the source of mass disruption
• Millions of devices bricked and $5.4 billion in losses: The cost of the CrowdStrike outage continues to mount
• The National Public Data breach exposed nearly three billion users – now the company has filed for bankruptcy
• National Public Data breach: Lawsuit claims failed to protect billions of personal records
• 23andMe's disastrous data breach just landed it a regulatory probe
• 23andMe data breach response has been a public relations disaster as it blames customers for data breach
• The 23andMe data breach is getting messier by the day
• World Economic Forum warns of growing ‘cyber insecurity’ amid heightened threat landscape

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• Find out more about Dell Technologies Forum Live and register
• What is hybrid cloud?
• What is multi-cloud?
• Dell doubles down on Nvidia partnership with ‘AI factories’ and models at the edge

• https://cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com/
• https://cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com/podcast/
• How AI is transforming businesses in the tech channel
• Mandiant exec thinks AI could boost diversity in cybersecurity
• Security and marketing are the top software spending priorities for 2023

• How Expedia Group used platform convergence to harness the efficiency of generative AI
• How to prepare and prioritize workloads for cloud migration
• “The tech guys want to move to the cloud, the finance people want the savings”: IT leaders feel ‘rushed’ to the cloud – here’s why slow and steady wins the race
• Consolidate to simplify application security: Why this is a business imperative
• Why 'shadow SaaS' is becoming a major blind spot for enterprise security teams
• Structured vs unstructured data management
• What is machine learning and why is it important?
• What is generative AI?

• Salesforce wants to show what “AI was always meant to be” – Dreamforce 2024 is its chance to do it
• Salesforce CEO wants to “break the hypnosis" coming from major AI vendors in scathing critique of Microsoft Copilot
• “Values drive value” for Salesforce Ventures as AI investment ramps up
• Salesforce may have had its ‘ChatGPT moment’ with AI agents – and it will take a lot to knock the company off its perch
• High wire acts, Microsoft Clippy, and DIY AI at Dreamforce 2024
• Dreamforce 2024: All the news and announcements as they happened

NatWest is a frontrunner in this regard. Its Payit service allows businesses to process customer payments quickly and easily, all alongside the ability to securely share customer data with added data insights

But how does Payit work? And what are its standout benefits?

In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with NatWest, Jane and Rory are joined by Mark Brant, chief payments officer at NatWest Group, to explore the upsides and inner workings of NatWest Payit.

• https://www.payitbynatwest.com/itpro

Payit terms and conditions apply. Visit https://www.payitbynatwest.com/legal-hub. Your business must be based and trading in the UK with a turnover above £2M. You must be 18 years or older. Fees apply.

• Data center water consumption is spiraling out of control
• Google data centre soaks up a third of Oregon city's water supply
• What is a green data center and why are they attracting big investment?
• Data center waste energy to heat homes in 'UK-first' scheme
• OVHcloud just open sourced its data center liquid cooling system — here’s why
• AWS plans to be 'water positive' by 2030
• Microsoft lays out water-positive plans for next decade

• https://bit.ly/proofpoint-cyber-awareness-kit
• 2024 State of the Phish
• 2024 Voice of the CISO
• Why social engineering is such a problem and how your business can protect itself
• Organisations could soon be using generative AI to prevent phishing attacks
• Nearly half of EMEA data breaches were due to internal blunders in 2023

• Why you should always be wary of insider threats
• North Korean insider attacks are skyrocketing – dozens of US firms didn't spot the hacker in their midst
• Cyber firm KnowBe4 unknowingly hired a North Korean hacker – and it went exactly as you might think
• Should your business worry about North Korean cyber attacks?
• State-sponsored cyber attacks: The new frontier
• The Verizon data breach that exposed 63,000 employees is a reminder of how a simple mistake can have costly implications
• Preventing deepfake attacks: How businesses can stay protected
• How Intel's FakeCatcher hopes to eradicate real-time deepfakes
• AI threats: The importance of a concrete strategy in fighting novel attacks
• Why I think the Scarlett Johansson OpenAI scandal shows the danger of AI-generated voice content

• What is quantum computing?
• The quantum computing sector needs to cut the hype and focus on responsible development
• UK government quantum investment welcomed by industry
• Why quantum computing might be much closer to becoming a reality than we think
• What is the ‘steal now, crack later’ quantum computing threat?
• How quantum computing can fight climate change
• UK government ramps up quantum funding in bid to drive commercial viability
• Google's greenhouse gas emissions have skyrocketed in the last five years – and soaring AI energy demand is the main culprit
• Microsoft's AI-fueled data center rush caused carbon emissions to surge by 29% in 2023 — and now the tech giant could miss critical sustainability targets

Eric Schmidt, former CEO at Google, has got into hot water over his claims that companies should ditch remote work schedules if they want to succeed. Schmidt even suggested that his former company was lagging in the generative AI race as a result of its focus on work-life balance.

Also this month, companies competing in that very race have been closely watching the brewing California AI Bill, which seeks to improve the safety of publicly available AI models. How might these companies fare in the wake of the new laws?

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore the past month’s developments.

Thanks for listening!

• What are private 5G networks and can they transform the workplace?
• Why businesses are turning to private 5G
• Ofcom approves 5G mmWave, but what are its benefits?
• What is 6G and how far are we from rollout?
• UK government to run Starlink trials in Snowdonia, Lake District
• SpaceX given FCC nod to provide Starlink Wi-Fi to moving vehicles
• Nokia and Google score breakthrough in Android 13 network slicing

In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Jane is joined by ITPro’s news editor Ross Kelly to discuss what happened on 19 July, as well as news of Google’s attempt to buy cloud security outfit Wiz falling through and Japan finally winning its war against floppy disks.

Footnotes

• Global IT outage caused by faulty CrowdStrike update could take ‘days and weeks’ to resolve, experts warn
• Global IT outage: CrowdStrike CEO confirms update "defect" as the source of mass disruption
• Millions of devices bricked and $5.4 billion in losses: The cost of the CrowdStrike outage continues to mount
• It's been two weeks since CrowdStrike caused a global IT outage – what lessons should we learn?
• Why the Wiz acquisition makes perfect sense for Google
• Google will need to find a new cloud security champion as Wiz backs out of $23 billion acquisition
• How cyber attacks damage mental health
• CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor linked to Linux crashes, too • The Register

In October 2023, the British Library was hit by a major ransomware attack and the founder and CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Ciaran Martin told the BBC that recent attacks on the UK’s National Health Service were not surprising given its outdated systems and cyber policies.

But what might these updates look like? And on a national level, what can be done to protect the public sector from further attacks?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Jonathan Lee, public sector lead at Trend Micro, to discuss the attacks targeting the public sector and what can be done to stop them.

• Why 'psychological safety' is so important for building a robust security culture
• Building an incident response strategy in 2024
• The hidden cost of ransomware is more painful than many realize
• Why ransomware attacks happen to small businesses – and how to stop them
• The end of ransomware payments: How businesses fit into the fight
• UK firms are failing miserably at data breach responses
• Data breach response: How to react when your business gets hit
• Dell hacker claims they had access to systems for nearly three weeks

• What is BYOD?
• Majority of CIOs plan to expand their IT teams despite shrinking budgets
• Why people management skills are key to being a CIO
• How CIOs and CTOs can collaborate more effectively
• IT Pro Podcast: Are chief metaverse officers here to stay?
• Protecting CIOs' IT budgets is "paramount" in maintaining business growth
• Why business leaders – not technologists – make the best CIOs

• Generative AI is the name of the game again at HPE Discover, but don’t mistake it for a repeat of 2023
• Finally, an HPE AI solution that offers something for the channel
• Splunk expands its AI Assistant in observability, security push
• Exclusive: Splunk will play a key role in Cisco's AI plans, claims former CEO
• "Our job is not to screw up”: Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins vows to make Splunk ‘better’ following acquisition
• Dell doubles down on Nvidia partnership with ‘AI factories’ and models at the edge
• Dell Technologies doesn’t know where AI is headed – but it might be the honesty its partners need
• Sustainable AI is key to Pure Storage — and Pure Accelerate 2024 will make that mission clear
• How HPE plans to combat generative AI’s 'dirty secret'
• How Nvidia took the world by storm

• Exclusive: HPE CEO Antonio Neri says "simplicity of experience" key to AI innovation
• Finally, an HPE AI solution that offers something for the channel
• HPE’s drive for enterprise AI dominance continues with new Nvidia partnership
• HPE talks up AI’s role in boosting server business
• HPE Discover 2024 live: All the news and updates from the day-two keynote
• HPE Partner Growth Summit 2024: What can we expect for the channel?
• Everything you need to know about HPE
• What is HPE GreenLake?

• Dell Technologies World 2024 live: All the news and announcements from day-two
• "The big obstacle isn't anything technical": Dell CTO John Roese on why companies are failing on AI adoption
• Dell Technologies expands AI ecosystem with Microsoft, Hugging Face support
• Dell doubles down on Nvidia partnership with ‘AI factories’ and models at the edge
• What is 'multi-cloud by design'?
• Google shows off new smaller generative AI tools and an AI agent on your phone

• LockBit mastermind unmasked by law enforcement
• LockBit could be done and dusted after NCA operation gained access to admin environments, source code, and affiliate info
• February rundown: LockBit takedown and ChatGPT woes
• LockBit rises from the ashes, but will it pack the same punch as before?
• The 'Big Three’ ransomware groups are losing their grip on the industry as gangs begin to fracture, study shows
• ALPHV leak site seized by law enforcement as decryption tool released
• Qakbot forced offline, but history suggests it probably won’t be forever
• This ransomware variant has now been used against 500 targets — here's what you need to know
• What are the different types of ransomware?
• What you need to know about the new NCSC ransomware guidance
• “Security has to work together”: Cyber collaboration as a mission at CPX 2024
• The end of ransomware payments: How businesses fit into the fight

The month has also seen a high-profile cyber incident – a ransomware attack against Change Healthcare in which personal information was stolen.

All of this has unfolded against the backdrop of more innovation in the AI space, with the launch of Llama 3 and news from Google Cloud Next having buoyed market interest.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak once again to Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of the month’s most notable news items.

Read more:

• AWS fined $525 million after US court rules Amazon S3 storage, DynamoDB services infringed patents
• Change Healthcare hit with second ransomware attack of 2024
• UnitedHealth Group admits to paying ransom after Change Healthcare cyber attack
• Citrix vulnerability behind Change Healthcare cyber attack, CEO claims
• Meta's Llama 3 will force OpenAI and other AI giants to up their game
• Just how open are the leading open source AI models?

• UK competition watchdog says it has “very real concerns” over big tech AI dominance
• UK AI regulation: Lawmakers reportedly eye a tighter approach
• Microsoft believes the UK can become a "global leader in AI", but regulation needs fixing
• Investment in UK AI firms plummeted last year despite the hype surrounding generative AI
• The UK government’s AI goals are being stifled by ‘apocalyptic concerns’ over safety

But what are the precise measures it brings in, how can businesses prepare for the new rules, and what are the penalties for non-compliance?

In this episode, Rory speaks to Nader Henein, VP Analyst at Garner, to explore the implications of the EU AI Act, how companies can prepare for the measures it brings in, and what it means for AI use worldwide.

Read more:

• How the EU AI Act compares to other international regulatory approaches
• How will the EU AI Act affect businesses?
• EU hammers out deal on AI Act, but it may have missed the mark
• France, Germany, and Italy align themselves on AI regulation, but the EU may not like it
• European AI startups risk being “regulated out of existence” under EU AI act
• What is GDPR? Everything you need to know, from requirements to fines
• GDPR costs are forcing firms to rethink data strategies

• Google Cloud Next 2024: All the news and announcements live
• Gemini Code Assist could be Google's secret weapon to challenge GitHub Copilot
• Google Cloud doubles down on AI Hypercomputer amid sweeping compute upgrades
• Google Cloud targets ‘AI anywhere’ with Vertex AI Agents
• Anthropic could be the champion AWS and Google need
• Google’s Hugging Face partnership shows the future of generative AI rests on open source collaboration
• Microsoft Copilot review: AI baked into your apps
• You’re going to have an AI copilot for everything you do – and you’ll probably hate it

In the latter part of the month, it was reported that APT 31, a Chinese state-backed threat group, had accessed information on tens of millions of UK voters in a breach of the Electoral Commission. Threat actors had also targeted US politicians and businesses. 

What can we learn from the breach and how can organizations protect themselves against future state-backed threats?

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore the month’s cyber security developments.

• The future of generative AI lies in open source
• Three open source large language models you can use today
• Big Tech AI alliance has ‘almost zero’ chance of achieving goals, expert says
• Why not to invest in generative AI – for now
• OpenAI's Sam Altman: Hallucinations are part of the “magic” of generative AI
• Will Nvidia's AI dominance shake up the public cloud ‘big three’?
  
  

But this is easier said than done. Each byte of data has to be stored somewhere, on a rack, disk, tape, or flash device. As the world embraces hardware and software that creates data at an even faster rate, businesses will be forced to push the frontiers of data storage and evaluate their data management strategies.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Tom Coughlin, president and CEO of the IEEE, to learn more about how data storage will continue to evolve and what organizations can do to keep up with innovation in the space.

Read more:

• ​​​​Best SSDs 2023: The top NVMe and SATA drives around
• 10 things to consider when buying an external hard disk-based storage device
• What is machine learning and why is it important?
• What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?
• Who owns the data used to train AI?
• How to choose the right storage medium for your organization’s backup strategy
• Three keys to successful data management
• Structured vs unstructured data management
• 5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage provider
• How close is glass data storage to scaled enterprise use?

Female founders come up against these same challenges time and time again, which robs the industry of innovative firms and stems the flow of progress. For a more diverse sector, more work needs to be done on initiatives to support the next generation of women in tech.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Laura Hutton, co-founder and chief customer officer at Quantexa, to discuss women in tech and the role leaders can play in improving equality throughout the sector.

Read more:

• From this week women across the UK will effectively work for free - and in tech it’s even worse
• Five common barriers holding back women in tech
• UK deep tech companies have a serious diversity problem
• Surge in female computing degree applications shows the tide is slowly turning on tech sector gender diversity
• UK’s female AI founders receive six times less funding than male counterparts
• “Shoehorning” female tech workers into management roles could harm inclusivity
• Sexism in the UK tech sector is rife and shows no sign of abating
• Tech workers fear generative AI could "drive women out the workforce"
• Women in tech are being forced out of work by the ‘motherhood penalty’
• Tech sector gender gap could take “nearly 300 years” to close without intervention
• Male workers say sexism in the tech industry is “rare” - women would disagree
• Fixing STEM's gender bias with more classroom intervention

Elsewhere, ChatGPT suffered a major setback as users noticed the industry-leading chatbot had taken to answering prompts with complete gibberish. Though the issue was fixed within a day of being reported, it has raised important questions about the reliability of the service and the technology that underlies it.

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore February’s big cyber security story and discuss what ChatGPT’s moment of madness means for generative AI.

Read more:

• LockBit could be done and dusted after NCA operation gained access to admin environments, source code, and affiliate info
• LockBit rises from the ashes, but will it pack the same punch as before?
• Life after LockBit: A fragmented landscape and wayward affiliates will still cause chaos for enterprises
• Europol takes down 'dangerous' Emotet botnet
• Qakbot forced offline, but history suggests it probably won’t be forever
• Everything we know so far about the rumored ALPHV 'takedown'
• History tells us ALPHV will likely recover from recent takedown
• LockBit remains most dangerous ransomware despite fall in attacks
• The 'Big Three’ ransomware groups are losing their grip on the industry as gangs begin to fracture, study shows

• How to combat high staff turnover in tech
• Agile development is fading in popularity at large enterprises - and developer burnout is a key factor
• Surging cyber threats exacerbating security staff burnout
• Hybrid work means we’re burning out harder and faster than ever
• A third of cyber security pros report crumbling work-life balance
• Cyber security professionals are exhausted, and it's putting firms at greater risk of attack
• Fighting the ‘always on’ culture that’s savaging mental health in cyber security
• Boosting mental health support in the workplace
• UK's four-day week trial ends, leads to reduced burnout and sick days
• The company-wide benefits of mentorship in tech
• Gartner: Nearly half of cyber leaders to leave roles over mounting stress
• IT staff frustrated at rate of change in the workplace
• Five ways to prevent digital transformation burnout
• Can businesses use AI to beat burnout?
• AI employee monitoring will only burn bridges in the workplace

• Jane speaks to Pauline Yau, UKI verticals sales director at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, to unpack the current trends around AI and what the future holds for AI in business.
• Rory and Jane discuss the significance of these trends and how this may pan out in 2024.

• Why cutting-edge innovation is killing the planet
• How HPE plans to combat generative AI’s 'dirty secret'
• The AI skills gap is prompting a widespread rethink on workforce upskilling
• How the metaverse is powering next-gen digital twins
• Does your business need a digital twin?
• ChatGPT vs chatbots: What’s the difference?
• Global power shortages mean data centers could struggle to shoulder the burden of energy-intensive generative AI demands in 2024
• Tech industry takes vast lead in green energy spending, biggest companies vie for top spot
• Scotland could be the next big data center powerhouse, offering greener options, significant savings, and direct access to renewable energy
• “We’ve made savings of around 85%”: Embracing green energy for data centers by migrating to Iceland

As technologies such as AI take root, the nature and pace of layoffs is likely to change in the near future. Competing pressures of economic downturns and productivity shortfalls could change the tech workforce dramatically.

In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to discuss the latest wave of tech sector layoffs, how they compare to previous years, and what this means for the future.

Read more:

• Tech layoffs in 2024 show the ‘year of efficiency’ is here to stay, it just won't be quite as ruthless
• Cloudflare employee’s viral dismissal video offers a stark glimpse into the human cost of layoffs
• Sundar Pichai’s “ambitious goals” for Google in 2024 rest on yet more layoffs as firm cuts hundreds of jobs
• The reality of mass AI-linked job cuts is here
• IBM’s CEO just said the quiet part out loud on AI-related job losses
• IBM CEO in damage control mode after AI job loss comments
• Once again, PayPal starts the year with another round of job cuts
• What’s behind the wave of big tech layoffs in 2023?
• Microsoft seeks to ward off potential union action over AI job risks
• With AI on the rise, is it time to join a union?
• First Microsoft union formed by ZeniMax workers
• The tech industry needs to unionise now more than ever

• How cloud-native agility helped DNEG level up its award-winning VFX
• Cloud-native tools are becoming more popular in Europe than the US
• Red Hat launches OpenShift Platform Plus alongside new managed cloud services
• Red Hat unveils new application services toolbox for developers

• Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
• OpenAI aims to reduce generative AI 'hallucinations' with new training method
• OpenAI's Sam Altman: Hallucinations are part of the “magic” of generative AI
• Labour must approach AI carefully to avoid repeating a Dutch disaster
• Government urged to save '555' Post Office workers from "financial ruin"
• Use of generative AI in the legal profession accelerating despite accuracy concerns
• What is ethical AI?

• What is Business Intelligence (BI)?
• What is a business intelligence analyst?
• Four business benefits of AI-powered analytics
• What is data analytics?
• A lack of data maturity could hamper enterprise AI ambitions in 2024
• Is AI the future of everything?
• Three keys to successful data management
• Why not to invest in generative AI – for now

• Revealed: The top 200 most common passwords of 2022
• If not passwords then what?
• What are biometrics?
• What is two-factor authentication?
• What is multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue and how do you defend against attacks?
• How to implement passwordless authentication
• Best password managers
• Best free password managers
• The sooner the FIDO Alliance can shut down passwords, the better
• Will FIDO passwordless authentication save cyber security?
• The top 12 password-cracking techniques used by hackers

• What is exascale computing?
• UK supercomputer boom as HPE and Dell receive funding for new AI cluster
• Ofcom approves 5G mmWave, but what are its benefits?
• What are private 5G networks and can they transform the workplace?
• IBM CEO in damage control mode after AI job loss comments
• The reality of mass AI-linked job cuts is here
• AI job risks: Skilled workers are most likely to lose out to artificial intelligence in UK
• Why AI could be a legal nightmare for years to come
• Who owns the data used to train AI?
• Real-time deepfakes are becoming a serious threat
• How Intel's FaceCatcher hopes to eradicate real-time deepfakes
• C-suites consider quantum a serious threat and "amazing" deepfake attacks are just 'months away'
• Microsoft's VALL-E will usher in a new era of cyber crime

• EU hammers out deal on AI Act, but it may have missed the mark
• France, Germany, and Italy align themselves on AI regulation, but the EU may not like it
• Why AI could be a legal nightmare for years to come
• The UK's hollow AI Safety Summit has only emphasized global divides
• The time has come to say arrivederci to the all-in-one PC
• The AI-powered PC: From personal computer to personal companion
• Why 2024 won’t be the year of AR, VR or any kind of immersive tech
• What are the most-targeted industries for cyber attacks?
• Twitter's employee 'revolt' sparks survival concerns for a platform crumbling from within

• What is machine learning and why is it important?
• Machine learning vs data science: What’s the difference?
• Machine learning vs deep learning vs neural networks: What’s the difference?
• Machine learning vs AI vs NLP: What are the differences?
• Seven reasons why machine learning is a good career
• Machine learning vs statistics: What’s the difference?

• What is an algorithm?
  
• How ableist algorithms dominate digital spaces
  
• Hired by machines: Exploring recruitment's machine-driven future
  
• What is ethical AI?
  
• Workday hit with claims its AI hiring systems are discriminatory
  
• What are the pros and cons of AI?
  
• How biased is your app?
  

As the month progressed, it turned out that November had even more planned, in the form of a huge upheaval at OpenAI.

In this episode, Jane and Rory look at some of the standout moments of November 2023 and draw a line between them all to pick out a trend for the month.

Read more:

• UK aims to be an AI leader with November safety summit
• Can the UK's AI Safety Summit succeed?
• Bletchley Declaration draws cautious approval
• The UK's hollow AI Safety Summit has only emphasized global divides
• Rishi Sunak’s stance on AI goes against the demands of businesses
• Sam Altman joins Microsoft to lead new “advanced AI research team”
• OpenAI chaos: What next for Sam Altman and the beleaguered tech darling?
• Sam Altman makes triumphant return to OpenAI after days of chaos
• Salesforce looks to poach outbound OpenAI staff with "full cash" compensation offer

• CEOs are living in dreamland if they think staff will return to the office five days a week
• “Zoom bombing” sends Zoom stock plummeting
• Generative AI could be the key to delivering a four-day working week
• UK's four-day week trial ends, leads to reduced burnout and sick days
• Why Zoom’s backtrack on remote work confirms that the ‘new normal’ is no more
• Are we in the middle of a generative AI bubble?
• What ChatGPT’s latest updates mean for business users
• OpenAI tool previously thought 'too dangerous' for the public goes generally available
• Why AI could be a legal nightmare for years to come
• Is the UK falling behind the EU on AI regulation?
• ​​Meta Quest Pro preview: Meet Meta's 'laptop killer'
• Metaverse-obsessed tech giants are losing the plot
• Why 2024 won’t be the year of AR, VR or any kind of immersive tech

• What is cloud repatriation?
• What is multi-cloud?
• Why cloud repatriation is a ‘fallacy’
• How to embark on your cloud repatriation journey
• 37 Signals says it saved $1 million by abandoning cloud infrastructure
• VMware unveils slew of new cloud data management and recovery tools

• Record computing degree applications driven by AI interest, says BCS
• A-level results 2023: What’s driving the uptake in computing degrees?
• What is ChatGPT and what does it mean for businesses?
• Over-reliance on ChatGPT could harm worker performance
• Developers more likely to introduce security vulnerabilities in code when using AI assistants
• ChatGPT gives wrong answers to programming questions more than 50% of the time
• Stack Overflow temporarily bans ChatGPT from platform

• What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?
• NetApp CEO: Hybrid cloud will be the only way to capitalize on generative AI
• NetApp aims to become ‘true data pipeline’ for enterprises with latest AI updates
• NetApp Insight 2023: All the news and announcements
• In the age of AI, leaders need to scrap “monolithic” data transformations
• Storage, sustainability, and AI in the spotlight at Pure Storage Accelerate 2023
• Pure Storage: Generative AI has a friend in flash

• NetSuite aims to be a ‘global local solution’, set to double down on automation
• NetSuite aims to bolster finance teams with new AI planning tools
• Oracle unveils ‘sovereign cloud’ region for EU customers amid lingering sovereignty worries
• Slack says automation can save every employee a month of work per year

• What is generative artificial intelligence (AI)?
• Examples of generative AI in action today
• More than half of firms now using generative AI
• Are we in the middle of a generative AI bubble?
• SuiteWorld 2023 proves customers still don't know what they're supposed to do with generative AI
• Dell CTO: AI is nothing compared to the oncoming quantum storm

• Work-related stress “keeps cyber security professionals awake at night”
  
• CISO job description: What does a CISO do?
  
• Gartner: Nearly half of cyber leaders to leave roles over mounting stress
  
• Fighting the ‘always on’ culture that’s savaging mental health in cyber security
  
• Gartner urges CISOs to adopt new forms of trust and risk management for AI
  
• What is ransomware?
  
• What is business email compromise (BEC)?
  
• 96% of CISOs without necessary support to maintain cyber security
  
• Six generative AI cyber security threats and how to mitigate them
  

The Office for National Statistics found that in 2021, the UK generated £46.92 per hour worked, versus £58.88 per hour worked in the United States. Across 2022, output across the UK remained flat.

Brain drain is also a serious issue, as workers who feel their skills are underused leave their firms for greener pastures.

According to DocuSign’s 2023 Digital Maturity report, the average worker spends 11 hours per week on manual and repetitive tasks, and 26% of those planning to quit cited frustration with legacy work processes they are still made to follow.

In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Ronan Copeland, group VP and general manager EMEA at DocuSign, to explore productivity problems in more depth and offer some solutions.

For more information, read the show notes here.